Kimberlé Crenshaw, law professor and social theorist, first coined the term intersectionality in her 1989 paper “Demarginalizing The Intersection Of Race And Sex: A Black Feminist Critique Of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory And Antiracist Politics .” The theory emerged two decades earlier, however, when ...
Who made intersectionality?
Kimberlé Crenshaw , the law professor at Columbia and UCLA who coined the term intersectionality to describe the way people’s social identities can overlap, tells TIME about the politicization of her idea, its lasting relevance and why all inequality is not created equal.
What is the concept of intersectionality?
More explicitly, the Oxford Dictionary defines intersectionality as “ the interconnected nature of social categorisations such as race, class, and gender, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage ”.
What are the benefits of intersectionality?
An intersectional perspective deepens the understanding that there is diversity and nuance in the ways in which people hold power . It encourages theoretical understandings of identity that are more complex than simple oppressor/oppressed binaries.
What is intersectionality example?
Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of advantage and disadvantage. Examples of these factors include gender, caste, sex, race, class, sexuality, religion, disability, physical appearance, and height . These intersecting and overlapping social identities may be both empowering and oppressing.
What is intersectionality in your own words?
Intersectionality is a framework for conceptualizing a person, group of people, or social problem as affected by a number of discriminations and disadvantages . It takes into account people’s overlapping identities and experiences in order to understand the complexity of prejudices they face.
How does intersectionality impact our lives?
– intersect and affect our lived experiences. Intersectionality is a term used to help us understand how multiple forms of overlapping oppressions – shaped by sexism, racism, poverty, homophobia and other forms of discrimination and violence – affect our lives in nuanced and context-specific ways.
What is an intersectional identity?
Intersectionality is a framework for understanding how social identities —such as gender, race, ethnicity, social class, religion, sexual orientation, ability, and gender identity—overlap with one another and with systems of power that oppress and advantage people in the workplace and broader community.
Why is intersectionality important in education?
Intersectionality provides a lens through which we can examine the processes, practices, policies, and structures that increase the risk of students experiencing disadvantage or discrimination because of their intersecting identities .
Why is intersectionality important in healthcare?
An intersectionality approach is supportive of rights and justice based approaches to health and health care . It can lead to precise insights about who is involved in and affected by policies or interventions in different settings, thus allowing for more targeted and effective policies (Hankivsky and Cormier, 2011).
Why is intersectionality important in research?
The fundamental benefit of adopting an intersectional approach to equality research (for example, looking at data for students who are disabled and from a particular ethnic background, or sexual orientation etc) is that it provides an understanding of the issues that is closer to the lived experiences of the equality ...
Broadly defined, intersectionality is the idea that disadvantage is conditioned by multiple interacting systems of oppression . When racism and sexism interact —in the experience of women of color, for instance— the disadvantages produced are different than the disadvantages produced by racism and sexism on their own.
How do you address intersectionality?
To address intersectionality in a paper, identify individuals’ relevant characteristics and group memberships (e.g., ability and/or disability status, age, gender, gender identity, generation, historical as well as ongoing experiences of marginalization, immigrant status, language, national origin, race and/or ...
Why is intersectionality important in the workplace?
An intersectional approach to workplace equality creates allyship and structural change where women who succeed have the ability to pull up other groups behind them. Intersectionality eliminates the competitive mentality where advancements for one minority group hurts another .
What are intersectional issues?
An intersectional approach acknowledges systemic discrimination due to sexual orientation and identity, gender and gender identity, race, economic status, immigration status, national origin, and ability , among other aspects of one’s identity, and that this systemic discrimination impacts access to opportunity.
How does intersectionality affect identity?
Summing up Crenshaw’s theory, intersectional identities create differences in people’s positionality — that is, social locations and perceptions— within society.
