On this, the annual Why Isn't There An International Men's Day?, I think we need to have a little talk about intersectionality.
What is intersectionality, you ask? Well, let's allow fashion giant H&M; to show us:
Isn't it great? Diversity! Representation! Empowerment! Body acceptance! Third-wave Snark! Intersectionality!
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But also look at this:
"Nothing can start until workers get a living wage."
It sounds so simple, doesn't it. So why aren't these workers getting their dues? And shouldn't we be doing something about it?
Female textile workers in factories in the Global South are being kept in a perpetual state of extreme poverty by corporations who are appropriating feminist concepts of empowerment and diversity in an attempt to distract us – western consumers – from their poor practices. What's more, it's working.
Of course, we're not just talking about H&M.; It's Australian brand Gorman. It's Beyonce's brand Ivy Park. Brands owned and loved by women are contributing to this exploitation of workers across the Global South.
Could it be our brand of intersectionality (a term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 to refer to how different layers of privilege, discrimination and oppression intersect) isn't as intersectional as we'd like to think?
There is a problem with western feminism that goes beyond the usual "Look what white feminist Lena Dunham has said now!" theatrics, because it is one that even feminists of colour can be, and often are, complicit in. It's certainly not a problem caused by or specific to feminism, it's just that feminism as we know it today inevitably adopts it.
And that's the problem of how the west depends on the exploitation of others to exist in its current, relatively comfortable form.
The oppressions we see play out here, the ones we are so determined to stamp out – racial oppression, body shaming, gender oppression, disability, homophobia, and transphobia – these are all reflections of the larger oppression that drives them: the historical and ongoing capitalist exploitation of the Global South by the west.
The Global South refers to those countries we have variously called the "third world" or the "developing world" but which really should be known as "countries that have been subjected to European colonisation and imperialism."
The poverty and instability in these nations did not come about by accident or as a result of their own inferiority. Hundreds of years of being exploited for their labour and their resources has led us here.
"But colonialism is over!", I hear you say. How does this exploitation and oppression continue?
The fashion industry is just one avenue through which the west continues its exploitation of former colonies. When I write about this issue, I frequently get comments along the lines of:
"At least they have a job!"
"It's better than nothing."
And, my favourite: "Don't shame women with low incomes for buying cheap clothes."
Critiquing the exploitative practices of multi-million dollar corporations is now being interpreted as "shaming" individual people for existing and consuming in a capitalist economy. Yes, even feminists are now using the mantra of "choice" to minimise obvious injustice.
Have we become adept at applying "intersectionality" only when it suits us, when the challenge to our own behaviour is minimal? Are we too busy asserting our own identities to recognise broader needs?
If so, what is the point of identity politics?
Oppression is more than identification – it is group-based not individual based – although it does certainly affect individuals, and some individuals more than others.
For example. I am a Muslim. But I am not religious. I call myself a Muslim for the same reason I call myself a woman – not because I identify with these labels as such but because my experience of life has been largely dictated by being born in this body – what we call a "woman's body" – in an Arab/Muslim culture, and then transplanted to a western culture on the other side of the world.
The oppression I have experienced and may yet be subjected to is based on my body and where I was born. This cannot be erased by something like lack of faith, religious scepticism or gender politics.
Refusing to call myself a Muslim would not change the fact I am from a religion and nationality that is deeply distrusted and this distrust extends to me.
Refusing to call myself a Muslim would not have shielded me from Trump's Muslim travel ban. And make no mistake it was a Muslim ban. Yes, it ensnared others – no matter your religion, if you were a citizen of one of the seven unfavourable countries, you were banned.
What does this have to do with capitalism?
Even as we celebrate feminism and applaud increased diversity on our own fashion runways, we allow capitalism to appropriate our concepts of empowerment while they disempower the workers behind the scenes who – in entirely different countries – may be working in dire conditions for almost no money. And we seem to be OK with that, because those countries are poor and brown. And different.
We need to move beyond a superficial reading of intersectionality that presumes "inclusion" and "empowerment" of individuals are an end in themselves. Undoubtedly having more brown and black and Asian faces on Australian TV screens is desirable – but this, in and of itself, does not solve the problem of racism and oppression, because representation on our screens is only a symptom of a larger problem, rather than the problem itself.
Similarly, "empowerment" when it is appropriated by capitalism merely comes to mean feeling pleased and happy with yourself for making a particular choice, rather than ensuring that all women have equal access and opportunity to make choices.
What we need is a feminist movement that crosses borders – or preferably demolishes them – and truly recognises that oppressions ostensibly aimed at other groups and other countries can also affect us (including as beneficiaries of that oppression), which means, as Audre Lord said so magnificently, "I am not free when any woman in unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own."
For all of us as women to become free, to be truly liberated, requires us to refocus on systems of oppression – and our role in them – even as we acknowledge the importance of identity, and individual experience, and yes, representation.
We either do this or we allow our movement to become yet another tool of capitalism. Feminism cannot allow capitalism to continue appropriating its concepts without ultimately rendering them – and feminism itself – meaningless.
This was edited from a speech delivered at the Queen Victoria Women's Centre for International Women's Day.