1) In her essay, Crenshaw tells us that Anita Hill exists within the overlapping margins of gender and race discourse and in the empty spaces between and that this location contributes to black womens ideological disempowerment (403). How does Crenshaw locate the Hill- Thomas hearing as contributing to the erasure of Hill as a black woman? What sense does she make of the use of lynching as metaphor, and how does she trouble the use of the metaphor in relation to Hill? What forms of racial domination, does she suggest, remain invisibilized? Please select one passage which helps you to think about and answer this question. Consider how the passage does this, the argument made, and what you make of it.
2) What critique, or corrective, to both some common formations of feminism and anti-racism does Crenshaw articulate? To examine this question, you might consider the following quote: My argument here is that one consequence of the feminist movements tendency to think about gender power and dynamics in terms of what we might call a universalist or essentialist form is that it depicts the structural forms that gender power plays in the white community as representing gender pure and simple (407). What does Crenshaw mean? How does she make this argument in relation to Hill? What is the effect of a focus on gender in the white community, in relation to Hill and more broadly, according to Crenshaw? How does this same idea, or something quite similar to it, also emerge in some of her critiques of anti-racist formulations? Finally, how does this manifest in law?
For 300-400 words, both 1 and 2 need to be answered. I will attach the readings and powerpoint slide to help. At the end of the powerpoint slide, the questions are stated if you want to see them there.
