Doing Intersectionality: Repertoires of Feminist Practices in France and Canada

Intersectionality has been adopted as the preferred term to refer to and to analyze multiple axes of oppression in feminist theory. However, less research examines if this term, and the political analyses it carries, has been adopted by women's rights organizations in various contexts and to what effect. Drawing on interviews with activists working in a variety of women's rights organizations in France and Canada, I show that intersectionality is only one of the repertoires that a women's rights organization might use to analyze the social experience and the political interests of women situated at the intersection of several axes of domination. I propose a typology of four repertoires that activists use to reflect on intersectionality and inclusiveness. Drawing on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the interview data, I show that hegemonic repertoires about racial or religious identity in one national context shape the way activists and organizations understand intersectionality and its challenges. The identity of organizations, as well as their main function (advocacy or providing service), also shape their understanding of intersectional issues.

Feminist Perspectives on Motherhood and Reproduction

Motherhood and reproduction have been at the core of the feminist discourse about women's rights ever since its onset. For the first and second feminist movements, the right to abortion and the public recognition of motherhood have been main issues in the discourse on reproduction. Since the last two dec- ades of the 20th century, the potentials of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) have opened up new venues of feminist discourse.In this paper we sketch the main feminist lines of argumentation regarding motherhood and reproduction since the 1970s, and we identify specific shifts in their recurrent issues. We argue that an essential contribution of feminism to the understanding of motherhood as a structuring category has been its insis- tence on the distinction between biological and social motherhood. Feminist discourse shows how ART has further decomposed biological motherhood and has altered the meaning of motherhood and reproduction. Feminist analysis maintains that despite the rhetoric of choice surrounding ART, these technolo- gies have not increased women's reproductive freedom. The decomposition of biological motherhood, the medical, legal, and commercial development of re- production, and the change in the social perception of motherhood have rather established new forms of control over female reproduction.

Interconnecting race and gender relations: racism, sexism and the attribution of sexism to the racialized Other

This article analyzes the way that attitudes about gender and race relations are interconnected. Based on a survey study conducted in Switzerland with a sample of 273 Swiss nationals (125 men and 148 women), it shows that the attribution of a higher level of sexism to "racialized Others" than to Swiss individuals is a racist process resulting in the justification and naturalization of the ordinary Swiss sexism seen in the gendered division of labor. However, this study also shows that the attribution of a higher level of sexism to the Other can be countered by simultaneously adopting both feminist and non-racist attitudes.