Abstract
Intersectionality is a critical tool for understanding how socially constructed categories shape multiple dimensions of lived experience. In this study, we apply an intersectional lens to explore how women of color from two different contexts, Hyderabad, India and Chicago, Illinois, manage gendered forms of stigma and oppression as they converge with other devalued statuses, namely living with HIV or having a history of drug use or incarceration. Applying intersectional stigma as our conceptual framework, and drawing from transnational feminist perspectives, we identified two overarching themes. Women in both contexts combat stigma by employing strategies of concealment within their romantic and familial systems. Moreover, women’s roles as mothers were critical sources for managing their complex illnesses and for accessing support. Using these experiences of stigma against women of color as our analytic lens, we offer an intersectional framework for qualitative health research involving marginalized cisgender women of color in transnational contexts.
Keywords
Background
Intersectionality is a way of understanding the world as being shaped by multiple factors in mutually influencing ways (Cole, 2009; Collins & Bilge, 2016; Crenshaw, 1995). Intersectionality has helped denote how socially constructed categories interact to shape multiple dimensions of lived experiences, particularly for women of color (Collins, 2000), through the convergence of gender, race, sexuality, class, and other social categories. Intersectionality can be conceptualized as a “matrix of domination” in which identities based on social group membership interact with one another, creating life situations that are qualitatively different depending on one’s social position (Collins, 1990). Intersectional perspectives provide us with the possibility to focus not only on oppressed or dominated social groups and structures but also on the intersections of power and domination from an ethical and political standpoint (Śliwa et al., 2018). Intersectionality also connects positionality to the collective project of social inclusion.
Contemporary research has called for an expanded application of intersectionality (Villesèche et al., 2018) that goes beyond just the axes of race and gender to also examine relationships between other sources of oppression. Intersectionality is increasingly being viewed as a critical paradigm for advancing heath equity and social justice efforts to deconstruct how power and privilege interplay socially (Hankivsky, 2012).
The purpose of this study was to apply the conceptual framework of intersectionality to experiences of stigma and social exclusion of cisgender women of color. We utilize the social construct of intersectional stigma to explore the lived experiences of cisgender women of color in two contexts: Hyderabad, India and Chicago, the United States. Drawing from these two qualitative studies, we examine how intersectional stigma shapes cisgender women’s ability to access social supports and systems in their respective environments. By cisgender, we refer to those people who are “gender normals” (Schilt & Westbrook, 2009) in that they identify with the gender that they were assigned at birth. Alternatively, “transgender” is an umbrella term used to refer to people who may not identify with the gender that they were assigned at birth or consider themselves to be otherwise gender-nonconforming.
Intersectional Stigma
Goffman defined stigma as an attribute that transforms an individual “from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one” (Goffman, 1963, p. 3). Stigma refers to the devalued status that society attributes to a condition; it is a social process, characterized by exclusion, rejection, and shame (Scrambler, 2009). Research suggests that stigma strengthens and reproduces existing inequities of class, race, gender, and sexuality (Parker & Aggleton, 2003). Stigma can also have a dramatic bearing on key health outcomes, including psychosocial development, income, employment, and life span (Link & Phelan, 2001). Goffman’s conceptualization of stigma has been widely applied to various health and legal conditions, including mental illness (Byrne, 2000), physical disability (Green, 2003), HIV status (Earnshaw & Chaudoir, 2009), and criminal legal involvement (Bernburg et al., 2006). Nonetheless, further self-reflexivity may be needed “to ensure that the concept remains fruitful without being defused” into these myriad applications (Villesèche et al., 2018, p. 6). For the purposes of this study, we have chosen to focus on the intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality, illness, incarceration, and substance use to address their accompanying structural sources of oppression, namely racism, sexism, poverty, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia.
Intersectional stigma is a concept that draws on intersectionality theory to address the ways in which stigma is compounded by axes of identity and inequality (Berger, 2010). Women’s experiences with stigmatized behaviors and identities are uniquely shaped by various elements of their identities (Triandafilidis et al., 2017). Intersectional stigma can highlight how individual-level blame and shame interact with structural inequities at the micro-, mezzo-, and macro-levels of social interaction. Applying intersectionality to the experience of stigma allows us to capture these multiple stigmatized identities that are simultaneously experienced by women of color facing structural and interpersonal oppression and to characterize the convergence of these identities on their health and wellbeing (Turan et al., 2019). Experiences of intersectional stigma are also fundamental in shaping the coping strategies that are adopted (Logie et al., 2011) by women of color, although these issues remain inadequately addressed in current social science scholarship.
In this study, we sought to answer the research question: How do cisgender women of color navigate intersectional stigma? In addressing this question, we considered that one method of reconceptualizing social categories to better address intersectional research questions entails seeking sites of commonality across difference (Cole, 2009). In this effort, we bring together two studies, seemingly disparate in their sample composition and geographic location, but rich in their common experience of the intersectional stigma experienced by cisgender, heterosexual women of color in resource-constrained settings. We will focus our analyses on these cisgender women’s experiences of stigma within their families and communities and how these experiences are directly related to systems of oppression.
Our project explore themes of intersectional stigma among cisgender women of color in two qualitative studies. The first study explores the narratives of cisgender women living with HIV in Hyderabad, India, who have experienced stigma in regard to their HIV status, gender, and caste. HIV stigma stems from the disease’s association with behaviors and identities that have historically been deemed immoral, leading certain populations to experience exponential layers of stigma (Pulerwitz & Bongaarts, 2014). Research suggests that cisgender women living with HIV in India experience heightened stigma for their HIV status compared to their male partners, despite the fact that the majority of women become infected by their husbands (Mohite et al., 2015). This stigma is increased if women’s partners either abandon them or die, as stigma against both widows and single mothers is elevated in the south Indian context. The first study explores how women in Hyderabad chose whether or not to disclose their HIV status to their family members and the impact that intersectional stigma has on their role as mothers.
The second study focuses on the experiences of formerly incarcerated cisgender, heterosexual women of color living in Chicago. While previous research has focused on how individuals experience stigma as they interface with public service and social institutions (Livingston et al., 2012; Van Olphen et al., 2009), less empirical attention has been given to how informal support relationships also communicate stigma. Individuals with substance use disorders, the primary drivers of women’s criminal legal involvement, are highly stigmatized when seeking services and are often seen as dangerous and untrustworthy (Livingston et al., 2012). In the Chicago study, we explore how formerly incarcerated mothers perceive intersectional stigma within their families and intimate relationships. For these women, the stigma of having a substance use problem intersected with the stigma attached to being involved in the criminal legal system, as well as stigma attached to women’s tarnished identities as mothers (Sanders, 2014; Van Olphen et al., 2009).
Both groups share the oppressive impacts of living in poverty as women of color who have experienced complex illness and trauma and are often also mothers. Our inquiry seeks to illuminate how the creation of the social category of “women of color” contributes to the knowledge production about them (Cole, 2009). Women of color in Chicago were defined as women who were Black or Latina. Everyone in the India sample was by default considered to be a woman of color. The distinction in the usage and meaning of the moniker “women of color” in each context offers a point of reflection in our research. What unified these women was not so much their identification from others in their respective societies as women of color, but rather their marginalization within society as a result of their stigmatized statuses. In both the Chicago and Hyderabad samples, experiences of poverty compounded experiences of stigma associated with HIV status, substance use, survival sex, or criminal legal involvement. Survival sex is usually understood to be the exchange of sex for material support (Watson, 2011) when other options for economic livelihood or sustenance may be unavailable. Alternatively, sex work, particularly commercial sex work, is defined as the exchange of sex for material gains (Wahab, 2003) and usually implies a volitional choice made about engaging in sexual labor.
It is noteworthy that the way that socioeconomic status is defined in each sample also varied significantly. In the American context, socioeconomic status is largely conferred based on income and wealth. In the Indian context, socioeconomic status is most often categorized by occupation and caste. The majority of the women in the Indian sample hailed from lower socioeconomic castes. The caste system has often been theorized as being distinctly South Asian because of its connections to Hinduism and ancient South Asian traditions. Under this worldview, both past and present social positionalities in the universe are dependent on notions of karma, providing cosmic and spiritual justifications for socioeconomic status, both in terms of wealth and poverty. Traditional spiritual beliefs hold that individuals who belong to the Brahmin/priest class are wealthy as a result of meritorious actions that occurred either in current or previous lives, leading them to their privileged status in the socioeconomic hierarchy. Conversely, according to traditional beliefs, sudras, adivasis and dalits, all members of the lowest castes, and those most likely to be living in poverty also deserve their own life conditions, based on their experiences in this and previous lives. Dalits and other members of the lowest socioeconomic castes are part of a government classification system that categorizes them as scheduled castes (SC), scheduled tribes (ST), and other backwards classes (OBC), designations that afford members the option to run for reservations for elected seats on panchayats (local village councils), the ability to obtain affirmative action for reserved seats for university admissions and government jobs, and other social entitlements.
Members of scheduled or marginalized castes or groups, including dalits and Muslims, experience economic discrimination in numerous spheres of life in India. Research has documented the evidence of discrimination in the Indian urban labor market as a result of caste and religion, resulting in inequities in access to education, health care, and even the receipt of fair prices at shops (Thorat & Neuman, 2012). Rigid rules of avoidance of social interaction between members of “forward” or higher castes and “backward” or lower castes are somewhat analogous to rules of racial segregation that persist among Black and White communities in the context of the United States (U.S.). While at the outset, the caste system appears to be dissimilar from race relations in the U.S., sociological analyses have demonstrated that the two systems are actually quite similar in function, despite differences in content (Berreman, 1960; Wilkerson, 2020). Social science research that emphasizes how structure and process are revealed across different modes of social stratification may be more useful than the conventional emphasis on differences in cultural context.
Our analysis draws from transnational feminist perspectives that advocate for disrupting oppression and advancing liberation in global and diverse cultural contexts (Enns et al., 2020). Transnational feminism highlights the structural factors that create and maintain power hierarchies, colonialism, and global capitalism (Grewal & Kaplan, 1994). Core themes regarding transnational feminism emphasize reflexivity and positionality; intersectionality in transnational perspectives; inclusive definitions of global and transnational feminisms; transnational border-crossing practices; agency and resistance in global perspectives; decolonization of theory, knowledge, and practice; egalitarian collaboration and alliance building; and theories and practices that support critical consciousness and social change (Enns et al., 2020). Given that two distinct samples are being compared in this study, we will first describe the methods for the Hyderabad study, then the methods for the Chicago study. The same semi-structured interview guide was not used across both studies and this may have implications for the analysis of our findings.
Methods
Hyderabad Study
In the first study, we explore themes of stigma from interviews conducted with 16 cisgender women living with HIV in Hyderabad, India. Inclusion criteria for this study were as follows: (1) self-report as being HIV-positive, (2) residence in Hyderabad or Secunderabad, India, (3) proficiency in speaking Hindi/Urdu or Telugu, and (4) being between the ages of 18 and 50 years (Azhar et al., 2020, 2021).
Recruitment
Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were utilized to recruit study participants. Participants were recruited through existing collaborations with five local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) serving individuals living with HIV in Hyderabad. To recruit from these organizations, a local research assistant posted flyers in Hindi and Telugu at the field sites of the NGOs. The research team visited each of the four organizations to recruit potential participants. We had ongoing collaborative relationships with local advocacy efforts within these organizations throughout the duration of the research study. Interviews were completed by both the principal investigator and a research assistant. To include those women who were not currently connected to social service organizations, the team additionally utilized snowball sampling.
Language of interviews
Interviews were conducted in both Hindi and Telugu. To ensure translation accuracy and internal consistency, all relevant documents, including flyers and consent forms, were translated from English to both Hindi and Telugu and then back-translated to English. Respondents who were illiterate provided informed consent by utilizing a thumb print as their signature—a commonly accepted legal practice in India.
Incentives
All participants who completed the interview were compensated 200 Rupees (equivalent to about ~USD3.14 at the time of data collection). This amount was determined after consulting with local staff members at community-based organizations on fair incentives for research at that time. If a participant assisted in recruiting other individuals through snowball sampling, the recruiter received an additional incentive of 100 Rupees per completed referral.
Data collection and analysis
Interviews lasted about 90 minutes. The interview guide was organized around eight domains: (a) gender roles; (b) gender nonconformity stigma; (c) HIV diagnosis; (d) HIV disclosure; (e) HIV stigma; (f) caste, poverty, and religion; (g) utilizing medical care; and (h) social isolation and depression. All interviews were digitally audio recorded and then subsequently translated and transcribed directly into English. Transcripts of the interviews were imported into the data analysis program, NVivo 10 (QSR International, 2012) for coding, using content analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Identified codes were placed in broad groupings; codes under each heading were clubbed together; and content were analyzed for common and differentiating themes. A team of three coders engaged in an iterative process of regrouping and recategorizing codes as the process of data analysis ensued. Quotes or passages have been selected to illustrate the resulting themes from this coding process (Guetzkow, 1950).
IRB compliance
An Institutional Review Board (IRB) application was approved by the University of Chicago in September 2015 and by the Internal Ethics Committee at our partner research organization, SHARE India in Secunderabad, India in November 2015. All participants’ names and other identifying details were changed in this manuscript to protect their confidentiality.
Chicago Study
In the second study, we explore themes of stigma experienced by 23 cisgender Black and Latina women living in Chicago. Inclusion criteria included (a) being 18 and older, (b) having a previous incarceration experience, (c) having a substance use problem of any nature; and (d) being a mother (Gunn & Canada, 2015; Gunn et al., 2018).
Recruitment
Before recruitment commenced, the principal investigator established a relationship with staff and clients at the community-based organization (CBO) by spending 9 months volunteering in various ways, including facilitating program workshops and engaging in community events. Through these efforts she sought to develop trust and begin to build rapport and community with interlocutors. This also allowed the investigator to develop insights regarding the issues impacting formerly incarcerated women. After developing a community partnership and with the permission of the CBO, the interview guide was pilot tested to assess and refine questions based on feedback from participants. After these engagement processes, flyers were posted throughout the treatment facility. The study goals, background, and specific aims were presented in group meetings and psychoeducational workshops.
The study’s purpose was to explore women’s lives as they reenter their families and communities post-incarceration, during their simultaneous recovery from substance use. During the recruitment stage, the investigator explained, both verbally and in writing, the aspects of the study and that participation was voluntary. Participants were asked to sign a written consent form, detailing study risks and benefits. All research participants received an incentive of USD30. The process of building rapport with the CBO and gaining insights into the organizational culture was critical to confirm or disconfirm data interpretation through member checking.
Data collection and analysis
Interviews lasted from 65 to 80 minutes. The data used in this analysis were part of a larger study, conducted between May 2012 and December 2012, of mothers completing their prison sentences in a residential substance use treatment program. The aims of the study were to explore how women navigated and accessed support from their communities, peers in recovery, and intimate relationships post-incarceration. For the purposes of this study, the research team explored themes related to how mothers experience intersectional stigma through structures of oppression. Data analysis was performed using content-based thematic analysis, an iterative process for reviewing and coding transcribed data to identify key themes and patterns.
Coding proceeded in a multiple-prong process that was both deductive and inductive. The coding process began with a priori list of potential codes, derived from the parent study and previous research findings exploring women’s reentry. However as the analytic process unfolded, new codes were developed and earlier initial codes were dismissed and replaced with nuanced ones that captured the complexities of intersecting identity oppression.
After multiple initial reads of the transcripts, open line-by-line coding was conducted to reduce the data into manageable chunks. Next, the constant comparison method was used to examine earlier codes against emerging codes, collapsing, and eliminating redundant codes that did not prove to be the most salient or attuned to emerging findings. Coding often involves keeping the action-oriented nature of data (Charmaz, 2006), thus emerging codes were constructed in the form of acts, such as Partially Concealing Stigmas, Becoming a Bad Mother, Embodying an Addict, Being Non-Marriageable, Categorizing and Trumping Stigmas, and Resisting Multiple Stigmas (Charmaz, 2006). Coding was aided by the use of the qualitative analysis software program, NVivo 10 (QSR International, 2012). The analysis was expanded and interrogated in the second level of analysis.
Early in the process, peer researchers collaborated on the coding process to discuss emergent themes. The meetings were a time for reviewing de-identified transcripts, discussing contrasting views on themes, and identifying new codes that had not previously been developed. Once a refined code list was created, the research team coded the remainder of the interviews while consulting periodically with peers to discuss emergent findings. By engaging in member checking to assess the emerging analysis, as well as prolonged engagement in the field and participation in periodic peer debriefings, the team sought to promote trustworthiness in the analytic process (Padgett, 2016).
IRB compliance
All research methods were approved by the IRB at the University of Chicago in early 2012. To protect the confidentiality of participants, all names used in both studies were pseudonyms. Any other potentially identifying information was also removed to protect the participants’ confidentiality.
Analyses Across Studies
Semi-structured interview guides were used to structure interviews in both Hyderabad and Chicago. The interview guide for the Hyderabad project (titled Hyderabad Interview Guide) and for the Chicago project (titled Chicago Interview Guide) are available in the appendix of this article. After each investigator independently coded their respective interviews for themes, we compared themes across both studies to identify similarities and differences. Over the course of multiple iterations, we used coding families to facilitate our theoretical coding process and assess how the substantive codes related to each other to formulate deepened conceptualizations (Glaser & Strauss, 2017).
The researchers grouped codes by the contexts in which cisgender women of color perceive stigma and the conditions that shaped how they managed them. While this analysis extends beyond the scope of this article, some conditions and contextual factors shaping perceptions of stigma include whether or not the stigma was visible or known to the perceived stigmatizer or whether the recipient could control the level of disclosure. Another contextual factor was whether relational partners witnessed the stigmatized person’s struggles with the socially devalued identity trait, as their linked lives and histories also shaped their experiences with stigma within the relationship. Mistrust and shame interlocked in relational systems due to the constrained choices available to the holders of these stigmatized identities. Moreover, in efforts to prevent circular reasoning, the authors collectively shared codes and themes to identify commonalities, as well as reflect on the themes that contrasted with developing theoretical understandings.
It is noteworthy that there is a clear differential in the amount of the incentives that were used in the Hyderabad study (USD3.14) versus the Chicago study (USD30). As such, we wanted to acknowledge that these amounts are roughly similar in terms of local purchasing power in their respective regions. In addition, we wanted to acknowledge that researchers must observe local economic conditions and provide appropriate incentives to participants. Therefore providing an incentive of USD30 in the Indian context would likely have been inappropriate. Nonetheless, it did strike us that even in the provision of financial incentives for research participation, the disparities between the socioeconomic conditions of women living in industrialized contexts, like the United States, are substantially different from those of women living in developing contexts, like India, themes which we hope to further address in the analysis of our findings. For the Hyderabad study, an additional IRB approval was made by Fordham University in October 2018 for continued data analysis of study findings. For the Chicago study, IRB approval was also received for continued secondary data analysis.
Reflexivity
Our own identities should also be explored as they may have involved implicit biases of which we may not be fully aware. The first author identifies as an Indian, Muslim American female social worker, who shared with her participants the identity of having ancestry and current family in Hyderabad. The second author identifies as a Black American women from a background community of origin, facing allied experiences with drug disorders, concentrated poverty, hyper-incarceration and over-policing. As such, our auditing process consisted of engaging in reflective memos where we explored how our own social positions of marginality shaped our research process.
Results
Across both samples, cisgender women managed intersectional stigma within their families and intimate relationships in similar ways. We identified two overarching themes across both samples. First, women in both contexts safeguarded against stigma by employing strategies of concealment within their familial and community systems. Second, the role of women who were mothers were affected by the absence or death of a male partner or compromised by the woman’s criminal legal involvement, leading them to have tarnished experiences as mothers.
Concealing Stigmatized Identities
For women living with HIV in Hyderabad, a common theme was refraining from sharing one’s HIV status within the family or within social circles to protect from the experience of shame or rejection. For example, the following participant, Harsha, stated why she chose not to disclose her HIV status to her family: If I tell all the people [in my family], my disease will not improve and they will start asking questions . . . I did not disclose my HIV status with my in-laws. If I tell them, they will not allow me to come into their house . . . If people know that I have HIV, they will keep away. That is the reason I don’t want to tell anyone.
Fears of being socially excluded or experiencing other forms of social marginalization, even within the privacy of the family setting, are often the prompts for the decision to keep one’s HIV status a secret. Although some women chose to disclose their HIV status to their family members, they were often met with rejection and social isolation. Given the importance that family honor plays in South Asian collectivist culture, rejection from one’s family could lead to feelings of inadequacy, shame, and ostracization.
These feelings of feared isolation were amplified for women as social roles conferred gendered expectations for women to be the carriers of family honor. From an intersectional perspective, the positionality of our participants within a matrix of domination confers a different experience than if she had been male, had a higher socioeconomic status, or had independent income. These interrelated or interlocking systems (Case & Rios, 2016) of sexism, poverty, access to medical care, and HIV stigma shaped women’s lives in intimate ways. This can be noted as Smita struggles with disclosing her HIV status to her family: My mother kept away for a few days after I disclosed my HIV status. She was afraid that she would also be infected. When I purchased vegetables and I was cutting them, she used to tell me to not cut the vegetables because she was worried I would cut my finger and everyone in the house would get the disease. Even my mother kept me away for a few days. She did not allow me to do any work at home. She was afraid that she would get infected with the disease . . . I have shared with my children and my in-laws that I have HIV, but my neighbors and distant relatives do not know. They should not know my problems. Maybe once we are in a good position, I will tell them.
This passage highlights how HIV impacts women differentially, depending on their socioeconomic position and family status. Smita’s alluding to a “good position” may refer to getting a better job, having more income, being more financially stable, or feeling less emotionally burdened by her health status. Smita believes that being in such a position would buffer her from marginalizing experiences resulting from her HIV status. The gendered division of labor within the home makes Smita feel less useful as she is unable to complete her expected gender roles of cooking and housework.
Other women avoided telling anyone their HIV status at all for fear of negative consequences following disclosure, namely that their familial relationships would be irreparably damaged: How will people react? We don’t know, madam. That is the reason I do not want to share my status with new people. If someone knows our character, they will understand that I did not do anything wrong. Otherwise people will think, “She did a wrong thing and that is why she got this disease.” That is what they will say. When we know how we got this, why should we tell others? We are working and thriving. Why should we bother with what others think, madam?
This question poses an interesting paradox as she reports that she is not bothered by what other people think, but her decision not to disclose her HIV status to family members reveals that she cares about the opinions of others and their potential value judgments toward her if they knew her HIV status. Therefore, we might view the decision to not reveal one’s HIV status to family or community members not as an action that warrants change, but rather as a conscientious decision to protect one’s safety, honor and respect.
As the result of experiencing multiple systems of oppression and their accompanying gendered expectations, women living with HIV in Hyderabad consistently reported feeling overwhelmed by their life circumstances: If my mother-in-law comes, there is tension. If the children come home, I have to make something for them. That is another tension. If the water tanker comes, I have to fill drinking water. That is another tension. If we have any debts, we have to pay money. That is another tension. They [men] have tension only in money matters. Only women have all the money tension plus housework tension plus office tension. We will do everything for them in the home, so they don’t have to worry about anything in the house.
This narrative speaks to the structural oppression that women with marginalized statuses experience from multiple sources. In this case, the participant alludes to the impacts of experiencing both poverty and a patriarchal system of gender roles that create a clear division of labor within the household. She lives in a resource-constrained environment in which she is expected to solely assume all the responsibilities of parenting and cleaning, without the help of her partner or other family members. The intersectional ways in which HIV stigma manifests for her complicates her experience in ways that are distinct from both men and from people with higher socioeconomic status.
In the Chicago study, women with experiences of incarceration and substance use also often concealed these experiences, particularly within the context of romantic relationships. For women with intersecting experiences of substance use and incarceration, the anticipation of stigma from a partner posed a threat to full disclosure in intimate relationships. As a consequence, participants opted to partially conceal past experiences related to their criminal legal involvement that they deemed to be more stigmatizing than others. This process of selectively disclosing stigmatizing identities is evident in the following story: If I told him, I’d be someone to watch out for, someone who may steal, as if I can’t be trusted. I don’t want that in our relationship. He knows I have been incarcerated, sure, but not that I have been forging checks . . . I mean what would he think of me? We want to have kids. What kind of mother would he think I can be to his kids? Could I be trusted? He knows I am in treatment for marijuana, but forging checks is a whole ‘nother level. That’s a whole ‘nother level. I’m trying to change my life, have a family. I’m not even the same woman. I’m not one of those women that can’t be trusted. He may think I’d steal from him. Who wants to marry a woman like that? You know what they say, “Once a thief . . . ”
This participant is a Black mother in her early 30s, who is currently engaged in drug treatment after being incarcerated for 11 months for forgery. She is in a romantic relationship with a partner that has never been incarcerated. Although her partner is aware of her challenges with marijuana use, she has not informed him of the details regarding her incarceration, particularly that she had a forgery charge. For this participant, marijuana use carries less stigma and is less threatening to her relationship than disclosing the details of her criminal involvement. However, disclosing her forgery charge scripts her as an undesirable woman. This is likely because perceptions of criminality attached to theft intersect with gendered notions of womanhood, tarnishing her ability to embody the role of a good woman and a good mother. Thus, selective concealment became a viable strategy of resistance for participants to protect themselves against greater levels of stigma and to navigate romantic relationships as they try to reconstruct their lives.
Theft or crime were not the only experiences women deemed to be too stigmatizing to disclose with burgeoning intimate relationships. Sex work and survival sex were also experiences that women considered to be too shameful to reveal within their intimate relationships. Other participants chose to conceal their past experiences to safeguard against threats of intersectional stigma. The following narrative is from a Latina mother in her 30s with three children and an extensive past of both crack cocaine use and survival sex. She has been in treatment for 16 months and she has been in her current romantic relationship for 9 months. While her partner knows she is in substance use treatment for her addiction to crack cocaine, she has not revealed to him that she used to “sell her body.” We see this complex process of managing intersectional stigma here: He knows I was incarcerated and how long. He even know how many times . . . I kind of told him my past and about the drugs, but not all the way. I didn’t talk about the prostitution too because I don’t feel like nobody need to know all my past. Past is my past. That’s for me to know. I don’t want my boyfriend thinking I’m still a whore or that I will cheat on him or that I’m dirty. That’s not me anymore.
This passage reveals the value judgments that are internally made when a woman sees one stigmatized identity (survival sex) to be more socially devalued than another stigmatized identity (criminal legal involvement), leading her to partially conceal her past experiences to protect her burgeoning self-esteem and social worth. The participant described her past involvement in survival sex throughout the interview as her vehicle for supporting crack cocaine dependence. While she sees herself now as changed, the stigma attached to engaging in survival sex is so enduring that she feels reluctant to disclose this piece about her history. Instead, she chooses to safeguard her burgeoning recovery identity from greater stigmatization. She believes that if her boyfriend knew about her past, he would see her as “dirty” and as someone who may be not sexually faithful. In this context, survival sex or sex work is understood as a reflection of a woman’s character—an indicator that she is a “whore” who cannot be trusted and whose body is permanently tainted. The anticipated shame attached to survival sex converges with gendered norms of womanhood and sexual purity, creating experiences of intersectional stigma that are more debilitating than the singular stigma of having an illicit drug problem or the singular stigma of engaging in survival sex. Intersectionality does not prescribe what the resulting social transformation should look like to address these structural issues of oppression for women. However, intersectional perspectives do push us to identify the interconnections between the social structures that create these forms of social oppression and the ideologies that continually reproduce them (Collins, 2019).
This excerpt is also indicative of how stigma can reinforce gendered oppression as stigma relegates already marginalized and impoverished women to statuses of devalued beings. The sources of this intersectional stigma are the normative views of what constitutes proper womanhood and what constitutes worthiness for being loved. It is this process of experiencing social devaluation due to the convergence of these tarnished statues which renders the participant unable to fully disclose her past experiences. Her belief that she was once a “whore” and therefore socially undesirable, a “sexually loose” woman, is evidence of how socially oppressive constructions of devalued womanhood become internalized. She is proactively deciding which aspects of her lived experiences to disclose in efforts to protect her recovery status and cope with the multiple stigmas she must simultaneously navigate.
As evidenced by the narratives in both these studies, women attempt to take control of their narratives by limiting both the information they disclose and the people to whom they disclose them. These acts serve as protective, survival tactics against further maltreatment. For women living with HIV in India, experiences with illness are integrally linked with familial systems in ways that have created relational shame and mistrust, entailing both experienced and anticipated stigma. For women with criminal legal involvement in Chicago, when the ability to conceal stigmatized identities was not an option, women still actively resisted multiple sources of overlapping stigmatization in efforts to safeguard against relational shame and mistrust.
Absent or Tarnished Mothering
Another central theme across both studies was how intersectional stigma shaped women’s navigation of experiences of absent or tarnished mothering. In the Hyderabad study, almost of the cisgender women living with HIV in the sample were mothers, and often single mothers, whose experiences with stigma were intensified by living in poverty or having been widowed. Whether or not their partners were still alive or present in their lives, women consistently felt a differential responsibility (over the father of their children) to serve as their children’s primary caretakers. If her partner left her or had died from AIDS, she also often assumed the sole role of financially carrying the household. For example, Deepa notes, I am the only person who is earning money in our family. With one salary, we three have to eat and we have to fulfill our needs. That is the only problem I have. When we have money, we will eat. When we don’t have money, we will sleep with empty stomachs. We will adjust ourselves with our situation.
Viewed through the lens of intersectionality, the experience of being the sole breadwinner for the family and the only caretaker for her children entails experiences of deep poverty for Deepa. The convergence of marginalized social identities create a qualitative experience for her that is unique from women who are not living with HIV or lower caste men. She reflects on her experiences of struggling through poverty with multiple children: A woman has more responsibilities than men have, and women work more than men do. If a woman’s husband is not there, she will need to get a job and she will also do work at home. She can take care of her children. She will ensure that her children are educated. She will make sure her children get married. We need to see that a woman’s role is most important. Men are just not as responsible as women. If her husband dies, a woman will take care of her children and she will pay attention to her children, but she will not marry again. If a husband’s wife dies, he will marry again immediately and his new wife will focus on his children.
For women in this study, the responsibility of fulfilling the gendered role of a responsible mother and nurturing caretaker became the primary identity. Other life concerns become wedded to one’s ability to complete (or failure to complete) this maternal function. Due to social stigma against female widows, the option of remarrying is also unlikely. Deepa describes her everyday responsibilities as such: I will work till evening and I will leave from the office around 5:30 or 6:00 in the evening again. After going home, I will cook food for dinner and I will plan for the next day’s schedule . . . I have to do this . . . This is my responsibility because we don’t have any support. I am the only one who can take care of my daughter. I need to earn money for everything that I have to take care of. I love my daughter very much, so I can do everything for her . . . My husband died five years after we got married. I got married at a young age. At that time, I did not even know what a husband is, what a family is . . . What is a widow’s life? It is very difficult to live in society without a husband . . . When my husband died, I felt so much tension because today my husband died and tomorrow I will die. Then what will happen to my daughter? When I think about this, I feel so much tension.
Marital status emerges as a primary identifier for Indian women’s social position. For those women who had been widowed when their partners died of AIDS, the impacts of these multiple systems become almost unbearable. Another participant faces similar burdens of taking care of her family on her own. Her financial and resource constraints are the result of the intersections of her gender, health, and socioeconomic status: I have a lot of responsibilities. Since my husband’s death, I have been alone. I have to do all the work. I have to take care of my children. I cook food for the children, send them to school with their lunches. I come here to work until the evening and when I return home, I take care of my mother-in-law. She stays with me . . . I’ve been working outside the home, earning money. Everyone assumes, “She is fine. She is eating well. She isn’t suffering without her husband.” But they do not realize that I have my own problems.
This interlocutor not only operates consistently on a limited budget, she also lacks the resources and social capital that would be available to her if she were an upper caste woman, with or without HIV, or a married woman. While it appears to others that this participant has navigated experiences of intersectional stigma well, internally she still has her “own problems,” which she may conceal from others to avoid further social stigmatization.
In the Chicago study, women with criminal legal involvement were also incapable of fulfilling a socially defined mothering role, often as a result of the interweaving experiences of poverty, state-level criminal legal involvement, and substance use. The previous participant, Delila, was a mother of three in Chicago whose own mother served as the primary caregiver for her two eldest children. She reported that her addiction history marked her not only “permanently an addict,” but also a woman who is unable to embody gendered expectations of motherhood: My mom always talking stuff about me and I think that’s the reason why I went into drugs, because I felt like my mom was never there for me. She always used to say I was just like my drugged-out father. So now I’m trying to show her that I’m not that person no more. I’m not on drugs no more . . . I’m not a bad mother. When I was doing drugs, I really didn’t care about nothing, not my kids, no one. All I cared about was getting the next one [drugs] . . . But I want to live now. Since I’ve been clean from drugs, I have a clear mind and I want to be a good mother, but my mom still tells my kids I’m no good. I love my kids and I’m not that person no more. I know she tells my kids, “Your mom’s not good for you.” I have had to tell my daughter that is not true. It is very important to me that they know I have changed and I love them . . . My father was on drugs for as long as I can remember and wasn’t around. So when I dropped out of high school it was like, “You’re just like your dad.” I have been in and out of the system for drugs and prostitution, but I am showing my mom I’m getting my life together. That is not me anymore and I will show her.
In this passage, we see that Delila faces stigma even as she pursues a recovered identity and actively engages in her roles as a caretaker and a mother. To her own mother, her past substance misuse violated norms of acceptable motherhood and tarnished her ability to be seen as a changed woman. She admits that when she was embedded in her substance use, “she cared about nothing” and her children were not her priority. Consequently, as she now seeks to repair her bonds with her children, she must also actively work to resist the judgments and stigmas that threaten her relationship with her children.
Her passage also demonstrates how family members who play critical roles in parenting add another level of complexity to a woman’s ability to progress through recovery. Women must often navigate stigmatization and shame within their own familial systems in efforts to receive the support they need to ultimately restore their relationships with their children or with society at large. Even as her mother tells her children that she “is no good,” she must continue to engage in this relationship with the hopes of eventually repairing relational trust with both her mother and her own children.
Her story is also indicative of how state-sanctioned, structurally oppressive forms of surveillance and punishment, through incarceration, have become enduring mechanisms for addressing complex illness and addiction. Intersectional perspectives help identify the consequences of social location for Delila within a matrix of oppression (Case & Rios, 2016). She has been incarcerated several times for offenses ranging from possession of a controlled substance to solicitation. She reports that her dependence on crack cocaine stems from childhood experiences of parental loss and weak social support from her mother, in the wake of her father’s absence and addiction. The criminalization of substance use and poverty continue to structurally threaten women’s reentry, even as they actively seek to reestablish their lives.
Across both studies, we see structural oppression limit the ways in which women are able to embody their gendered roles as mothers and caretakers. In the Chicago study, state intervention and surveillance juxtaposed with gendered poverty and oppression debilitate women’s ability to parent, both before and after incarceration. Another respondent, Pamela, a Black woman with three young children, discusses the ways in which being a single mother has shaped her ability to support her children and her past involvement in selling drugs leading up to her incarceration: My mom gets on me too, “You shouldn’t have went to jail. You shouldn’t have been out there selling them drugs. You ain’t no man. What about your kids?” Men sell drugs all the time. Are we saying what about their kids? I am expected to get it all together and take care of my kids when I come out. I was expected to take care of them without help before I went in. But you’re not supporting me. Me and my kids can’t even come and stay your house if we had to. I know it’s not the right thing for us to do. But if we can’t find decent jobs and you all want us to work these minimum wages, how do you all expect us to be able to afford to take care of these babies? We are coming out, many with felonies. We are being set up to fail. We are discriminated against. You’re not really giving us no other choices.
Like other interviewed women, Pamela’s history with substance use is gendered. However, unlike Delila, selling drugs is often constructed as a crime in which only men engage. She faces stigma not just because she engaged in criminal activity, which itself violates norms of proper womanhood, but also because she sold drugs, which further defies expectations of femininity and white female fragility. These stigmas converge with expectations of proper mothering to paint Pamela as a tarnished woman. The gendered expectations that she experiences prevent her from receiving critical supports for herself and her children.
Her narrative also highlights the systemic barriers which impede women’s ability to successfully reenter post-imprisonment. It is clear she is well aware of the gendered barriers she faces, and she actively resists the individual-focused narrative of failure by recognizing the ways in structural discrimination unfairly constrains choices for already vulnerable women. Formerly incarcerated women are often expected to take up the responsibilities of parenting in ways that their male counterparts are not. The responsibilities of parenting can become a burden when the stigmatized status of “felon” intersects with the stigmatized status of “poverty” to shape intersectional experiences of employment discrimination. These challenges not only constrain women’s capacity to parent, but also limit women’s choices and ability to successfully desist.
A Black mother in the Chicago study discusses how the gendered division of labor creates challenges for formerly incarcerated women that their male counterparts do not face: We’re supposed to be the ones that are taking care of the kids, being there for them to hear their needs. We’re supposed to be that example for our children regardless. At the end of the day, we’re supposed to be the ones that take care of those kids . . . I mean, men can just go live with the next girl, get with a good woman, and they can get taken care of. We can’t just come home and work on our own needs, getting a job. We have to think about our kids. We are the one depended on. Men come home and don’t face that . . . And if I relapsed, they automatically take your child. They just automatically want to rip something from you that’s your world. They say your child should be more important than your drug.
In this excerpt, the participant remarks on the differential caregiving responsibilities placed upon formerly incarcerated women. She discusses this experience as a kind of emotional labor, work that involves not just being physically and financially present, but being psychologically supportive to “hear their needs.” This multi-layered set of responsibilities can become challenging when women also face their own physical, psychological and structural challenges following reentry from jail/prison. This participant juxtaposes this against the experiences of formerly incarcerated men, who she believes are held less responsible for family caregiving and who may also be able to readily receive help from romantic partners.
Research supports this participant’s perception that women with incarceration experiences face nuanced barriers to accessing romantic support upon reentry due to the gendered oppressions which constrain their ability to “marry up” or secure a financially stable partner in the same way that their male counterparts can (Rodermond et al., 2017). Due to gendered expectations, women are held to higher standards of purity, innocence and proper caregiving (Sanders, 2014) making experiences of incarceration and drug use violations of normative, gendered behaviors. Conversely, males are more readily able to partner with “pro-social individuals,” meaning those who do not have criminal legal involvement and have been able to more successfully navigate the job market, serving as a buffer against reincarceration for men.
Paradoxically, while this participant believes men are able to receive gendered, caretaking support from women, she also discusses the ways in which men seek to still uphold norms of masculinity and independence. To this participant, rigid constructions of masculinity may protect, or rather strip, men from the gendered expectations of caretaking, as formerly incarcerated men are often expected to focus on “their own needs” of finding employment and becoming financially stable, which aligns with gendered expectations of the financial independence expected of men. Conversely, women with criminal legal involvement were expected to be the primary caretakers of their children while also attempting to re-enter the workforce and recover from substance dependence. For women of color, this convergence of social issues presents multi-faceted challenges within complex systems, including the monitoring women face from child welfare systems who can dissolve their parental rights in the case of relapse.
Additional themes were common across both samples of women. We find that women are often held responsible for their own “vulnerability”—in gendered ways that are unique from the treatment of their male partners. As Dworkin (2005, p. 617) reminds us, the “discourse of vulnerability is infused into discussions of heterosexually-active women’s HIV risks but not those pertaining to heterosexually-active men’s.” Epidemiological classifications, like “high risk,” for women who are seen to be vulnerable to either HIV infection, incarceration or recidivism are designations which create structure and define the meanings associated with gendered and sexualized vulnerability (Treichler, 1999). Because men are often socially constructed as being violent, aggressive, unconcerned with partner needs, unable or unwilling to control their bodily urges, and in need of multiple sexual partners, it is telling that these markers of vulnerability are not applied more frequently to discussions of heterosexual men (Dworkin, 2005). Class, caste and race play fundamental roles in structuring risk. An exclusive focus on only one axis of social categorization, such as gender, may erase these nuances.
Intersectional Social Location and Reflexivity
Each researchers’ philosophical paradigm and the relevant assumptions with which she analyzes data will inevitably affect the resulting findings (Bowleg, 2008). Our studies are certainly not exempt from our own biases. As such, we practice an ongoing process of reflexivity to challenge our own biases and positions of power. Both researchers share the gender and racial/ethnic identities of their study participants. As women of color, we also navigate the pernicious effects of gender oppression and sexualized degradation in our own lives. However, we also hold positions of differential power compared to our research participants, particularly as this relates to the privilege of being educated within and now teaching at predominantly White, research-intensive institutions in the United States. Both researchers bring their experiences in clinical practice and community activism to bear in their use of anti-oppressive methods of engaging marginalized communities of color in research inquiry.
Discussion
The focus of this study is to examine the experiences of intersectional stigma attached to the marginalized statuses of cisgender women of color, navigating life in two sociocultural contexts. For both women living with HIV in Hyderabad and formerly incarcerated women living in Chicago, concealing stigmatized identities from intimate relationships was critical to protecting their identity as women and mothers, and to surviving the complex social landscape in which they live. Moreover, concealment of status served as a critical tool of survival, safeguarding them against further social marginalization, isolation, and community degradation.
Nonetheless, the concealment process presented differently for these women, due to their particular experiences with illness and the level of visibility or recognizability of their illness. Women managing multiple stigmas are not always able to choose whether or not to disclose their tarnished identities within their intimate relationships. While women in the Hyderabad study utilized concealment of their HIV status to protect from further marginalization and social rejection from their families and communities, we did not find this to be an option for many women in the Chicago study. The enduring nature of substance dependence was so interwoven into the familial histories of the women in the Chicago study that they were often unable to hide their stigmatized statuses.
Further complicating their experiences of tarnished mothering, the participants’ mothers in the Chicago study had often become the primary caregivers of their grandchildren during their daughter’s struggles with addiction. Women chose to actively navigate these familial relationships while resisting relational stigma. Across both studies, women shared narratives where they proactively elected to manage their relationships in ways that supported their stigmatized identity and illnesses. Our two studies highlight the ways in which women navigate intersectional stigma while coping with the complexities of caretaking, amid a lack of economic resources and rigid constructions of proper motherhood.
A key feature across both studies of women of color is the experience of disenfranchisement at the hands of the state. For Chicago study participants, this disenfranchisement has relegated women to statuses as, “carceral citizens,” at the intersection of multiple state systems due to the criminalization of their illness and trauma, reinforcing their continued surveillance post-incarceration by systems, such as parole, addiction treatment and child welfare services (Miller & Alexander, 2015; Schenwar & Law, 2020). Women living with HIV in India also experience state-level rejection through the denial of social entitlements that would enable them to receive health care or social services. In both studies, we see the consequences of marginalization as women face exacerbated vulnerabilities in relation to poverty, social inequity, illness, and marginalization.
Limitations
We recognize that an application of an intersectional lens can be difficult due to methodological limitations with social science data collection and analysis. Although intersectionality theory provides a conceptually solid framework with which to examine the social location of individuals and groups within structures of oppression, even qualitative data can be limited in capturing the rich variance of the lives of women of color (Bowleg, 2008). Social scientists who desire to utilize an intersectional lens must delineate how lived experiences and structures of oppression are interconnected, even when participants do not perceive or express these connections themselves (Bowleg, 2008).
As critical researchers, we also recognize that our projects did not utilize community-based participatory research methods. This absence may have unintentionally engaged marginalized communities in neocolonial methods of knowledge production that seek to tell communities which outcomes are most important for their own lives (Fine, 2012). As scholars who seek to advance transnational feminist principles, we must continue to contend with the ways that academic hierarchies of knowledge production can limit transformative, anti-oppressive research. Moreover, the imperial privilege, that is, the structural benefits reaped by U.S. researchers, necessitates that we continue to reflect on how our inherent institutional power can impact not just the research endeavor, but the communities with whom we seek to engage and build solidarity (Falcón, 2016).
Working Towards Transnational Feminist Solidarity-Building
This article explored the ways in which two samples bear similarities in how cisgender women of color navigate intersectional stigma. We examine how coping strategies for women of color differ by nature of the unique conditions and cultures in which they are embedded. As already highlighted by transnational feminist theorists, there are challenges to using intersectionality to compare the global social structures that impact the two sample populations we describe here.
We also note that there is a tendency to divorce intersectionality from transformative political practice by reducing it to a theoretical abstraction of signifiers of identity (Puar, 2012). This critique may be a readers’ first impulse upon reviewing our study findings. How could we possibly compare women living with HIV in Hyderabad with women who have criminal legal involvement in Chicago? How dare we minimize or essentialize the struggles of women of color to the experience of intersectional stigma? Such questions may focus exclusively on how we differentially conceptualize research conducted in the “First World” over the “Third World,” or from “industrialized” countries over “developing” ones, and most importantly, the needs of women in the West as differing from the needs of women in the East. Intersectional analyses can problematize these essentialist constructions that may assume that women in the West unilaterally have better health and social outcomes over women in the East, or in our case that Black and Latina women in Chicago of lower socioeconomic status have better health and social outcomes over women living with HIV in Hyderabad. We recognize that women living with HIV in India and hailing from scheduled caste backgrounds may face structural challenges that are inconceivable in the United States, even to the most marginalized women of color. Simultaneously we recognize that upper caste women in Hyderabad, India may experience class privileges that are unimaginable for Black and Latina women with criminal legal involvement in Chicago. We seek to avert reductionist traps of race, class, and gender by delineating the specific ways in which our research attempts to highlight the intersectional vulnerabilities of transnational populations of cisgender women of color, rather than solely using geographic location as a proxy for privilege.
Following the suggestions of other intersectional feminist theorists, we have sought to create “grounded, collaborative studies that incorporate perspectives of the south as well as the north and that construct understandings of place and the local, as well as space and general global processes” (Nagar et al., 2002, p. 257). Transnational feminist praxis is anchored in studies of race, colonialism, and empire in the global North and the South and offers “a way of thinking about women in similar contexts across the world, in different geographical spaces, rather than as all women across the world” (Alexander & Mohanty, 2010, p. 24). Moreover, transnational feminist research is not relegated to research which originates from outside of the United States (Falcón, 2016). The historical narratives and epistemologies of women of color in the U.S. can also offer critical understandings into the complexities of colonial and global oppression (Soto, 2005). To address these issues requires the adoption of critical antiracist, anti-capitalist positions that make feminist solidarity work possible (Alexander & Mohanty, 2010).
Nonetheless, there are deep challenges in defining similarity and advancing coalition-building across disparate groups of women of color (Cole, 2008). The notion of a universal woman’s experience excludes those most marginalized and least powerful (Mohanty, 2003), erasing their intersectional identities and effectively rendering them invisible in society. Being committed to social transformation within contemporary neoliberal settings is indeed challenging (Collins, 2019). But in order for meaningful discourse and effective global social change, power differentials across groups of women at large, and further, within women of color, need to be more closely examined.
Intersectional approaches call for an appreciation for relationality, power, social inequality, context, complexity, and social justice (Collins, 2019). Social activism for diverse groups of women of color will therefore require an inclusive perspective that recognizes how social categories are specific, historically based, contextualized, intersecting, and constructed through power (Cole, 2008). Global processes affect structures of domination that recreate patterns of inequality, differentially impacting those most marginalized by global capitalism (Nagar et al., 2002). Furthermore, although communities of color experience intersecting systems of oppression that limit their access to health care, education, housing, and social services, they also possess strength and resilience, including support, interconnectedness, acceptance, resource sharing, and collective action (Hudson & Romanelli, 2020).
The methods we have used here may appear to operationalize group membership in terms of social categories. For our research, the social categories on which we focused included: being a woman, being a person of color, living in poverty, and being a mother. Both groups, either as a result of their criminal legal involvement, substance use or HIV status, held social positions that they often felt the need to conceal, if they had the power to do so. In addition, they had experienced social exclusion from their families and communities when they did choose to disclose these statuses or when these statuses were already known to their families or communities.
While this research may not have provided direct benefits to study participants, we envision the goals of our collective projects to be in the greater interest of global communities of women of color. Moreover, the promotion of anti-oppressive and reflexive research practices can also have clinical implications for health care practitioners and social workers. The service institutions that communities navigate employ organizational strategies embedded in risk, that is, they center organizational practices in monitoring, management and surveillance (Pease et al., 2017). These neoliberal institutional cultures view an ethos of care as counter to proper risk management and therefore de-emphasize the need for therapeutic alliances to address the impacts of systemic injustice on clients’ well-being (Pease et al., 2017).
Instead, we hope to advance social work and health care practice embedded in social justice and ethics, foregrounding client engagement by considering the implications of oppression and power on therapeutic practice and practitioner/client relationships (Herron & Skinner, 2013). Utilizing lenses of social justice and ethics within the research process is critical as it requires that researchers interpret data in ways which employ self-critical practices of reflexivity throughout the research experience (Herron & Skinner, 2013). Moreover, employing a framework of social justice and ethics foregrounds the importance of engaging in research with compassion as a way to combat historical oppressions and research atrocities that continue to create barriers to research inquiry (Crooks et al., 2021; Pease et al., 2017).
On the individual level, the reflexive experience of feeling safe to tell one’s stories in one’s own words can provide therapeutic benefits, as research participants are able to process complex feelings of grief, bereavement and loss (Smith, 2013). Recounting personal stories can help develop insight, build skills for resilience, and foster supportive social networks (East et al., 2010). The stories of women of color facing emotional pain or financial hardship often remain unheard, especially in ways that do not reinforce their surveillance through the state. In the context of research, we can celebrate stories of struggle and resilience by applauding women of color for recounting their challenges with adversity (East et al., 2010) and bravery. Story-telling can be a device for individuals to better understand and overcome their vulnerability (Holloway & Freshwater, 2007). Through the telling of their own stories, research participants may gain the power to reshape their identities (Holloway & Freshwater, 2007) and potentially their futures.
To create effective global solidarity across diverse groups of women of color, research projects must therefore not fetishize or scrutinize those at the bottom of social hierarchies (Fine, 2012), reinforcing long held arguments that a “culture of poverty” (Lewis, 1968) is responsible for the social problems of the dispossessed. We have tried not to recreate such frameworks that judge marginalized women of color as being members of the undeserving poor (Will, 1993). As Patricia Hill Collins (2019, p. 92) notes, antiracist critical social theory that aims to theoretically intervene into these practices has been constrained by the organization of knowledge within the academy. Significantly, racial theory seems to be absent because neither critical racial theory nor intellectuals of color fit comfortably within Western conventions.
As researchers that utilize intersectionality as a primary mode of social analysis, we often find ourselves to be at the crossroads of topics of study as well as at the crossroads of disciplines. We work at the intersections of criminal justice and social work, public health and anthropology, sociology and law. Ultimately, we have attempted here to create a collaborative, intersectional research project focusing on subjects of globalization and neoliberal capitalism in peripheralized spaces (Nagar et al., 2002).
Recognizing that the concept of intersectionality is grounded in the lived experiences and convergence of multiple stigmatized identities (Cole, 2009; Collins, 2019), we also appreciate that there are important implications for transnational feminist solidarity-building that go beyond the experiences of the individuals we describe here. Social categories should be conceptualized not only as identities or characteristics of individuals, but also in terms of institutional practices and political systems (Cole, 2008).
In our studies, we highlight the social contexts instigating the systematic lack of access to HIV medical care for women in India and the systematic lack of culturally responsive, trauma-informed, mental health and addiction treatment for Black and Latina women in the United States. We are also weary of contributing to what Fine (2012) calls the science of banal dispossession, that is, the collection of evidence that often seeks to demonstrate that publicly funded programs for women of color, including those living with HIV or those with criminal legal involvement, cannot counteract social oppression, thereby legitimating the further slashing of services through public funding cuts to nonprofit organizations and health departments. We also recognize that the need for these nonprofit organizations to exist at all is a result of the failure of the social welfare state to directly provide social safety net programs upon which women of color can rely. Women in both sites actively attempt to counteract the social oppression they experience by concealing aspects of their identity. But the paradox remains that to avail services from these nonprofit organizations, women must make these stigmatized statuses somewhat publicly known. In a neoliberal context that celebrates market competition, vulnerable citizens become consumers (Hasenfeld & Garrow, 2012). The needs of women of color become eclipsed by objectives that displace the state’s responsibility for taking care of the most marginalized onto nonprofit organizations, which must compete with one another for limited resources.
We acknowledge that both the discourse of AIDS and the discourse of criminology urge us to theorize notions of risk and safety as being intertwined with race, gender, poverty, and sexuality. We also feel committed to reframing neoliberal notions regarding the primary responsibility of individuals to ensure their own health and financial stability without assistance from the state or state-funded actors. Researchers who are sensitive to the interactive impact of race and gender will question sexist and patriarchal influences on biomedical discourse and underline the importance of acknowledging race and gender-specific needs in health policy (Bredstrom, 2006).
In addition, women of color in our studies are socially positioned in ways that often mandated their responsibility for their partner’s pleasure, as well as the financial and emotional well-being of their children. Across both studies, we found that women were often single mothers. Women in India often became single mothers, following the death or separation from their male partner, a change which entailed these women becoming the primary breadwinners for their family. For formerly incarcerated women in Chicago, the opportunity to be meaningfully engaged in parenting may have been limited by the constraints of being incarcerated and then on community-based forms of supervision, such as probation or parole. The inability or reduced ability for women with criminal legal involvement to fulfill this role as a nurturing mother often left women feeling guilty for being absent from their children’s lives, a guilt which was socially reinforced through gender role expectations.
Using an intersectional lens allowed us to explore women’s complex lived experiences and the various ways in which structural oppression and stigma reduce their social statuses and regulate their bodies. Moreover, such an analytical tool allowed us to critically explore concepts of identity in ways that are integrally linked to the ability to manage illness and social marginalization (Draus et al., 2015; McKeganey, 2001). Our multi-study investigation contends with notions of social identity as we explore women’s attempts to reconstruct their social statuses, as women, as mothers, and as members of society. These experiences occur simultaneously as women resist relational attempts to devalue their personhood because of their HIV status, their incarceration history and/or their substance use. Whether the resistance involved deciding which stigmatized statuses to conceal or choosing to engage in relationships which offer some level of needed support, women were employing complex strategies to navigate multi-level systems of relational and institutional surveillance and stigma. As researchers and scholar activists, we are committed to continuing to engage in critical inquiry using the tools of intersectionality to highlight the complex ways in which marginalized groups employ nuanced strategies of resistance and survival to manage stigma, social rejection, economic precarity, and other forms of structural oppression. Furthermore, as social workers and therapists who identify as women of color ourselves, we also believe in the benefit of a story being told for no other purpose than that it deserves to be heard.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
