Woman's Hour - Kimberlé Crenshaw and Intersectionality at 30, and Bishop of London Sarah Mullally

Episode Date: May 28, 2019

Intersectionality at 30. In 1989 Kimberlé Crenshaw Professor of Law at Columbia University and UCLA coined the term Intersectionality. It recognises that race and gender discrimination can work together simultaneously, along with other factors like class, disability, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, religion, and more. Kimberlé Crenshaw joins Tina Daheley with Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, Head of Equalities and Learning at Public and Commercial Services Union and Co-founder of UK Black Pride to explain how the term has developed, how it has been misunderstood and why it’s important.Sarah Mullally was installed as the Bishop of London one year ago making her the Church of England’s most senior woman and the first female Bishop of London. Before being ordained she was UK Chief Nursing Officer having spent the early years of her career as a nurse specialising in cancer care. She talks about her work serving more than 400 London parishes and her new role as Dean of Her Majesty’s Chapels Royal.Sarah Ladip Manyika's debut novel In Dependence is a set text in the US and Zimbabwe and has sold over three million copies. It's a story of love and friendship over four decades and has been re-released on the tenth anniversary of its publication. Sarah speaks to Tina about the enduring appeal of her novel. What’s it like to come out to your parents? How do you prepare? What if it all goes wrong? Tina speaks to Amelia Abraham, author of “Queer Intentions,’ her step-mum Tessa and YouTuber Riyadh Khalaf, author Yay! You’re Gay! Now What?Presenter: Tina Daheley Producer: Caroline Donne Interviewed guest: Kimberlé Crenshaw Interviewed guest: Phyll Opoku-Gyimah Interviewed guest: Sarah Mullally Interviewed guest: Amelia Abraham Interviewed guest: Tessa Abraham Interviewed guest: Riyadh Khalaf

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Tina Dehealy here with the Woman's Hour podcast for Tuesday the 28th of May. Coming up, the British-Nigerian writer, Serla Deepa Manika, on her best-selling book, Independence, being re-released on its 10-year anniversary. Author of Queer Intentions, Emilia Abraham, her mum Tessa and YouTuber Riyad Khalaf are here to talk about what it's like coming out to your parents.

How did you prepare? How did it go? Are you yet to do it? And the woman who coined the word intersectionality 30 years ago is with me to discuss how race and gender bias can combine to create a powerful and often overlooked form of discrimination. Sarah Mullally was installed as the Bishop of London a year ago. It's the third most senior role in the Church of England and she was the first woman to take on the role. Before being ordained, she was the UK Chief Nursing Officer, having spent the early years of her career working as a nurse. She was last on Woman's Hour in 2004 to talk about that role.

One year into her new job, I asked her how it's been going. Gosh, well, it's great. It's been a real privilege, very busy, but it's been a real opportunity to get to know the people in the London communities, but also the people in the churches. And it's just been wonderful. It's been a real privilege to see what they're doing, working in their communities, projects such as food banks and dementia cafes. But also the church in London is confident in faith. It's one of the few places that the Church of England is growing.

Now, when you became Bishop of London, you said in your first sermon, I'm aware that as the first woman Bishop of London, I'm necessarily subversive and it's a necessity I intend to embrace. How have you set about doing that over the past year? Well I'm very conscious that as the 133rd Bishop of London I am the first one that is a woman so in a sense I turn up and the world's changed and so therefore the question for me is how do I use that and that's really about what we talk about it's about some of the projects that we can do differently and I'm very conscious that some of the projects that we can do differently. And I'm very conscious that I am the Bishop of London that I am. I bring with me my nursing background.

So it allows me to connect with the mayor's office on health and the local health authorities as well to look at projects such as mental well-being. So it allows me to do things differently, I think. What issues then are your top priority? What won't you sit on the fence about? Well, I think my top priorities over the last year has been to encourage the church to be confident in its faith. That's the first thing. For us to be able to speak about the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, we found that has to be the top priority. But also, it's not just about speaking about it. How can our churches be central to our community and that will look differently so I'm encouraging churches to think and to ask

what can their communities what can they do for their communities and that often is about night shelters it's about dementia cafes it's about providing support for young people and then what it allows me to do is to work with the mayor's office and the lord mayor's office in a way that I can support them to create healthy and coherent communities in London. You've spoken about wanting to provide a voice for London which let's face it is a city with with inequality and the serious issue with knife crime how have you been able to do this over the last year? Well, yes, I'm very conscious that, you know, London is, in one sense, really positive. It's a financial centre.

It's cosmopolitan. But actually, on the other side, there is deprivation. And I'm very conscious that in some of our communities, they fear for their safety. I was with a group of young people in northwest London last week week and they talked about their safety, their mental health issues, identity and housing. And so for me it's about how then we across London can work together to help. And very recently dioceses across London, so four dioceses, Southwark, Chelmsford, London and Rochester, got together with our partners to say how can we support communities around knife crime. And so there are projects now running in each of our the Charlesford, London and Rochester got together with our partners to say how can we support communities around knife crime and so there are projects now running in each of our dioceses

that looks very local about how we can work with schools, with the local authorities and in partnership to say what is it that as a church we could be doing to make our community safer for young people and that's been a really good example. London is, of course, a very diverse and religiously diverse city. Does that make your job harder? No, I don't think it does, actually. I think that, you know, in some parts of London, for example, South Hall, you can go and actually almost 90% of the population will say they have a faith. And so therefore, working with multi-faith leaders is important. One is it says that we, you know, we ought to have confidence about talking about our faith, so speaking out against where there is religious intolerance.

And in a city where we take for granted our religious tolerance, I think there is some concern that we're seeing an increase in intolerance. And therefore, to stand with other faith leaders is important to speak out against when religious hatred is important to do that. And what about the polarisation in this country reflected by recent European election results? What's your approach to that? I think one of my observations has been probably more than any other time, any potential divisions are likely to grow stronger. So certainly

as a church leader, I'm encouraging people to recognise that difference isn't always bad, that actually London is very diverse, actually our strength is in our diversity. And therefore, how we encourage churches to be able to provide places where people can speak about difference but in a way that is encouraging and positive is important but also I believe as well as a faith leader standing alongside other faith leaders to say that we may have a difference but actually our society is stronger because of that and after some of the recent terrible atrocities, standing alongside faith leaders at the East London Mosque was important because it doesn't just speak about what we have in common, but it says we also value our difference. And that's important to do that. How do you make people feel welcome and comfortable in church when some may feel that their sexuality or previous experiences with the church have made them feel otherwise? I would hope that people could find a spiritual home across London. There

is such a diversity of church in London. That's one of its great strengths. But also we have to recognise that church is changing. It was interesting talking to these young people in north-west London. When they think about churches, they think about buildings. Well, actually, that's not where the church is. In the city, I can go and church is a Bible study in her lunch hour or church is a youth group meeting. So one of the great things about churches in London is that they recognise that we take church to people now, whether it's in youth groups, in cafes, in pubs. And so actually, I think church itself is becoming more welcoming because people from churches are on other people's territories. And that's what we're trying to do. So no longer is church just a Sunday morning. It's right the

way throughout the week in a whole series of different settings. You've talked about change. You being in the role you're in now is obviously a sign of progress. But what about progress when it comes to equal marriage? Well, the church like the Church of England, like other faith groups, have a traditional role of marriage between men and women. There is a programme at the moment that's going on that's talking about human sexuality and what it is to be human, and that's ongoing. But I would hope that churches are welcoming to all people. And I think that they would find a home anywhere in London. And one of the things I'm conscious of as well is that talking to young people, that issues for them isn't just about identity, it's about mental well-being.

It's about their future in university, it's about housing, it's about education and I hope that churches are part of communities that are engaging with the whole breadth of community issues and helping young people and people in the community to find a place of belonging and welcome. In your installation as Bishop of London you referred to, and correct me if I'm wrong, the 1.6% of people who attend a Church of England church in London. And we know that fewer people have a grasp of the basic Christian stories. How can the church be effective in 2019 when those numbers are falling as they are? Well, as I say, in London, we've seen a 10% rise in church membership. What is clear is that people no longer go to church in the same way as they don't go to, you know, they haven't membership of other organisations.

So rather than you'd find, you know, even two decades ago, people going every Sunday, they may only go once a week, but they still say they go regularly. And what the church is recognising is that people's pattern of life is different. So in the city of London, we have groups that occur in the lunch hour, services of 40 minutes or Bible studies of 20 minutes, followed by lunch. And actually, the uptake of that is enormous. So actually, the church across London is recognising that people's lives are different. And so responding likewise. There's been a huge uptake of prayers over the internet. The use of social media has changed. So whilst traditional church attendance may be changing, I do think that the church in London is finding confidence

to talk about our faith in different environments and in different ways. It's interesting you say that. On the front page of the Times today is a story about Christians connecting with God through Amazon's Alexa. That's absolutely right, yeah. How are they engaging with this service and what are they asking? Well, I mean, there's been a huge uptake and one of the biggest uptakes is just for prayers.

What we know is that whilst people may not necessarily define themselves as Christians, people still want to talk about God, they still want to talk about dot god they still want to pray and so the internet type activity is providing that option for people to connect in a different way but what we also know about young people whilst their use of internet may be high actually they still want to be part of a community so in a sense internet is only part of it churches still need to create community for people young and old and just on a personales still need to create community for people young and old. And just on a personal level, what are the biggest challenges for you?

Not only are you the first woman in your role, but you've also talked about going to a comprehensive school and there not being many people like you at your level. I have to say one of my biggest challenges is knowing how to use my time. I could do six things every minute, every day. But I think I do recognise that often people don't always see somebody that looks like them in church. And certainly I, you know, didn't, you know, I certainly felt I couldn't see myself.

I was nursed by background, comprehensive education, poly girl, a woman. But maybe sometimes it's the fact that our shape whole is there waiting for us to fill it. And certainly in London, I hope to be encouraging young women to think about coming into the church, but also for us, church leaders from BAME backgrounds and also church leaders from a whole different mix of social class. One of our biggest challenges is to encourage those who maybe live on estates, haven't had a typical education, to look at the fact that actually they may be being called

to be a church leader in the Church of England. And so part of my role is to say, how can we help them to fulfil their calling? Bishop Sarah Mullally, thank you for joining us this morning. Thank you very much indeed. Next, British-Nigerian writer Sarah Ledipa Manika published her debut novel, Independence Independence in Nigeria a decade ago. Since then, it's sold more than three million copies internationally and has become a signed reading in the US and Zimbabwe.

The novel begins in the early 1960s when Nigerian Teo Ojai moves to Oxford to study and meets Vanessa Richardson, the beautiful daughter of an ex-colonial officer. Their stories are brave but bittersweet love affair. On its 10-year anniversary, it's been re-released and Sarah's with me now. Welcome. Thank you. When were you first told that this was going to be released 10 years on? Yeah, it was very exciting. My Nigerian publisher, who's also based in the UK right now approached me and said will you give us the rights to bring it out again so this was yes recently. Were you surprised? I was surprised and it's you know it's interesting going back to a first book and I was a little a little fearful at first wondering what what I would think of my first book but I found myself

rereading it and falling in love with it all over again. So that was a fun experience. You've written about using an African publisher instead of a Western one. Why is that important to you? I think it's important on a few levels. It's important and it's also exciting. So ideologically, it was very exciting for me to give World Rights to my second book and now back with the first book to this publisher, because usually it's the other way around. Usually African publishers

are at the receiving end, the very last people to be given rights, world rights, certainly to books. So ideologically, it was exciting for me. And then it's just also exciting because they have been very open to different types of stories. So often Western publishers will want to sort of publish the same sorts of stories. And there was greater openness with them. Have you encountered that? Yes, I have encountered that. Can you give me examples? Well, I think, you know, publishing is a business. So when publishers are used to publishing particular type of stories, say, story of, you know, about an older woman from Nigeria in San Francisco. And that's not the usual sort of story that people are expecting from African writers. And so, you know, having that sort of latitude with a publisher that's really excited about all sorts of stories coming from an African writer is exciting.

And they've done so well as well. So it's been exciting for me to see how well the books have done with them. You've clearly proven that writing about African love stories works commercially. Back in 2009, what inspired you to write this story? I always say that I'm driven to write stories that I'm longing to read and I can't find and I borrow that from Toni Morrison. And I was just longing to read a great love story that had a main character from Africa. And I wasn't finding those stories. And so that's what led me to write the story. And I think at the time, I was also inspired by the real life story of Seredse Kama and Ruth Williams. This is in the 1940s, Seredse Kama coming from a royal family

and wanting to marry someone who was not of royal heritage. So this is in the 1940s, Saretse Kama coming from a royal family and wanting to marry someone who was not of royal heritage. So that has an interesting resonance with today, perhaps the British royal family. We have the same with Harry and Meghan. At the same time, this was the run up to Barack Obama's run for election. And so I was fascinated by his story, his parents' story of a mixed race, multicultural relationship. And my parents, my mother is British, and my father's Nigerian. So it could have been their story that I was writing. It wasn't their story, but it was certainly their generation. And just, yes, inspired by all of that. Are the themes you explore still relevant today, do you think?

Absolutely. First of all, I think a good love story is timeless. And I think, you know, we're still dealing with issues that are explored in the novel. So this is, we're still mixed race relationships. You know, that's still something we talk about civil rights the civil rights era was a big thing in the 1960s and we're still still talking about civil rights we're still talking about gender parity feminism this was you know something that was in the air at the time in the 1960s so there's a lot of you, in the 1960s was described as this tumultuous era, and a lot was going on. And it really felt like an inflection point historically. And it's interesting, 60 years later, it feels quite similar.

Your novel's been assigned reading for students around the world. Had you known this while writing the book? Would you have done anything differently? Do you think? I probably would have been so frightened. I probably wouldn't have written the book. Knowing that it would be. I would have wanted to write a book that pleased everybody. And that would not have been probably a very good book. So. How much of your own story and your parents' relationship back then is included in the book? I think, you know, as I said, it could have been my parents' story. So it is their generation. So the issues that they were facing, they had opposition to their marriage as

a mixed race couple from family and also from society. So I was drawing on that context. You know, it's not their their story but certainly the issues they faced and then you know I always say that in fiction there are elements of me as a writer and certainly elements of things that I'm concerned about or interested in that will find their way into my fiction whether I'm conscious of it or not certainly the passion that I have for various issues and ideas finds its way into my writing. And where are your parents from? My mother is British from the north of England. She's from York and my father is Nigerian. How did that shape your identity? You know, I was raised as someone who comes from a family of parents from two different cultures.

And I think that shaped my identity. But I also lived in West Africa, I lived in Nigeria, and I also happen to live in Kenya, and also in England. So I think the dual aspect of having parents from different cultures, but having the actual experience of living in the two countries also shaped my identity. What did they make of it when they first read it? They were probably a little bit nervous. I think they probably thought maybe I was writing their story. But from all I hear, they, yes, they enjoyed it. In times of intense debates and polarisation around things like immigration, racism, do we need more stories like this that unite rather than divide us? I think so. I think we definitely

need stories that we are not, you know, that we're missing. And so, you know, I wanted to write a story that I was longing to read that's reflective of a particular era, a particular time, relationships that I wasn't, I was seeing in real life, but I wasn't seeing in literature. And I think art can be a bridge to helping us to understand people who come from different places, who come from different backgrounds. And it helps to bridge that fear of the other. So yes, absolutely. You've also written about growing up as a young black man in America, and how you worry for your son. How have you navigated your parenting in the age of Black Lives Matter? Me too. Yeah, I wrote an essay on my son, as you said, who I raised in the States.

You know, I think, first and foremost, for me, it was coming to a realization and understanding of the racial constructs and history of America. And, you know, the days of slavery are long past, but a lot of that doesn't mean that people necessarily have moved on in terms of their thinking and their perceptions of black people. And there's still a lot of work to be done. And yeah, so I have educated myself on the racial history of America and making my son aware of the dangers that he faces as a young black man, but not to the extent that it,

you know, pins his wings back or whatever the exact phrase is. Yeah. Exactly as you said it. Sarah Ledeepo-Manika, thank you very much for coming in. Independence is out now. It's been re-released again, so you can read it if you haven't already for the first time. Thank you very read it if you haven't already for the first time thank you very much thank you still to come on the program intersectionality the woman who coined the term 30 years ago is here to explain what it means how it's been misunderstood and why it's so important what's it like to come out to your parents how did you prepare what if it doesn't go to plan here to share their experiences and to offer advice please do get in touch with your own questions and to share your coming out stories i'm joined by amelia abraham author of queer

intentions her stepmom tessa and youtuber riad calaf author of yay you're gay now what welcome thank you amina you first came out to your step-mum who's here with you. How did that go? And what did you plan to say at the time? It's very difficult to remember exactly what I planned to say because it was nearly 10 years ago now. I'm 27 and I think I was 18. I was in my first year of university.

And I'd met someone and sort of this relationship, it was a girl and this relationship showed me that I might be um bisexual or gay I wasn't really sure at the time and I I remember telling Tessa and being really really nervous I think we can put a lot of pressure on ourselves and feel a lot of the shame ourselves um and she was very very lovely and understanding about it um but I can't remember the exact comment you probably remember better than me because I would say what do you remember from that conversation I remember that I didn't see it coming at all which makes me feel a bit dim in retrospect well I have boyfriends okay so it's not really a fault and about a week or so

before um the penny dropped and so when you rang me when she rang me and she said can I come and see you I kind of had an idea what she might be coming to say so when Amelia arrived and told me I felt I felt really honoured and I felt a responsibility to really get it right to make sure that you absolutely knew and believed that I was totally fine with it. Yeah I mean I think it was a little bit easier for me I mean I'm very privileged and very lucky to be from quite a progressive family. And my mum was really accepting as well. And although my dad maybe found it a little bit difficult at first, he came around to it quite quickly.

But I was also really lucky to have someone in my family who wasn't my biological parent, who kind of felt like they could be my test run, as it were. A guinea pig. Test of a test run. it were a guinea pig yeah a guinea pig how did your mum react um so I quite naively brought my girlfriend from university home with me for the weekend as and introduced her as my friend and sort of pretended she was my friend um and I think from memory there was just sort of a moment at the end of the weekend when the girlfriend wasn't around.

And my mum said, that's not your friend, is it? And she just knew. And she was really, really nice about it. She was really, really good about it. So as I say, I was extremely lucky. She has gay friends and she used to go out to gay clubs and stuff when she was younger. So she was pretty accepting. You know, there have been challenges since then.

There are little things that come up all the time. You know, the only thing that she's ever done is just sometimes say, like, oh, your friend instead of girlfriend, which I think a lot of parents do things like that because, you know, you want to desexualise it or you've been taught that it's a little bit shameful so it feels hard for you to say um but other than that she's been completely wonderful. Riyadh your mum found out that you were gay what happened? Yeah I was a

silly silly boy um so I was about 16 or 17 and stupidly had left those pages open on the family computer and she came across them and I think she instantly knew it wasn't my extremely heterosexual little brother and my outrageously heterosexual father. It was definitely the flamboyant son, Riyadh.

And she came to me in the kitchen and just said you know if there's anything you ever want to say to me Riyadh you can just say it it's fine and I did you well I knew I knew straight away what she was talking about and I had so much shame about my identity that my head just went into my hands and I was sitting there for about an hour and a half thinking oh my god how am I going to get this out and she coaxed it and pushed it and and eventually um I told her at the time uh that I was bisexual because I I honestly believed that I was um I was still coming to sexual fruition and uh she was great she actually wanted me to be full on gay straight away.

She thought, what is this middle of the road thing? She didn't realise that, you know, bisexuality is an absolutely, you know, it's an identity that is that exists. And that's great. I think she just wanted a black and white sort of answer. And then we had nine months together as mother and son, as a super duo, trying to sort of keep this secret together and away from my father, who is Iraqi. And we were quite afraid of his reaction because although he wasn't extremely, you know, practicing in terms of being, you know, practising in terms of being, you know, a Muslim. And he had a lot of cultural, he had a cultural hangover, if you will, that sort of made us believe that there might be a bit of homophobia there. So we, yeah, we kept it from him for those nine months. And in those nine months, I sort of

grew further and further away from him because of this sort of reaction that I predicted was to come. And I went through a whole list of different expected outcomes that were going to come from him. Everything from him simply not liking me to him honour killing me to him sending me to a conversion camp. Okay, what actually happened? What actually happened was that initially he had a big wave of shock. He said, we'll fix this. And what he meant was, we'll change you to be the right way.

And then he went through a very, very difficult time. The night that I came out to him, he told us a couple of years later, he attempted, well, he considered taking his own life. And that was, of course, a very difficult thing for us to hear and for me as a son to hear, because I knew that I was the catalyst that made him feel that that was the only solution. But now, you know, over time and through education and amazing, close bonding, love in our family, he's an activist. You know, he goes to pride marches in London and in Dublin.

He has campaigned very publicly on TV and radio in Ireland for the same-sex marriage vote, which was a success, thank God. That's quite a transformation. Oh, yeah. He invites my boyfriend along for dinner and treats him like a second son. And my thing is, in the book that I wrote, is I say to people that if my father can have such a transformative journey and go from someone who would want to do something as drastic as taking their own life to then marching publicly with pride for this community, then anyone can do it.

Tessa, I want to come back to you. When you found out about Amelia, when she told you, what did you then do? Did you talk to anybody? Did you, I don't know, read up on anything? Well, Amelia asked me to tell her father, my husband at the time, and I anticipated that he might find it difficult initially. But I felt completely confident that he would come to terms with um with Amelia's um coming out as gay um which turned out to be absolutely correct because he was always such a committed loving father and his his Steve's concern was that um it's it's a difficult path which of course it is but the the reality is, whatever we do, whatever we say,

even if we wanted to, we couldn't make Amelia be heterosexual. And actually, when you love somebody, and you always have and you always will, why would you want to change them? Amelia, it's interesting that you first came out as bi, didn't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did. We have that in common. Yeah I suppose it's quite early in the day for this but I'm technically bisexual I enjoy having sex with men but I've always found myself much more romantically drawn to women and I've actually been in relationships with women for basically since I came out nearly 10 years ago so I kind

of alternate between saying I'm bisexual and I'm a lesbian I guess it's quite fluid kind of depends on how I feel um but I just to echo what Riyad said earlier is um it can be really hurtful when you are bisexual which you know I guess in many ways I am to be told that oh that's just a phase or that's just to stop on the way to gay or you're not telling the truth or you're just trying to soften the blow. So I think it's really important that parents listen to people when they say they're bisexual because it does exist.

Also, years ago, decades ago, coming out was just one thing, wasn't it? It used to be you're gay, but of course there's a spectrum now when it comes to sexuality, and that's reflected in people telling their parents their families about who they are and their identity you've talked about having to repeatedly come out what do you mean by that um i suppose i mean that once you've come out once to your parents and you know it might be like ripping a plaster off the sting might fade You will still have to come out in other areas of your life, perhaps. So maybe that's in the workplace. Maybe that's the new friends you meet.

It could be any context. It can be like a repeated thing. It's not something you do once. And I think it's really important that for some people, you might not have less of an option to come out because we still have kind of cultural signifiers that we read as gay. So we still stereotype people.

So, you know, if you have short hair and wear a flannel shirt, you're probably a lesbian. I mean, that's obviously extremely reductive. And can I just say to our listeners, you don't have short hair and you're not wearing a flannel shirt. So this is what I was about to say, is that I guess I really want to emphasise

that I'm using inverted commas here. Look straight or passes straight. You know, it could be anything really. And maybe that's an old- commas here look straight or passes straight you know I could be could be anything really and maybe that's an old-fashioned idea but that that's the case so sometimes that means that I have to tell people because they wouldn't assume that I'm gay but a lot of friends of mine who might be like very masculine presenting lesbians I have a lot of friends that are um everywhere they go everyone assumes they're a lesbian all the time and they don't even have an option to tell people that That's quite interesting. And what you find that you might agree with this is that when a young person comes out initially, they become a one man or one woman pride parade.

There are rainbows everywhere, draping from them in their room and in their locker in school. And that's because not necessarily they're overtly proud at this early stage of coming out. It's because they feel that they have to disclose their sexuality or their gender identity to every single person they come in contact with be that the bus driver or the person serving them their coffee in in the coffee shop because they feel that they've got this secret. Just going to bring in some messages that are coming in this one from Kitty not me but my brother my parents demanded to know why I hadn't told them.

I'd known for years. It wasn't for me to tell them that he was in the final of Mr Gay UK should have been a giveaway. This remark, I love this feature. I grew up as a Jehovah's Witness and coming out resulted in being cast out of the religion, my community, and I have no contact with family now. That said, I have the most wonderful accepting friends. We're lucky to live in a society where you can find your accepting place. If you're in that situation, I have the most wonderful accepting friends. We're lucky to live in a society where you can find your accepting place. If you're in that situation, wondering whether you'll be accepted, know that if your family aren't able to accept you, you can find your own family that will love and look after you. Amina, you've talked about your family being progressive and you had a, let's just say both of you overall and where we are now, positive experiences of coming out. What advice would you give to other people listening who perhaps haven't done that yet? say both of you overall and where we are now positive experiences of coming out what advice would you give to other people listening who perhaps haven't done that yet um sorry do you

mean parents or kids or parents parents with parents i'd say um it sounds really simple but i suppose just think about what you say because if it's something that you wouldn't say to a straight child then maybe don't say it um to a gay kid so if it's something a lot of parents say things like oh but but i want you to get married and have kids and it's like firstly it's 2019 you can do that if you're gay but also if you wouldn't say that to your child if if they were straight then just don't say it when they're gay or bisexual and something i'd add to that is look it might feel like a sting or even a bereavement initially. The human that you've brought into the world might seem like a complete stranger all of a sudden when they say, I'm gay, like that.

But remember, they're the same person. They're actually a better person because now they're open, free. They can be authentic. They're now, they're going to blossom like a flower because they have this new friend identity. And, you know, if you have certain things that you want to say to them that are hurtful, take them elsewhere, say them to a friend or a counsellor or an LGBT service that is there to help you. Just go online and find them and then come back to the child and listen to them and hear them out as to how and why they came to this resolution.

Well, thank you all for sharing your experiences with us this morning. Riyadh Amelia Tessa, thank you very much. Now, 30 years ago, Professor Kimberley Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality, which recognises that race and gender discrimination can overlap and work together, along with other factors like class, disability, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, religion and more. Well, Kimberley has been Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics for the past three years. She's also Professor of Law at Columbia University and UCLA, also co-founder of the African-American Policy Forum and also host of podcast Intersectionality Matters.

And she's in London for a series of special events this week. But before that, you're with me in the studio. Kimberly, welcome. Thank you. What is intersectionality as you defined it 30 years ago? And if I'm totally honest, I probably only came to terms with that term about five years ago myself. Yeah.

Is this the starting point of race or feminism? Oh, well, it's clearly the starting point of the way we think about race and gender and other forms of inequality. So you captured it at the top of your description. It's a word picture that's designed to draw our attention to the places where inequality actually overlaps with other forms of inequality. So we have ways of thinking about racism. We have ways of thinking about sexism, class inequality, heterosexism, homophobia. But often we think about these as mutually exclusive, as distinct. Intersectionality says that the way we experience these various forms of inequality often is in tandem. It's interactive. It's compounding. It creates greater disabilities in the workforce and in social life than we typically think.

Why is it so important for it to be recognized? Well, because if you don't have an intersectional lens, you don't understand things like why the pay gap that women of color face is so much greater than just a gender based pay gap. You won't understand why maternal mortality among black women in the UK as well as in the United States is many times greater than the mortality rate for white women. So there's just a whole range of issues that you don't get if you don't have a concept that allows you to understand the full way that a woman might experience patriarchy or a person of colour might experience racism. It is one of my biggest frustrations. And in fact, it's a reason why there are many, well, I don't want to say many, some women's group I won't engage with because they seem to overlook those aspects, especially to do with, I'm talking about things that are personal to me, race and class. And when you look at something like the pay gap, for example, we talk about the gender pay gap and differences. But when you look at something like the pay gap, for example, we talk about the gender pay gap

and differences. But when you look at that compounded with race and gender, I mean, it's shocking. Well, it is shocking. And I think it's also surprising that at this late date, we're still having an argument about whether we need to have an intersectional lens. I mean, this is not a new idea. The experiences around how race impact gender go back in both of our countries' generations. The whole question about suffrage, for example. We're celebrating the 100th year of women's suffrage in the United States. But in reality, only white women got the right to vote at the time. We still have an argument about whether it's legitimate for us to say that the frame that we've been using to talk about feminism sometimes has marginalized a whole group of women, sometimes the majority of women. So that's kind of surprising.

I would say also that the fact that some of these issues go across so many different professions is also surprising. So I found out being here for the last couple of years that in higher education, there's something like 23 black women professors in the entire country out of 19,000 professors. I mean, it's less than 1%. So we're still having fights about whether we should actually talk about the problem, much less what we need to do to intervene effectively to address these problems. How can we intervene effectively? I want to ask you two things of that, but also some everyday examples of understanding the day to day lives of some of these women, because I think even here in this building, people would admit that they don't actually really understand what intersectionality means and that it manifests. And it's frankly, one of the reasons why the conversation that we're having tonight at Westminster is to talk about everyday intersectionality. It's not an idea that's just an academic idea. It's not just a big fancy word that people don't understand

is actually the way that daily life might be structured. So for example, I've talked to many women of color who have the typical experience of being profiled, just coming into buildings, shopping in stores, presenting themselves to even eat, like the may I help you, which is more of a, are you sure you're in the right place? You're here to steal something. Yes, exactly. So that's something that's very much a part. I've read statistics here that show that black women are seven times more likely to have an interaction or actually encounter with police. That's very similar to what happens in the United States. We talk about that.

But then all the way up in the academic arena, I've had students and young professors tell me times that some of their professors have doubted that they actually authored the work that was turned in, the belief that they had outperformed the stereotypical assumption about what someone who's embodied as a woman, who's a woman of color can do. I mean, we could go on and on and talking and talking about some of the experiences. I think equally important is why these experiences are so hard for some of our allies to incorporate. So why is it such a challenge for feminism to realize that the racialization of women of color is a feminist issue. Why is it? Is it because these women don't have a voice and a relative to white privileged women don't have as much power?

Yeah, I think it's because we have a way of thinking about discrimination that says the object of gender discrimination as women, full stop. And any other attempt to talk about, well, let's think about the different ways that different women experience discrimination, sometimes is heard by other feminists as an attack on them, as undervaluing their own particular experience of being women, how they experience discrimination, or as, well, that's another issue. We're just here to talk about women. We're not here to talk about race or having an immigrant background or religion. That's all somewhere else. And intersectionality actually came from recognizing that when the law did that, when a black woman says, I'm discriminated against as a black woman, the law initially said, well, those are two different claims and you can't put them together. That created a further discrimination. stuff on the podcast. Thank you for staying. And we also welcome Phil Opukujima, co-founder of UK

Black Pride, trustee of Stonewall and member of the TUC Race Relations Committee. Welcome. You didn't make the live programme, unfortunately, but you're with us now better late than never. I'm going to get you both to respond to a couple of messages that have come in during the programme about our conversation around intersectionality. Aisha tweets, I agree with Professor Kimberley Crenshaw that why has it taken so long for feminism to respond to intersectionality? Seriously worrying given intersectionality is 30. I happen to be finalising a paper on this and domestic violence responses in the UK. Sophia tweets, there's no black women with contracts on Radio 4 to even interview her

and there's no black woman on the national station of record. She doesn't know this and I'm ashamed. Well, she does know this now, Kimberly. I'm brown. Does that count? What's your response to that? Well, my response is that we're hearing from women, we're hearing from the public that intersectionality is a real thing. These are everyday issues. People can look around and see in their own environment how these dynamics are actually playing out. So I think, number one, when you frame an issue in a way that responds to everyday life, people affirm that. So those who say intersectionality is just an academic idea, or we're still it's just an American idea, we're hearing that that's not necessarily true. And we're also hearing that there's an agenda. So we can start looking across the social terrain and say, it would be important to have more black and brown women in this industry. It would be important to have more black and brown women in the academy and so on and so forth. So I think it's an agenda building moment. Absolutely. Yeah. So it's great to be here

and even more wonderful to be amongst Professor Kimberley Crenshaw. I think what you've said is absolutely spot on. You know, we've been told by some people who see themselves as progressives that, oh, this is just a bourgeois American theory. Actually, it's not. It's a very lived experience. Day-to-day intersectionality matters for us and certainly matters for me as a black woman who aims to occupy spaces which haven't historically been ours. So if my day-to-day experience is about the structures in which I find myself in, but there are those barriers because of the oppressions that exist, how can that just be a theory? It's actually every single day. So tell me about your real life lived experience. What are the barriers you faced? Okay, so you mentioned that I'm a Stonewall trustee. I was

a Stonewall trustee. I'm no longer a Stonewall trustee. I work for the largest civil service trade union. So within the trade union structures, it's predominantly been very male, very white and over 45, those who hold leadership positions. And I'm not here by any stretch of the imagination to put down the trade union movement because I actually love the work that I do. But my day to day experience finds me having to negotiate, having to talk about my lived experience, having to prove and justify why I am constantly under attack for those oppressions that exist. You know, people call it unconscious bias. People call it diversity. People call it inclusion or exclusion. Actually, when you look at the real meaning and the genesis of intersectionality and why it came about, it was about black women who have not got or do not get access to good health, education and those power dynamics that play out, which leaves us on the back foot.

Tell me about your experience in setting up the LGBTQ group Black Pride. Oh, how long have we got? Not very long. Yeah. So Black Pride was born out of a frustration. I was running a women's lesbian by and trans group before called BLOC, Black Lesbians in the UK. And we realised that the sort of time for waiting in doing things was over. When we were in a climate which was very hostile politically, you had the BNP spouting their rhetoric and their nasty propaganda about Muslims, about black people, about LGBT people.

And we decided that, OK, let's go out and make sure we occupy some space. It came with so much resistance. I was told to leave particular spaces. I was told that leave particular spaces. I was told that actually there's no need for a black pride. Why don't you just join the regular pride? And it spoke to me in so many different ways about our beings not mattering. myself, the frustrations and the hurt and the pain that came with it, because my whole self was not recognised in that, meant that we had to try even harder to not just be visible, but to occupy space for that next generation. What do you say to, and I've heard this before,

to people who say intersectionality is divisive, and by suggesting a hierarchy of oppression or an oppression Olympics, we're actually doing more harm than good. So I'd say intersectionality is the response, the legitimate response to hierarchies of oppression, because basically Phil's description is a hierarchy of oppression. It's basically saying the way we as white gay men experience homophobia is the dominant story. And what you're doing is detracting from it. You're dividing us when in fact, what Phil was doing was actually deepening, broadening the concept, broadening the political agenda, ensuring that everyone is included in pride. So I basically just say that's a misinterpretation and a misunderstanding. And frankly, it's an argument to say that the way we do things now is the way things have to to be and what you're doing is distracting us from what is the most important um set of issues it can be dangerous can't it absolutely you do that

it's you know you you marginalize people even further and actually the power dynamics that play out get deeper and bigger and bigger within With their press groups. Absolutely. Is it possible to overcome? It's so complicated and there are so many factors, so many layers. Women's experience is so different depending on all of those different things, race, class, gender, sexuality, age. How do you measure it? So I don't think it's so much a matter of measuring it in the abstract. I think it's a matter of in a particular context where there is an issue, whether it is maternal mortality or violence against women or the increasing economic marginality of working class people. The point is, how do you analyze the dynamics? How do you analyze the different

dimensions that create the inequality so you can be ensured that the intervention that you're creating actually does the work that you intend for it to do. So if we have to, you know, sort of imagine a world in which there are no oppressions for us to believe that intersectionality is important, then we won't do that. I don't think the point is to come from, you know, the shining city on the other side of the hill where there are no issues. The point is, right now, we're doing work. Right now, we're trying to address these issues. So right now we need frameworks that allow us to address these issues in ways that don't reproduce the marginality of the most marginal.

That's all there really is there. When you do work around social justice, make sure you're not creating injustices within it. That's pretty much all there is. It's not a prescription. I went to a conference a few years ago, and they were actually debating how many intersections are there. Some people said they're 17. Someone else said they're 21. And they were having a knock down, drag them out fight about it. I was like, well, what is the issue? You can't talk about this in the abstract.

You have to be specific about what you're trying to address. Are you confident people are listening? I am more confident now than ever before. What do you think? I think in the, I can speak about the UK context. I think, I don't think I believe people are listening because some people are getting ever so animated and upset. And when people start to get upset and frustrated it means that you're hitting something but it's about where do you go to next from that frustration and not wanting to be someone's school teacher not wanting

to have to be the one to unpick everything and teach them what to do because that's burnout for an individual. But people are listening. People are taking notes. Some people are using intersectionality in a way that is very watered down or incorrect by way of saying equality and diversity. But I do believe in the UK, they're listening. And I, again, I speak about the progressive left. They're frustrated at the use and the words of intersectionality, but they're starting to use it. And if I guess if the events that we're having over this week might be any measure of the each of the events sold out within hours. So it does suggest that among progressives, among feminists, among anti-racists,

there is a sense that this is a framework that they find very useful. They want to know more about it and be part of a community of people who can talk about these issues without feeling as though they're disrupting or destroying a notion of solidarity that's necessary to move this progressive agenda forward.

Phil, you are taking part in one of these events. Tell me about that. I am so looking forward. There is an array of amazing speakers, panellists from academics to in the arts, in, you know, people who have studied feminism for so long, activists, and it's going to be exciting. And you. Yes, and me, I am. I'm really excited and glad I've been given this opportunity to sit on a panel with such esteemed people, opening up our ears and listening to different experiences and understanding how somebody else uses intersectionality and the framework within the context in which they're working in or living in. So I'm looking forward to that very much. Phil was the first person we reached out to. We thought, let's have a

conversation about everyday intersectionality. Let's disrupt this idea that it's just an academic concept or it's just a concept that comes out of a particular country. And let's have a, it's kind of an intersectionality party. We're talking about all sorts of it with some humour as well. So we're really excited about it.

We've got to smile. We've got to smile. Yes. Our ancestors have bought us this far. Yes. We've got to smile. Well, it's great to be in the company of fellow disruptors.

Keep on disrupting. Kimberley Full, thank you so much for joining us. Tomorrow, Jenny talks to Eve Enster, author of The Vagina Monologues, about her new book, The Apology, an imagined letter from her father apologising to her for a lifetime of devastating abuse. And plimsolls. We look at the history of the white plimsoll

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