Intersectionality and Empowerment in Sapphire’s Push: Insights from Crenshaw’s Theory
Document Type
Presentation
Location
434 Hodges / Zoom Room A
Start Date
28-3-2025 1:05 PM
End Date
28-3-2025 1:25 PM
Description
Intersectionality and Empowerment in Sapphire’s Push: Insights from Crenshaw’s Theory
Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality provides a critical framework for understanding the compounded oppressions experienced by marginalized individuals specifically women of color. In Sapphire’s Push, Claireece Precious Jones, a 16-year-old Black girl in Harlem, navigates intersecting and oppressive systems of race, gender, class, and age-based discrimination, compounded by systemic neglect. This paper argues that Push critiques these oppressive structures while illustrating the transformative power of education and self-expression in reclaiming agency. Precious’s experiences with social systems such as education, welfare, and
healthcare expose the failures of these systems in addressing intersecting identities, perpetuating cycles of invisibility and oppression. Despite these barriers, the novel demonstrates how alternative spaces, such as Ms. Rain’s inclusive classroom, offer paths to empowerment through literacy and community support. Through Crenshaw’s lens, this analysis highlights the necessity of addressing interconnected forms of marginalizations, centering the voices of those at the margins, and creating spaces where their full and complex identities are recognized and valued. Push is more than Precious’s story, but it is a powerful call to rethink and reform social structures to include those most often excluded.
Intersectionality and Empowerment in Sapphire’s Push: Insights from Crenshaw’s Theory
434 Hodges / Zoom Room A
Intersectionality and Empowerment in Sapphire’s Push: Insights from Crenshaw’s Theory
Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality provides a critical framework for understanding the compounded oppressions experienced by marginalized individuals specifically women of color. In Sapphire’s Push, Claireece Precious Jones, a 16-year-old Black girl in Harlem, navigates intersecting and oppressive systems of race, gender, class, and age-based discrimination, compounded by systemic neglect. This paper argues that Push critiques these oppressive structures while illustrating the transformative power of education and self-expression in reclaiming agency. Precious’s experiences with social systems such as education, welfare, and
healthcare expose the failures of these systems in addressing intersecting identities, perpetuating cycles of invisibility and oppression. Despite these barriers, the novel demonstrates how alternative spaces, such as Ms. Rain’s inclusive classroom, offer paths to empowerment through literacy and community support. Through Crenshaw’s lens, this analysis highlights the necessity of addressing interconnected forms of marginalizations, centering the voices of those at the margins, and creating spaces where their full and complex identities are recognized and valued. Push is more than Precious’s story, but it is a powerful call to rethink and reform social structures to include those most often excluded.