Representation and intersectionality: who’s not in the room?

‘When those who have the power to name and to socially construct reality choose not to see you or hear you … when someone with the authority of a teacher, say, describes the world and you are not in it, there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked in the mirror and saw nothing.’

This quote, by Adrienne Rich, was shared in a webinar I watched yesterday about editing for conscious and inclusive language.

It shows the importance of representation. Something that can be hard for some people to grasp if they've always been represented.

Like privilege, it's keenly noticed when it's not there, but easily missed when it is.

If you’re white, heterosexual, and non-disabled you will have gone through life seeing yourself everywhere: books, TV, politics, education, etc.

Even more so if you’re a cis man as well.

The more social categories your identity intersects with, the less likely you are to be represented. By this I mean race, gender, ethnicity, class, disability, sexual orientation.

Recently people have been talking about the Lionesses inspiring a generation of girls to play football, because ‘you’ve got to see it to be it’.

Those women grew up not being allowed to play football as kids. I remember it myself, being stopped from playing football with the boys in Year 6 and not being allowed to play it in school again.

There were no female footballers for the Lionesses to look up to. But now they’re being role models for the next generation of little girls.

I mention this because it's a tangible, recent example, but representation isn’t just about role models. It’s about seeing people like you in daily life.

Having toys that reflect you: dolls with physical disabilities; dolls with many different shades of skin; books with disabled characters where they’re not the villain like we see a lot with limb differences, and so on.

Many different people make up our society so our media, workplaces, entertainment – everything – should reflect that.

You’re not a bad person if you happened to be born as someone well represented. But it *is* our job to look for who isn’t in the room and invite them in.

Everywhere, at all levels.

Because representation isn’t a group of middle-aged, straight white men trying to think about what Black people need, for example, because they don’t know.

Sure, you can be empathetic and listen to people's experiences. But if you don’t actually *know* you shouldn’t be the only ones trying to think about what people want or need. They should be in the room telling us.

‘Nothing about us without us’. For example, I don’t want a neurotypical person guessing at what autistic people want or need. I want autistic voices in the room.

So please, look around all the rooms you’re in for who isn’t there and bring them in. At every level, but especially the top.

The quote is from Adrienne’s book Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose which you can buy here.