"Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how a person's various social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege."
This topic examines the ways in which power and privilege play a role in shaping individuals' experiences, particularly in structuring social inequalities along intersecting social categories.
Intersectionality: The concept that different forms of oppression and privilege are interconnected and should be analyzed together.
Systems of oppression: The ways in which certain groups of people are disadvantaged, marginalized, and discriminated against because of their identity.
Historical context: The impact of historical events and policies on current power structures, including colonization, slavery, and immigration policies.
Social identity theory: The idea that a person’s identity can affect their experiences of privilege and oppression, including race, gender, sexuality, and ability.
Power structures: The distribution of power in different social institutions, such as the government, the media, and the workplace.
Microaggressions: Subtle forms of discrimination that can cause harm and perpetuate oppressive power structures.
Implicit biases: Unconscious prejudices that can affect our thoughts and actions, even if we do not consciously believe in them.
Privilege: The benefits of belonging to dominant social groups that are often invisible to those who have them.
Allyship: The actions and attitudes that individuals can take to support marginalized groups and challenge systemic oppression.
Intersectional activism: Social justice movements that recognize and address the interconnected nature of different forms of oppression and privilege.
Cultural appropriation: The harmful taking of aspects of another culture by members of a dominant culture, often without understanding or respecting the cultural significance.
Whiteness: The social construct of white identity and its impact on power structures.
Decolonization: The process of undoing the legacy of colonialism and working towards indigenous sovereignty and self-determination.
Gender fluidity: The concept that gender is a spectrum and not binary, challenging traditional understandings of masculinity and femininity.
Dis/ability studies: The field that examines the social, cultural, and historical contexts of disability and challenges ableist assumptions and practices.
Environmental justice: The movement that addresses the unequal distribution of environmental hazards and resources based on race, class, and other social factors.
Critical race theory: The framework that examines how racism is embedded in legal systems and institutions and how it intersects with other forms of oppression and privilege.
Queer theory: The approach that explores how sexuality, gender, and desire are socially constructed and the ways in which they intersect with power and privilege.
Postcolonialism: The perspective that critiques the legacy of colonialism and imperialism and promotes the voices and perspectives of formerly colonized people.
Anti-oppressive practice: The commitment to recognizing and challenging the ways in which power and privilege operate in social work, counseling, and other helping professions.
Racial privilege: Advantage granted to people based on their race. White privilege, for example, refers to the benefits that white people receive as a result of being white.
Economic privilege: This is a form of privilege that arises from having access to economic resources such as wealth, economic stability and financial security.
Gender privilege: Advantage that is granted to people based on their gender. Male privilege, for example, refers to the benefits that men receive as a result of being male.
Cisgender privilege: This is a form of privilege that arises from identifying with one's birth-assigned gender.
Sexual orientation privilege: Advantage that is granted to people based on their sexual orientation. Heterosexual privilege, for example, refers to the benefits that heterosexual people receive as a result of being heterosexual.
Able-bodied privilege: This is a form of privilege that arises from having access to physical ability and being able-bodied.
Educational privilege: This is a form of privilege that arises from having access to higher education and its benefits.
Age privilege: Advantage that is granted to people based on their age. Young privilege, for example, refers to the benefits that young people receive as a result of being young, while elderly privilege refers to the benefits that elderly people receive as a result of being elderly.
Religious privilege: Advantage that is granted to people based on their religion. Christian privilege, for example, refers to the benefits that Christian people receive as a result of being Christian.
Nationality/Citizenship privilege: Advantage granted to people based on their citizenship or nationality, such as being born in a country or having gained citizenship.
"Examples of these factors include gender, caste, sex, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, disability, weight, and physical appearance."
"These intersecting and overlapping social identities may be both empowering and oppressing."
"Intersectional feminism aims to separate itself from white feminism by acknowledging women's differing experiences and identities."
"The term intersectionality was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989."
"Intersectionality opposes analytical systems that treat each axis of oppression in isolation."
"In this framework, for instance, discrimination against black women cannot be explained as a simple combination of misogyny and racism, but as something more complicated."
"Intersectionality engages in similar themes as triple oppression, which is the oppression associated with being a poor or immigrant woman of color."
"Criticism includes the framework's tendency to reduce individuals to specific demographic factors, and its use as an ideological tool against other feminist theories."
"Critics have characterized the framework as ambiguous and lacking defined goals."
"As it is based in standpoint theory, critics say the focus on subjective experiences can lead to contradictions and the inability to identify common causes of oppression."
"However, little good-quality quantitative research has been done to support or undermine the theory of intersectionality."
"An analysis of academic articles published through December 2019 found that there are no widely adopted quantitative methods to investigate research questions informed by intersectionality."
"The analysis ... provided recommendations on analytic best practices for future research."
"An analysis of academic articles published through May 2020 found that intersectionality is frequently misunderstood when bridging theory into quantitative methodology."
"In 2022, a quantitative approach to intersectionality was proposed based on information theory, specifically synergistic information."
"In this framing, intersectionality is identified with the information about some outcome (e.g. income, etc.) that can only be learned when multiple identities (e.g. race and sex) are known together."
"Intersectionality is identified with the information about some outcome [...] that can [...] not [be] extractable from analysis of the individual identities considered separately."
"Critics [argue] the inability to identify common causes of oppression."
"Intersectionality broadens the scope of the first and second waves of feminism, [...] to include the different experiences of women of color, poor women, immigrant women, and other groups."