Intersectionality of Race, Class, and Gender: A Study of Suzan-Lori Parks’ Venus

Abstract

People of colour face oppression in all areas of human experience. However, social scientists and literary critics often treat the various categories of oppression as mutually exclusive experiences. Such single-axis analysis of oppression misunderstands or ignores the experiences of whole groups, particularly those of women of colour. The paper aims to analyse the interlocking oppressions of race, class, and gender in the lives of marginalised people of colour, and to analyse Venus (1996), a play by Suzan-Lori Parks, through the theoretical framework of Intersectionality. The paper employs a qualitative, interdisciplinary method that combines Feminist theory, Black Feminism, and Critical Race Theory in literary analysis. The key findings establish that an intersectional approach to the study of the lives of women of colour contributes to an in-depth analysis of the interlocking oppressions in terms of sexism, scientific racism, colonial dynamics of imperialism, and also calls for a need for a resurrection of History.