Intersectionality at the Borders of Europe

Introduction
In France and Germany, feminism is entangled with borders. Migrant women — veiled Muslim students in Paris, undocumented caregivers in Berlin, refugees at Europe’s peripheries — stand at the intersection of gender, race, religion, and citizenship. Here, feminist politics collides with nationalism, secularism, and migration regimes. While European feminists have long championed equality, the challenge today is to confront the exclusions within their own borders.
This essay explores intersectionality in Europe through the cases of France and Germany. It argues that contemporary feminist debates on veiling, migration, and labor reveal both the limits of universalist European feminism and the possibilities of a more inclusive, intersectional politics.

The Veil as Battlefield (France)
Few symbols are as polarizing in French feminism as the veil. In the name of laïcité (state secularism), France has banned headscarves in public schools (2004) and full-face coverings in public spaces (2010). Proponents argue that these laws protect women’s liberation; opponents argue they stigmatize Muslim women and reduce their agency.
For many Muslim feminists, the veil is not oppression but choice, faith, identity. Yet their voices are often silenced in debates dominated by white, secular feminists. Gayatri Spivak once asked: “Can the subaltern speak?” In France, the subaltern speaks, but is rarely heard.
The veil controversy illustrates the paradox of universalist feminism: in the name of protecting women, it denies them autonomy.

Migrant Labor and Care Economies (Germany)
In Germany, the feminist battleground often lies not in clothing but in labor. Migrant women from Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia form the backbone of care economies — cleaning homes, caring for children and the elderly, sustaining middle-class households.
Yet their labor remains undervalued, underpaid, and often undocumented. Mainstream feminism, focused on boardroom quotas or parental leave policies, risks neglecting these women. Intersectionality exposes the hierarchy: while German women demand “work-life balance,” migrant women absorb the imbalance, providing invisible labor that makes equality for others possible.
Feminism without attention to migrant labor risks becoming a feminism of privilege.

Intersectionality as Critique
Kimberlé Crenshaw coined “intersectionality” to describe how Black women in the U.S. were marginalized within both feminist and antiracist movements. In Europe, intersectionality reveals similar dynamics: feminism centered on white, secular, middle-class women fails to account for Muslim, migrant, or undocumented women.
For French feminism, the challenge is religious difference.
For German feminism, the challenge is economic migration.
For both, the border — physical and symbolic — determines who counts as a feminist subject.
Intersectionality does not fragment feminism; it clarifies power. It asks: which women are included when we say “women’s rights”?

Backlash and the Far Right
The rise of far-right populism in Europe has complicated feminist politics. Leaders like Marine Le Pen in France or AfD politicians in Germany deploy “femonationalism” — using feminist language to advance anti-immigrant agendas. They claim to defend women’s rights while stigmatizing Muslim migrants as patriarchal threats.
This cynical appropriation forces feminists to respond carefully: how to condemn gender violence in migrant communities without fueling racism? How to critique veiling debates without ignoring Islamophobia? Intersectionality demands nuance — resisting both patriarchy and xenophobia simultaneously.

Feminist Solidarities Across Borders
Despite tensions, there are movements of solidarity. In France, collectives of Muslim feminists like Lallab challenge both sexism within communities and racism in the wider society. In Germany, migrant domestic workers organize cooperatives and unions, demanding recognition and rights. Transnational feminist networks connect these struggles to broader fights for racial justice, labor rights, and refugee protection.
These movements embody intersectionality in practice: not theory imposed from above, but solidarity built from lived experience.

Global Resonances
European debates resonate globally:
In South Korea, surveillance of women intersects with nationalism and militarism.
In Latin America, Indigenous and Afro-descendant women highlight racism within feminist movements.
In South Africa, intersectionality is lived at the nexus of race, class, and gender violence.
In Vietnam, questions of tradition, modernity, and women’s labor echo the dilemmas of inclusion.
Europe is not unique; it is part of a global struggle to reconcile feminist universalism with lived difference.

Conclusion
At Europe’s borders — legal, cultural, and symbolic — feminism is tested. France’s veiling debates and Germany’s migrant labor struggles reveal both the blind spots of mainstream feminism and the necessity of intersectional approaches.
To defend women’s rights cannot mean defending only some women. A feminism that excludes migrants, Muslims, or undocumented workers is not feminism but partiality. Intersectionality reminds us that liberation is indivisible: until all women are free, no woman truly is.
In the end, the future of European feminism may depend less on abstract universalism and more on the capacity to listen to those at the margins — to let the voices at the borders reshape the center.