Twelve Oberlin students attended the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition’s National Conference on Gender in Washington, D.C. last weekend. The three-day conference focused on the intersectionality of race and gender. More than 1,000 people attended the conference, according to GenderPAC Conference Manager Danny Baker.

The conference coincided with the 9th Annual Gender Lobby Day, which drew conference attendees to Capitol Hill to ask their congressmen to sign a diversity pledge.

The pledge, created by GenderPAC and the Human Rights Campaign, reads, “The sexual orientation, gender identity and expression of an individual is not a consideration in the hiring, promoting or terminating of an employee in my office.” Oberlin students visited the offices of Ohio Representative Steven LaTourette and Senator Mike Dewine. Both said they would consider signing the pledge.

Columbia and UCLA Law Professor Kimberly Crenshaw gave a keynote address on intersectionality. Crenshaw helped lay the foundation of the “Critical Race Theory” movement.

Crenshaw discussed different types of discrimination that result from the intersection of multiple identities. Crenshaw explored how intersectionality is largely invisible in political movements, which can marginalize intersectional experiences via over or under-inclusion.

Though she didn’t have any specific suggestions as to how to work towards the inclusion of intersectional identities, Crenshaw advised her audience to “ask the additional question, look critically, and challenge the groups that are in some way home for us, but remain exclusive.”

A plenary titled “Gendering Race/Racing Gender” followed Crenshaw’s address. Yale Law Professor Kenji Yoshino discussed the ways in which assimilation is not inclusive.

“There has been a generational shift in discrimination claims,” Yoshino said. “Targets of discrimination are increasingly not all members of the group, but of the subsets which refuse to cover.”
Covering is the notion that people should make certain aspects of their identities easy to ignore. Yoshino provided several examples of the demand for covering, including a case in which a black woman was fired for wearing cornrows.

Sylvia Rivera Law Project activist Dean Spade addressed the question, “How do we build a movement that works for the redistribution of money and power that works closely with the gender movement?” He advocated directing activist efforts primarily on the basis of need and the severity of discrimination as a means of combating institutionalization.

“This requires that we be uncomfortable and talk about our privilege, not a politics of feeling good,” Spade said. “We need to step aside and create a space, make an effort, not just take a position.”

The remainder of the weekend, which consisted of workshops, tables, and a second plenary, was riddled with these challenging questions. Speakers included Patricia Coleman, Michael Kimmel, Pat Griffen, James Dale, and Beverly Guy-Sheftall.

Workshops addressed topics such as Binaries as a Feminist Issue, Gender & Violence, Intersex: What is it and Why do we care, and Gendering Bodies: Sex and Desire. However, some Obies felt that the workshops lacked the structure necessary to foster productive discussion.

“I met some people in the workshops who had really interesting ideas and experiences to share,” sophomore Baraka Noel said. “I don’t feel like I gained as much from that as I could have.”
“It was frustrating to find people behaving defensively when it was suggested that their experiences might not be universal,” junior Ellen Szenes-Strauss said.

Most Obie attendees were glad they went though.

“Conferences like these bring people of like minds and goals into one space where they can give ideas, support, and motivation to keep fighting for what we believe in, and to see and meet the generations that have
gone before us,” first-year Sara Banks said.