Intersectionality as an EXPERIENCE.
Dear you,
I have BEEF with the way the intersectionality is often presented (sorry for the lack of preamble here - this conversation is just too important and so painfully overdue, I have no time for flowery beginnings - and yes it’s “BEEF,” not “a beef” - way more emphatic that way!). As a concept. A theory. Suggesting that a person who has suffered from not just one disadvantaged social marker, but several, and the idea that there is a compounding effect. That the effect of these markers is greater than the sum of the whole.
My beef with it is that the conversation so often doesn’t speak to the actual lived experience of this. What it is to live at the centre of these intersections. Where each roadway out - to the left, to the right, forward and back - holds no sense of belonging and safety.
It was completely and utterly devastating, is what it was like. Obliterating any sense of safety and belonging. Where others might have experienced a nightmare of a parent, or a horrific teacher, or husband, you could still walk around the world and find safety and belonging elsewhere, in another domain of their life. That was not my experience. Not at all. My experience was that nowhere was safe. Not home, not school, not on the street.
And what that does to a person. How my life became an orchestration of ways to mask who I really was to find safety and acceptance in the world. As if I had no direct access to the world, absent the orchestration. And the worst part, is this sense of self that sits beneath it all, simmering and alive, trapped beneath the orchestration.
What has made this whole scenario more challenging, is the lack of support in the world for it. To this day. The lack of appreciation that this is even happening. That the needs of someone with NO sense of safety and belonging is VERY different from a person that comes into this earth with a right to belong. And how, throughout my life, I’ve had to take bodies of work from coaching, self improvement, psychology, somatics and had to rework them, such that they made sense for someone like me. Which makes a whole lot of sense as these theories and bodies of work were designed by the those that belong. And didn’t take into account what might be needed if you come to the line without that basic ground of belonging.
Today, I come to the line with a direct voice to people like me who live the experience of intersectionality. Those who live and survive with a devastating lack of safety and belonging in the world. What I want you to know is this … you are not alone. I see you. I feel you. I feel your pain, and your loneliness. I know what it’s like to dare to dream and have hopes, needs, and wants that were not supported for you.
Dearest you, despite this feeling of lack of safety and belonging, know this:
You deserve safety anyways
You deserve to belong anyways
You deserve happiness and peace anyways
That there is a way home from here. Despite it all, there are many ways home to safety and belonging. There are many ways home to yourself.
And this really is what I’m here for. This is why I get up every day at 5 am. Why I persist with this blog. It is my highest calling to stand with you. To make offers of support that make sense and honour the unique needs of those, like me, who were not born into a sense of belonging.
I come to the line every day with the highest regard for you and your experience as a real person who has lived the real experience of intersectionality.
Dear you, always my highest wishes for your peace and happiness. Despite all the despites, peace and happiness to you always and anyways.
Dodie ❤️
P.S. Please share this with anyone you know that experiences multiple disadvantages. Please also share it with anyone in a position that ought to be considering the real experience of the intersectionality in the course of their work, and not just understand these this as a theory or concept.
P.P.S. This is blog #18! The Song of Now for this blog was “Sunrise” by Andrea Vanzo, an Italian pianist that I am obsessed with these days.