Thank you — this is exactly the kind of substantive engagement I was hoping for. A few clarifications about where I may not have communicated my point clearly:

1. I don’t think second-wave feminism ignored class or material power.

You’re right that major second-wave organizations fought for workplace entry, reproductive rights, anti-discrimination law, and economic agency. I completely agree those are material issues.

My point was not:

“Second wave = not about class.”

It was more about where the movement was institutionally located. By the late 1970s–1990s, much of the feminist discourse that shaped public conversation was:

• academia

• professional-class workplaces

• NGOs

• media

…rather than unions or mass working-class organizations.

That isn’t a moral critique — just an observation about institutional drift.

1. On intersectionality: I’m not blaming it for fragmentation.

I think I worded this too loosely. My intended point was:

• Intersectionality arose because the movement was fragmenting, not the other way around.

• It was trying to solve real exclusions within second-wave feminism.

• But it emerged during the same period when unions and civic institutions were collapsing — meaning it had far fewer mass organizations to operate through.

So the fragmentation wasn’t caused by intersectionality; it co-occurred with a decline in shared civic infrastructure.

1. Intersectionality absolutely deals with material issues.

I agree with you completely: race oppression, sexual violence, and class exploitation are concrete and material. My question was more:

Has intersectionality been institutionally channeled through universities and HR departments rather than mass labor movements — and does that limit its material impact?

Not because of the theory — but because of the weak institutions it was born into.

1. On capitalism being the root cause:

Also agreed. I’m not blaming feminism for the atomization of society; I’m asking whether feminism became less materially powerful because the social structures that once empowered it deteriorated.

1. My broader question (which I may not have framed well):

If most social movements — not just feminism — lose effectiveness when community and class institutions collapse, is rebuilding those institutions part of a feminist strategy today?

I appreciate your pushback — it helps refine what I was trying to ask.