"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."
The interconnected nature of multiple social identities and experiences, such as race, gender, sexuality, class, and ability. It recognizes that discrimination and disadvantage are often compounded and must be addressed holistically.
Social Identity: Understanding the role of social identity and how it shapes experiences and interactions with others based on factors such as race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and ability.
Privilege: Understanding and recognizing the advantages and benefits that come with certain social identities, as well as how those advantages can lead to systemic inequalities.
Oppression: Understanding and recognizing the ways in which power and privilege are used to create and maintain oppressive systems and how those systems impact marginalized communities.
Intersectionality: Understanding the ways in which individuals’ multiple identities intersect and how that affects their experiences of privilege and oppression.
Structural Inequality: Understanding the social and economic systems that shape inequality and the ways in which individuals and communities are affected by those systems.
Anti-Oppression: Understanding strategies and tactics for dismantling systems of oppression and promoting social justice and equity for marginalized communities.
Social Justice: Understanding the principles and values of social justice and how they can be applied to create a more equitable and just society.
Allyship: Understanding the role of allies in social justice movements and how to be an effective ally for marginalized communities.
Cultural Competence: Understanding the cultural norms and values of different communities and how those norms and values can shape interactions and relationships.
Activism: Understanding the variety of ways in which individuals and communities can take action to promote social justice, whether through political activism, community organizing, or individual actions.
Race and Gender Intersectionality: The concept that race and gender intersect to create unique experiences for individuals of different races and genders.
Disability and Gender Intersectionality: How disability and gender intersect to create unique experiences, often overlooked by society.
Class and Race Intersectionality: The concept that social class and race intersect to create unique experiences for individuals who belong to multiple marginalized groups.
LGBTQ+ and Race Intersectionality: The ways in which race and gender identity intersect to create unique experiences for people who identify as LGBTQ+ and hold marginalized social status based on both their sexuality and race.
Trans and Gender Non-Conforming Intersectionality: The intersection between gender identity and societal norms or expectations about gender. People who are transgender or gender non-conforming may experience intersecting forms of oppression related to their gender identity or other identities.
Religion and Sexual Orientation Intersectionality: The ways in which a person’s religious beliefs intersect with their sexual orientation, creating unique experiences of discrimination, marginalization or oppression.
Immigration and Race Intersectionality: Migration status and race, ethnicity or nationality as factors that interplay in shaping their experience of oppression or lack of access to resources.
Age and Race Intersectionality: How age and race intersect to create unique experiences and challenges for individuals who belong to multiple marginalized groups.
Ability and Race Intersectionality: The ways in which race and ability intersect physically, socially, and economically, creating unique experiences for individuals of color with disabilities.
Sex and Gender Intersectionality: The ways in which biological sex and gender intersect create unique experiences for people whose genders diverge from traditional gender norms.
"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."