Sisterhood was Limited Jews, Intersectionality, and the Second Wave Feminist Movement

Abstract

Decades before Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality, the concept of interlocking oppressions was emerging in the Second Wave Feminist movement that by the 1970s was beginning to confront the limitations of strictly gender-based sisterhood. But in what I describe as the proto-intersectional feminist movement, Jewish women found their Jewish identities marginalized on account of being identified (and initially identifying) as simply white. This article, therefore, addresses the paradox of Jewish identification in a time of increased racial consciousness, and how this paradox complicated the place of Jewish feminists during the 1970s and 1980s. It argues that the emergence of this white/not-white enough status of Jewish women began with the Second Wave Feminist movement and highlights the troubling developments at the United Nations Decade of the Woman conferences, and Jewish feminist responses to these developments. The article connects these historical issues with the more recent troubles concerning the uneasy place of Jewish women in the contemporary feminist movement.