Raising the Question of Intersectionality for Kenyon's Bicentennial

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     With everyone's cases being finished this week, our class bustled with excitement about completing this project. While setting up our case for the presentations, I looked around at the other groups and could see how proud everyone was of the work they had done. I am so grateful that we had the opportunity to hear each group present their cases, for I realized that I had been oblivious to the work that my classmates had been doing in their respective cases. It was fascinating to see the different directions that each group took with their displays - the irony, insightfulness, uniqueness, and creativity that I observed in the different displays truly encapsulated the spirit of Kenyon students, which is exactly what should be displayed for the bicentennial celebration. Furthermore, it was amazing to see the relationships and connections between different cases. While each case can definitely stand on its own, the combination of all of them created a sense of continuity that would not be reached if they had been completely separate. The presentation day was overall a great way to tie up all loose ends and truly connect with the stories that we are telling with our displays. 

   In chapter 6 of The Struggle for the People's King, Yazdiha argues that the #MeToo movement uses the collective memory of the civil rights movement to restore a memory that has been overshadowed. The voices of women, especially women of color, who have been abused and mistreated are historically excluded from collective memory. In this chapter, Yazdiha introduces the concept of memory restoration, the active practice of restoring a collective past by including people who had previously been excluded from the narrative. Feminist movements like #MeToo work to reconcile with historical wrongdoings by spreading alternative collective memories that challenge the dominant narrative. Yazdiha implies that feminist movements cannot be successful without intersectionality. Our society has been trained to think primarily of white women when fighting for gender equality, but as Yazdiha explains, Black women are vulnerable to discrimination as well and deserve the same protections and rights as white women. The fight towards intersectional feminism is far from over, but the increase of inclusion of diverse voices in the feminist movement is a good step towards restoration and historical reckoning. 

    Since our group's case is about the gradual inclusion of women at Kenyon, the Yazdiha chapter about feminist movements really resonated with me. While reading this chapter, I thought about our display case and reflected upon aspects of it that were missing. The women that we display in our case are all white, and they were all privileged to be able to afford to attend a school like Kenyon. While these original students faced their share of hardships, it is important to note that they do not represent the full truth of the experiences of young women in the 1970s. I feel that we missed an opportunity to address how the collective memory that we are bringing to the forefront does not display the full story and that there are countless women from Kenyon and beyond whose memories will remain in the dark due to further discrimination. Regarding Yazdiha's definition of restoration, I do not think that we completely embraced our opportunity to correct the historical record to practice intersectionality and to be more inclusive of marginalized identities. 


Yazdiha, Hajar. 2023. The Struggle for the People's King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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