Intersectional Alliances to Overcome Gender Subordination: The Case of Roma-Gypsy Traveller Women

By linking the oppression of women with other axes of oppression, the intersectional theories and methodologies employed in the last few decades have proved to be strategic in building awareness, forming alliances, and influencing transversal politics. In this paper, the case of Roma/Gypsy/Traveller (RGT) women is discussed through the multiple discriminations they suffer from, the birth of feminism and gender activism in the communities, intersectional alliances with non-Gypsy feminists, and the anti-racist and LGBTIA-Queer movements. In the second part of the paper, I offer a focus on shared political ‘emotions’, ‘fluid identities’, ‘travelling activism’, and the need for decolonization of concepts, practices, and relations. To deepen the reflection around intersectional alliances, coalition building, and the ongoing risk of assimilation/domestication, feminist RGT epistemology is pivotal in order to overcome subordination and internalized forms of oppression, feelings of inferiority and inadequacy, and to become resilient political subjects in ethnic and non-ethnic marginalized groups and stateless nations. The political alliances between RGT women, gender activists, and feminists of different backgrounds—in terms of economic status, education, skin color, religion, sexuality, ability, and geopolitical background—will create unity in diversity to fight for social rights and to gain freedom.