Four Minute Lecture: Professor Gilda Rodríguez

Way back in the day, we at the Thrill used to do something called Four Minute Lectures, in which we’d get professors to talk about their research and interests for four(ish) minutes! We’ve decided to bring that feature back with Professor Gilda Rodríguez of the Women’s and Gender Studies department. Her research is focused on different organizations of gender and societal roles in cultures that the Western gaze would deem as “primitive” or “underdeveloped” (hint: the Western gaze is veeerryyy wrong). Anyway, I’ve done enough talking. Time to listen to Professor Rodríguez’s lecture! I 10000% promise you will learn something (and if you don’t, I will give you your money back). Enjoy!

Thank you, Michael “Webboi” Lahanas, for using the fancy film things to do the fancy filming and editing!

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Queer 101: The Importance of Intersectionality

~via contagiousqueer.com

~via contagiousqueer.com

Guess what, guys, gals, and nonbinary pals? ✿Queer 101✿ is back with a slightly more serious topic to discuss. Today, we’ll be talking about intersectionality. Intersectionality is an extremely important concept that hardly ever gets the attention it deserves. We’ll try to cover what it is, why we should talk about it, how we can talk about it, and how it affects the queer community specifically. Let’s get started.

What Is Intersectionality?

Intersectionality is the idea that all systems of oppression/discrimination are linked in some way and cannot be resolved separately from one another. For example, homophobia does not exist in a separate sphere from racism. The two forms of oppression affect and interact with each other in many different ways (i.e: a queer person of color can experience racism in the queer community while a white person cannot, and can experience homophobia in communities of color while a straight person cannot). Also, oppression doesn’t add; it multiplies. Different issues will multiply on top of each other in several different dimensions instead of operating on a this-plus-that-equals-this sort of system. Once we understand intersectionality, we can look at how different people experience oppression in many different ways.

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