Okay not exactly, but while there’s some good ideas in there, the UTS Women’s Collective is a place of education and support for women and non-binary students passionate about social change. In a general sense, collectives are for people who share a common interest or common oppression to come together to organise and fight for justice and social change. In this case, UTS Women’s Collective is for all students who experience sexism, misogyny and oppression from the patriarchy as women or as non-binary persons. While the world has made some decent strides, gender-based discrimination and oppression remain woven into the fabric of our society.
At the core of the Women’s Collective is a Feminism by the brand of ‘Intersectional Feminism’. Kimberle Crenshaw, a law professor and a scholar on critical race theory, coined the term ‘intersectionality’ as a way to explain the oppression of African-American women. We all have multiple social identities, but intersectionality is a tool specifically for understanding the experiences of those with multiple marginalised social identities. It allows us to conceptualise how power collides and intersects in ways a singular analysis is unable to do.