Gender kaleidoscopes: Gender and intersectionalities in the dynamics of social relations

Abstract

In this work I propose to weave some considerations on gender determinants in the social relations dynamics, from a feminist perspective. However, I understand that in contemporary societies capitalism, sexism, racism, ageism, and lesbo/homophobia (among other oppression matrices) do no act separately. They are imbricated or in ‘symbiosis’ as oppression matrices that interlace and are mutually reinforcing and forging systems of stratification and oppression that intersect each other. In the same manner, gender, race, class and other difference markers and elements that constitute social relations do not act independently. These elements intersect and mutually modify each other, such that the respective categories of gender, race, class, and so on, are not autonomous. As such, we need to devise conceptual tools that allow us to identify and analyze how structures of privilege and oppression intersect each other at different levels in the daily women lives and in the construction of their identities. For this purpose, I work here with the notion of “gender kaleidoscopes”, which I believe can offer us a better basis to understand these processes.

Keywords

• Gênero e interseccionalidades
• Gênero na dinâmica das Relações Sociais
• Caleidoscópios de gênero.