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The New York Times recently ran a story about an Ethiopian immigrant who experienced devastating sexual harassment while working as a hostess at Central Park’s Tavern on the Green. In the story of what Ms. Gatkuoth experienced, we can see intersectionality in action. The harassment she and other employees experienced had both racial and sexual dimensions:

She said the restaurant’s director of operations — and some other workers who followed his lead — demanded that female workers perform sexual acts, talked crudely about women’s genitalia, grabbed female employees’ breasts and buttocks and told the women they would get better jobs and hours if they obliged the men. The black and Hispanic workers also complained of coarse epithets.

More than that, however, it had a class dimension. According to the article, not every female employee had the same experience (though it’s also possible that some women there did not realize that such actions and words constitute harassment and unequal treatment). My suspicion would be that the workers most harassed seemed most vulnerable because of how badly they needed the work. Ms. Gatkuoth came to the US as a refugee and was trying to fund her brothers’ education, in addition to supporting herself. Indeed, this very economic situation was used by lawyers for Tavern on the Green in an attempt to discredit her.

This is yet another example of why feminism must include the fight against racism and classism as central to its mission. Only in this way can it stand for the needs of all women and, especially, for the needs of women most vulnerable to discrimination.

As a footnote, I should add that I found the way the article began with a description of her physical appearance troubling. Would it have been more acceptable for her to be harassed if she weren’t “6 feet tall and runway-model slim”? Or is that supposed to be an attempt to explain what she experienced?

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