Intersectionality and the second-wave: An analysis of the British Columbia Federation of Women in the 1980s

Second-wave feminist historiography generally analyzes the movement from the perspective of gender plus another system of difference such as class, race, or sexuality. This thesis uses intersectionality as a conceptual framework to investigate whether Canadian second-wave feminists understood that multiple factors, such as race, class, and sexuality, combined with gender to create inequalities. Exploring the British Columbia Federation of Women (BCFW) and issues for which the organization advocated in the 1980s—particularly, lesbian rights, pornography censorship, and abortion accessibility—this thesis argues that the BCFW did exhibit a proto-intersectional understanding of how multiple systems of difference impacted women's experiences of oppression.