Partiality

Abstract

This essay is the introduction for a Symposium on Class in LatCrit: Theory and Praxis in a World of Economic Inequality. Professor Nice describes the symposium papers (by Kendal Broad, Lisa Sun-Hee Park, Athena Mutua, and Laura Padilla) as applying various critical tools to examine how scholars study poverty and especially how the construct of “the feminization of poverty” isolates gender while leaving out other experiences of race, immigration status, sexual orientation, parental status, age, ability, and class. While she argues that the feminization of poverty construct itself emerged as a critique of how gender had been ignored in the study of poverty, she nonetheless agrees that the study of poverty has obscured the experiences of communities of color, immigrants, and sexual minorities among others, and applauds the authors for their reflection on scholarly complicity with the very forces of discrimination we condemn.

Keywords: feminization of poverty, poverty law, gender law, discrimination