Intersectionality: As a Whole and with Haitian Women

Thinking up topics to look for articles to write about was a little bit of a process. I started off with the library database in order to find databases. It was a bit confusing at first, as I haven’t done much of this in previous classes I’ve taken, but I soon got the hang of it. I didn’t know what to look up at first so I tried to find articles on plants and romance, two things I can write for hours about. However, I couldn’t really find articles that I liked that were long enough so I settled with another topic I can also write for hours about: intersectional feminism. That was too specific of a search and it didn’t get me to where I wanted, so I backspaced a little and searched intersectionality on EBSCOhost. After scrolling a bit, I found this article which I found immensely interesting because I don’t really see many articles about Haiti, the country where my parents are from, so I ended up choosing this article.

         This article discusses what kind of impact the 2010 earthquake had on the women in Haiti. More specifically gender-based violence. Gender-based violence was being reported more and eventually classified as its own section of humanitarian disaster. One question this does bring up however, is were the amounts of violence the same as before the earthquake, but just more visible thereafter? The article even mentions a prevalent problem in Haiti’s culture revolving around musicians and the hold they have over political decisions, the title being a popular song about women’s rights and showing the opposite of that mentality with the political outcome he forced his hand with. The gender-based violence that Haitian women experience is being talked about more, and so is the discrimination being faced as being Haitian in general. The intersectionality that the article goes over more specifically is about the discrimination women experience and the racism that these women are also experiencing, coinciding to be what is essentially double the damage.

As someone who still has cousins and family living in Haiti, and in fact has lived there myself, for a number of years, seeing an article highlighting concerns I feel deeply myself was in some sort of way, self-gratifying. This an issue I feel that most people don’t see with Haiti, especially since Haiti hasn’t improved much after the earthquake, not when this article was written, and not now either despite the help my family here and there have done for the country. The president in Haiti that’s mentioned in the article I personally didn’t know much about, I learned more about in this article regarding his politics. While I can’t do much, being in America, I know I can spread this knowledge around and get more help for those living in Haiti. Intersectionality has gone through several different meanings, some of which not giving the word what it needs and deserves. Talking about intersectionality is good, as it opens the door for more discussions, and I’m glad that its becoming more mainstream and that more people know what it means, and how it affects people who are minorities in more than one way, like Haitian women who are experiencing both gender based violence, and the violence they would experience by also being black.

Schuller, Mark. “‘Pa Manyen Fanm Nan Konsa’: Intersectionality, Structural Violence, and Vulnerability Before and After Haiti's Earthquake.” Feminist Studies, vol. 41, no. 1, 2015, pp. 184–210. EBSCOhost, doi:10.15767/feministstudies.41.1.184.