Notes on Gender and Racial Discrimination:

An urgent need to integrate an intersectional perspective to the examination and

development of policies, strategies and remedies for gender and racial equality

Pragna Patel

Introduction

This presentation will focus on the phenomenon of multiple or intersectional forms

of discrimination/subordination faced by many women worldwide based on their
gender and race or ethnicity. The combined effects of racism and gender
discrimination, in particular on migrant, immigrant, indigenous, minority and
marginalised women around the world, has had devastating consequences for their
full enjoyment of equality and fundamental human rights in both the public and
private spheres.

Intersectional discrimination has only recently been recognised, at least in

international forums as a serious obstacle to the achievement of equality for many
marginalised women. Historically, at the international and national levels, racism or
racial discrimination on the one hand and gender discrimination on the other, have
always proceeded in official thinking and policy along mutually exclusive lines.
However, the notion of intersectional discrimination has now been acknowledged in
a series of UN conferences on women. See for example the Beijing Platform for
Action document and the subsequent 'Outcome Document' - the report of the
twenty third special session of the general assembly - Beijing+5 in 2000. Both
documents draw attention to the need to understand the co-existence of multiple
forms of discrimination and their impact on women. But neither document has given
deeper attention to the complexities and the ways in which such forms of
discrimination structure the disadvantaged position that many marginalised women
occupy in relation to other groups of men and women in their societies.

In a separate but parallel development at the fifty-fifth session in March 2000, the
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination adopted a general
recommendation on gender-related dimensions of racial discrimination
(CERD/C/56/Misc.21/Rev.3)

Such recognition however, is severely lacking at national levels. In the UK, for
instance, there is no official policy statement or document which gives any serious
attention to the ways in which black or minority women face gender and racial
discrimination simultaneously. An in-depth analysis of the combined effects of racial
and gender discrimination and the implications for all legislation, policies and
strategies on the elimination of racial and gender inequality has yet to take place.
The result is that black and minority women are rendered invisible in official
strategies to combat gender inequality and racial discrimination, and they are
rendered vulnerable to further discrimination.

But there is a more serious consequence of the failure to recognise the existence of
intersectional discrimination. Many so called progressive initiatives, policies and
strategies aimed at eliminating racial or gender discrimination actually serve only to
reinforce the multiple levels of discrimination experienced by minority women,
based on the flawed view that discrimination is one-dimensional and affects all
women or all minority communities in the same way.

Although a number of NGOs and researchers have devoted considerable time and
resources in understanding and addressing the effect of multiple forms of
discrimination, much work remains to be done, especially at the national and local
government level. There is an urgent need to ensure full recognition and integration
of the intersectional perspective in all national programmes, policies, legislation and
initiatives on all forms of discrimination. A more holistic approach to discrimination
that recognises the simultaneous nature of women's experiences of various forms of
discrimination is necessary, if we are to ensure that human rights are a reality for all
women.

This presentation will focus particularly on the ways in which the combined effects
of racial and gender discrimination place obstacles to black and minority women's
struggle for equality and social justice. More specifically, I will focus on women's
experiences of domestic violence, immigration laws, the criminal justice system and
the multicultural approach, to show how these sites of intersectional discrimination

create and perpetuate the multiple disadvantages that these women face. More
importantly I wish to highlight the fact that gender and racial discrimination
intersect simultaneously to the detriment of such women.

Whilst this presentation is concerned with the combined effects of racial and gender
discrimination on women, it is acknowledged that other factors relating to women's
social identities such as ethnicity, class, religion, caste national origin, disability and
sexuality can also intersect with and therefore compound gender discrimination.

The presentation also draws on the discussions and findings of the Expert Group
Meeting on gender and racial discrimination, organised by the UN Division for the
Advancement of Women in collaboration with the Office of the High Commissioner
for Human Rights and UN Development Fund for Women in November 2000 in
Zagreb, Croatia. The paper will therefore end with some broad based suggestions
and recommendations made by the Expert Group Meeting in which I was also a
participant.

Background and Conceptual Aspects of Intersectional Discrimination

Globalisation has brought with it an unprecedented flow of unfettered capital and

mass migration of labour, especially from the developing countries and the
transitional economies of Eastern Europe to Western Europe, North America and
Australia. Such large-scale movement of labour has increased the scope for
worldwide racist activity and discrimination based on race, religion and ethnicity.
The operation of restrictive immigration and asylum policies is one manifestation of
such racial and related forms of discrimination in the more industrialised nations. At
the same time we are witness to the unprecedented movement of women from the
South to the North, constituting cheap and unorganised labour force, particularly as
domestics and in the sex and entertainment industries of the industrialised
countries. But the migration of such women means that they are also vulnerable to
multiple forms of discrimination. It is therefore against the backdrop of the global
economy that the intersection of racial and gender discrimination must be
understood.

Conceptualising intersectional discrimination: 'The idea of intersectionality seeks to

capture both the structural and dynamic consequences of the interaction between
two or more forms of discrimination or systems of subordination. It specifically

addresses the manner in which racism, patriarchy, economic disadvantages and

other discriminatory systems contribute to create layers of inequality that structures
the relative positions of women and men, races and other groups. Moreover, it
addresses the way that specific acts and policies create burdens that flow along
these intersecting axes contributing actively to create a dynamic of
disempowerment.'(Page 9, Expert Group Report)

The Traffic Intersection Metaphor: The notion of intersectional discrimination is best

understood by way of a metaphor relating to a traffic intersection. The metaphor
was developed by Professor Kimberle Crenshaw and gives what is considered to be
an effective model for the understanding of intersectional or multiple discrimination.

'In this metaphor, race, gender, class and other forms of discrimination or
subordination are the roads that structure the social, economic or political terrain. It
is through these thoroughfares that dynamics of disempowerment travel. These
thoroughfares are sometimes framed as distinctive and mutually exclusive avenues
of power.' But these thoroughfares often overlap and cross each other, creating
complex intersections at which two, three or four of these avenues meet.
Marginalised groups of women are located at these intersections by virtue of their
specific identities and must negotiate the 'traffic' that flows through these
intersections to avoid injury and to obtain resources for the normal activities of life.
This can be dangerous when the traffic flows simultaneously from many directions.
Injuries are sometimes created when the impact from one direction throws victims
into the path of oncoming traffic, while on other occasions, injuries occur from
simultaneous collisions. These are the contexts in which intersectional injuries occur
- when multiple disadvantages or collisions interact to create a distinct and
compound dimension of disempowerment.' (Page 9, Expert Group Report)

There are different types of intersectional discrimination or subordination. But the

failure of national governments and the international community to adequately
analyse all experiences of intersectional discrimination lies in the fact that in
traditional conceptions of race and gender discrimination, certain specific problems
or forms of discrimination faced by marginalised women are rendered invisible.
Crenshaw describes this as the twin problems of 'over-inclusion' and 'underinclusion'.

For example, the notion of over-inclusion refers to situations where the racial
dimension of an experience is subsumed within a gender perspective. The

consequence is that only the gender aspect of the discrimination is addressed and
the subsumed or racialised aspect of discrimination is ignored. The trafficking of
women and young girls is perceived to be an example par excellence of gender
subordination. It is commonly held to be only a woman's problem. So in the debates
or strategies on the trafficking of women and young girls, little if any attention is
paid to the fact that some groups of women and children may actually be selected
and targeted for trafficking. In the UK for example, current news refers to a number
of missing young West African girls aged 14 plus years, who have gone missing from
care homes following their arrival in this country as asylum seekers. These girls
were brought to the UK en route to Italy where they are coerced by human
traffickers to work in the sex industries. It is however notable that the news reports
refer to their experiences of forced sexual slavery and prostitution, but little or no
attention is paid to the reasons why these women from Africa are particularly
selected for trafficking. The combination of their gender, socio-economic position
and their race that renders them vulnerable to economic and sexual exploitation is
obvious but it is not addressed. Also, little or no attention is paid to the unique
forms of gendered racial discrimination they experience in the UK as asylum
seekers or in Italy as prostitutes and asylum seekers.

The notion of under-inclusion refers to situations where a gender analysis is

underplayed or ignored altogether in what is perceived to be a problem of racial
discrimination. So, for example, the forced non-consensual sterilisation of black and
other marginalized women has been perceived to be a problem of racial
discrimination rather than one of sexual abuse. In the UK, in the 1970s and early
80s, the operation of immigration laws and practice sanctioned the practice of
virginity testing of South Asian women. The aim of the practice was to ascertain
whether Asian women who came to join their husbands were bona fide fiances.
Underpinning this test was the assumption that Asian women do not have premarital sex before marriage: if a woman was not virgin then she could not be a
genuine bride and therefore ineligible to enter the country. A public outcry and
campaign led to the practice being stopped. Those who were appalled by the
practice decried it as racist, but few articulated the way in which it also amounted
to a violation of Asian women's bodies.

Apart from the trafficking of women, another well known example of targeted
intersectional discrimination is the experiences of rape and sexual abuse of minority
women in the context of war and armed conflict in Rwanda and Bosnia. In these
cases abuses were specifically targeted at racialised women. Here conflicts which
are essentially motivated by ethnic and racial hatred also target women in the
selected communities for particular types of rape, sexual violence and aggression
as a way of humiliating and dehumanising the entire ethnic group in question.

Another variation is in the form of structural discrimination. This occurs where

policies intersect with underlying structures of inequality to create a compounded
burden for particularly vulnerable women. So, women may experience specific
forms of gender discrimination where they are vulnerable because of their
race/class or ethnicity. On the other hand, marginalised women may be subject to
specific forms of racial discrimination simply because of their gendered location
within their communities. Thus the racism they experience may affect them in ways
which are different from that experienced by men in their communities. One
example of this is the ways in which vulnerable women within racialised groups may
be coerced into non-violent crime in support of the criminal activity by their
partners. But their subordinate gender positions within their community which
brings about their ready acceptance of the coercion into crime is ignored by the
state who may single out the women for harsher sentences. Such women may also
be vulnerable to specific forms of gender discrimination in prisons ranging from
'overpolicing' to sexual abuse.

Yet another manifestation of structural discrimination is where the policy in question

interacts with background structures thus creating burdens that disproportionately
affect margnialised women. Structural adjustment programmes within developing
and transitional economies although not specifically targeted at women can lead to
increased poverty for marginalised women.

Whatever the type of intersectional discrimination, the consequence is that different

forms of discrimination are more often than not experienced simultaneously by
marginalised women. But the reality of their lives shaped as it is by disadvantage
and social injustice is ignored and lies unaddressed within the traditional framework
of understanding gender and racial discrimination because of a lack of a holistic
approach to gender and racial discrimination.

The UK Experience

The rest of this presentation will focus on some of the experiences of minority,
largely South Asian women, with whom I work with at the London based NGO-

Southall Black Sisters. In particular, I will focus on aspects of violence against

women - one of the critical areas of concern raised in the Beijing Platform for Action
document. My aim is to show how, despite official rhetoric, debates and strategies
to combat domestic violence the government has paid little attention to black and
minority women's experience of domestic violence, which is essentially a story of
multiple discrimination.

Despite decades of struggles by black and minority women for recognition of their
daily experiences of racial and gender discrimination, the sad reality is that at best
their experiences are seen through the lens of a mutually exclusive checklist of
discrimination. One danger of this approach lies in the strategies that are adopted
to address discrimination, which can and do have the paradoxical effect of
reinforcing certain forms of discrimination that remain hidden. Thus many Asian
women are denied the right to protection and redress from abuse experienced at
the hands of the state or private actors. Aside from language barriers and cultural
constraints that demand their obedience and silence for the sake of upholding
family honour, many state policies have the effect of compounding the
discrimination they face in their homes and their communities.

Domestic Violence and Immigration Policy Many Asian and other minority women
who arrive in the country as new brides and who find themselves subject to
domestic violence are then denied effective protection by the operation of the so
called 'one year rule' and other welfare rights legislation. The combined legislative
framework requires that spouses from abroad remain in a marriage for a
probationary period of at least a year without recourse to public funds. Following the
completion of the probationary period, if they are still married, they are entitled to
seek indefinite leave to remain in the country. If the marriage has ended for
whatever reason, then the spouse from abroad is subject to deportation. Many
women are thus faced with a stark choice: domestic violence or deportation.
Women who are frightened of returning to their countries of origin for fear of
destitution, further violence and social persecution as a result of their changed
marital status, choose instead to remain within violent relationships.

In recognition of the impact of the immigration rule on domestic violence

experienced by minority women, the rule was modified by the introduction of a
concession to the latest immigration and asylum legislation. But the modification
still does not give effective protection to those minority women who experience
domestic violence. The rule states that women who can demonstrate that they were
the victims of domestic violence within the probationary period will be entitled to
remain in the country on an indefinite basis. The problem, however, lies with the

much higher standard of proof that is required of minority women in demonstrating

domestic violence. The test which women have to overcome borders on requiring
proof beyond all reasonable doubt. Few women are able to meet the level of proof
required. The result is that many women are still entrapped within violent
relationships.

The operation of such immigration rules means that the autonomy and right of
black and minority women to live free from violence is restricted. Moreover, it has
the effect of exacerbating the abuse that occurs in the family since the existence of
the immigration rules gives the settled spouse added power to perpetrate the
violence with impunity knowing that there will be no social censure. Paradoxically
the immigration restriction reinforces patriarchal relations and gender
discrimination. Yet this aspect of immigration law and policy is not addressed in
official rhetoric and national policy and initiatives on domestic violence aimed at
increasing social awareness and decreasing social tolerance of domestic violence.
Thus major initiatives on domestic violence do not acknowledge the fact that not all
women experience violence or protection from such violence in the same way.

The operation of the rule therefore compounds the violence that black and minority
women experience and has a racially discriminatory effect in that minority women
with no settled immigration status are denied access to protection and other welfare
services that are available to battered women in the majority community.

Domestic Violence and the Criminal Justice System Many black and minority women
are unable to access the criminal justice systems for a number of valid reasons.
Black and minority women's experiences of the criminal justice system have
received little official attention since they have largely fallen between two stools. On
the one hand, where relations between black and minority communities and the
police and other criminal justice agencies have been addressed, including most
recently in the wake of the Stephen Lawrence case (The McPherson Report 1999),
the concept of these black communities has never included a gender analysis. Thus
black women's specific experiences of racism have not received appropriate
attention. In parallel official studies on women and the criminal justice system over
the years, black women's unique experiences of racial discrimination intersecting
with gender discrimination have only been given a cursory glance.

Black women may be subject to oppressive policing practices and so share similar
experiences of racism to that of men within their communities. For example when

reporting domestic or racial violence, black women may instead be criminalised

instead. My experience shows how women who report incidents of domestic
violence are themselves subject to incarceration or questioning and investigation as
to their immigration status. In other situations, black women are deterred from
reporting instances of violence and abuse in their communities because they carry
the burden of not exposing the community to 'overpolicing' or extreme state
measures'. We have known cases where black men arrested for domestic violence
and subsequently deported where they do not have a settled immigration status or
dying in police custody. The burden that black women bear is therefore multiple.
They are under immense pressures not to expose the wider community to
institutional racism, but also, they are unable to seek redress for abuses that take
place against them as women within their communities.

At the same time as black and minority women are 'overpoliced,' their experiences
of domestic violence are often 'underpoliced'. Historically domestic violence has
always been 'underpoliced'. But in much of the official literature on domestic
violence, black women's experiences of domestic violence is seen to be one of
gender discrimination and sexist attitudes prevalent throughout the police and
prosecutorial system. However, the experience of South Asian women in particular
show that police failure to criminalise domestic violence is more marked. This is
largely due to multicultural assumptions about their different cultural backgrounds.
(See below) Differences of culture and religion are often cited as excuses by the
police for their non-interference. The result is that patriarchal power within minority
communities, manifest for example in abuses such as domestic violence or forced
marriages, is reinforced and goes unchecked. The message is that Asian women
have no right to rely on the state for protection or to uphold their human rights. On
the other hand, the notion of 'difference' is ignored in official strategies on violence
to the extent that language difficulties, racism and other obstacles which prevent
Asian women from reporting instances of violence, are not addressed. On the other
hand, differences in culture and religion are invoked in exaggerated and
stereotypical forms to justify non-interference in minority families for fear of being
perceived to be 'culturally insensitive'. This latter approach amounts to an inverse
form of racism since it denies the right to protection available to other women in
society and in fact perpetuates patriarchal abuse of power within minority
communities.

Domestic Violence and Multiculturalism. In the UK as in other western democracies,

the multicultural approach has come to be the dominant approach to relations
between the state and minority communities. With its emphasis on the need to
respect and tolerate diversity and difference, it is widely accepted as a more
enlightened or progressive approach to the integration of minorities. The

multicultural model is all pervasive in social welfare policy and practice. Whilst the
underlying notions of respect and tolerance for minorities are important, the
tendency within multicultural discourses is to construct minority communities as
homogeneous, with static or fixed cultures and without internal divisions along
gender, caste or class lines. The consequent power relations and internal
contestations of power that flow from such division are not recognised. Also, the
model is undemocratic since relations between the state and minority communities
are mediated through unelected self appointed community leaders, who are men,
usually from socially conservative backgrounds with little or no interest in women's
rights or social justice. Most are from religious backgrounds and their interests lie in
preserving the family and religious and cultural values. The expectation that women
will conform to religious and cultural dictates in order to transmit cultural values
from one generation to the next is therefore considered crucial by such leaders.

In reality in Britain community leaders are given control over the family -women and
children in return for maintenance of the political status quo. At a formal and
informal level, state and community leaders enter in a contract where individual
autonomy is traded for some degree of communal autonomy. The state and
community leaders thus determine between themselves the level of interference
within the community. For example in respect of policing issues, the police regularly
consult with community leaders on how and on what issues the community is to be
policed.

Multiculturalism is a site where the intersectionality of race and gender

discrimination is perhaps at its most complex but also most insidious. This is partly
due to the fact that gender discrimination within minority communities is obscured
by the model's liberal underpinnings of tolerance and respect for diversity.

The multicultural model in our view, poses one of the main obstacles to the
enjoyment of equality and human rights by South Asian and other minority women
in the UK and elsewhere. The consequences of the application of multi-cultural
policies is that a relativist approach to human rights is adopted and legitimised by
the state in respect of minority women. One example of this is the way in which the
the Government has recently, in its first ever report on forced marriages, conceded
that the process of mediation (which in practice involves reconciling victims with
their oppressors without further state scrutiny) is, in the name of recognising
cultural difference, a legitimate option to pursue. Yet at the same time, it is
acknowledged in state policies on domestic violence and abuse of women in the
majority community, that mediation should not be pursued, since it does not
guarantee protection from such violence and abuse. The multi-cultural approach

therefore not only accommodates but also reinforces certain abuses against women
and girl children within minority communities, denying them the protection that
they need in view of their enhanced vulnerability as women and members of a
minority community.

Recommendations for Action

Urgent action needs to take place at both the national (governmental) and
international (United Nations) levels, to raise awareness of the multiple nature of
discrimination experienced by marginalised women, and to mainstream an
intersectional or more holistic approach to the question of racial and gender
discrimination. It is both the intersectional and the simultaneous nature of multiple
discrimination that needs to be understood at a theoretical level and addressed at a
practical level.

Many of the recommendations for addressing intersectional discrimination are

outlined in the Expert Group Report. Since much of my presentation is particularly
concerned with failure at the national level to acknowledge intersectional
discrimination, the recommendations highlighted below are aimed at forcing
governments to take positive action to identify and address how multiple
discrimination affects marginalised women who experience violence in the family.

To the UN system and governments

Develop methodologies to identify intersectional discrimination and its effects on

women and girls who experience domestic violence and other forms of familial
abuse including forced marriages, honour crimes, crimes related to the giving and
taking of dowries and sexual abuse in the private and public life. Investigations into
intersectional discrimination should begin with analysing the lived experiences of
marginalised women in all their complexities. A series of questions need to be asked
as to what dimensions of discrimination converge to affect and shape their lives.

To Governments

Carry out an urgent review of all governmental policies and laws, including those on
violence against women, citizenship, nationality, immigration and asylum, for the
discriminatory impact on marginalised women affecting their enjoyment of gender
and racial equality.
A careful audit of governmental policies on the elimination of racial discrimination,
including multicultural and other so called progressive 'anti racist' policies, for their
impact on gender equality with reference to minority women
Establish and/or strengthen legislation and regulations against all forms of racism,
including its gender-specific manifestations.
Noting the difficulties women face in challenging multiple or compound
discrimination, review national mechanisms to ensure that women can seek
protection and remedies against intersectional discrimination based on race and
gender.
Review and repeal all legislation and policies on immigration and asylum that result
in any form of discrimination against marginalised women
Provide immigrant women and women who have no legal immigration status with
full and equal access to all the resources and preventative measures against
violence available to other women in the community, as well as access to
appropriate interpretation and support facilities.
Provide full access for women within minority communities to transparent and
effective ad prosecutorial machinery to seek redress for violations of international
human rights.
Develop policies and programmes, including quotas, to increase participation of
immigrant women in decision-making, in particular at the local level.
Ensure priority and adequate funding for NGOs that work specifically with
marginalised women.
Make funding and the provision of resources to groups addressing any form of
discrimination experienced by marginalised groups conditional on the need to
integrate an intersectional approach to their work.
Provide financial and other resources for anti-racist training to agencies across the
civil and criminal justice systems and statutory welfare services which integrates an
awareness of the gender related dimensions to racial discrimination in such training.
And vice versa: To provide resources for gender sensitive training which
incorporates race discrimination where it intersects with gender discrimination.
Develop training and awareness programmes for the legal, welfare, health,
education and other statutory bodies designed to address the specific problems

created by the multicultural approach to domestic violence and other forms of

gender related abuse experienced by minority or marginalised women.
To the UN system

With respect to recommendations for action to the UN system, intergovernmental

bodies, and UN human rights treaties and bodies and special mechanisms, please
refer to the comprehensive list of recommendations made in the Expert Group
Report. There is an urgent need is to mainstream an intersectional analysis into the
investigation of all forms of discrimination, by all the various UN constituent bodies.
This includes mainstreaming an intersectional analysis of gender and race
discrimination into the work of all mechanisms of the human rights system,
including treaty bodies, commissions and the activities of the thematic and country
specific rapporteurs and working groups.