"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 social categories such as race, class, and gender as they apply to an individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.
Gender: Understanding the various aspects of gender such as gender identity, expression, roles, and how they interact with other social identities.
Race: Understanding the impact of race on various aspects of life and how it intersects with gender.
Class: Understanding the different socio-economic classes, the importance of wealth and income, and how they intersect with gender and race.
Sexuality: Understanding the different sexual orientations and how they interact with other social identities.
Disability: Understanding the ways in which people with disabilities are marginalized and how disability intersects with other social identities.
Age: Understanding the ways in which ageism operates and how it might intersect with other oppressions.
Nationality/ethnicity: Understanding the various experiences of different groups of people based on nationality or ethnicity and how they intersect with other social identities.
Language: Understanding the role of language in constructing certain identities, and how it might impact people who speak different languages or with different accents.
Religion: Understanding the ways in which religion can reinforce certain power structures or work against them.
Body size: Understanding the ways in which people are stigmatized for their body size and how that interacts with other oppressions.
Immigration status: Understanding the different ways in which immigrants experience marginalization based on their status and how it intersects with other social identities.
Education: Understanding how levels of education might impact different experiences and opportunities, as well as how education can be a tool of oppression.
Geographic location: Understanding how one's location and regional culture might impact their experiences and identity, and how it interacts with other oppressions.
Ableism: Understanding the ways in which people with disabilities face discrimination and marginalization.
Body/Health: Understanding how people experience discrimination and societal expectations based on their body and health.
Privilege: Understanding the advantages that a person might hold based on their social identity.
Intersectionality Theory: Understanding the theoretical framework that analyzes how multiple oppressions intersect, reinforce each other, and create complex systems of power.
Social justice and activism: Understanding how to work towards creating a more equitable society by advocating and taking action towards justice for marginalized groups.
Feminism: Understanding the historical and ongoing feminist movements and how they intersect with intersectionality theory.
Power and oppression: Understanding the ways in which power and privilege are constructed within society, and how they oppress marginalized groups.
Race and Gender Intersectionality: This type of intersectionality deals with the impact race and gender have on each other. For instance, how the experiences and marginalization of women of color differ from those of white women.
LGBTQ+ Intersectionality: This type of intersectionality considers how sexual orientation and gender identity relate to all other intersecting identities, such as race, class, religion, ability, etc.
Disability Intersectionality: This type of intersectionality focuses on the ways in which disability, ableism, and other intersecting identities overlap and affect marginalized individuals or groups.
Socioeconomic Intersectionality: This type of intersectionality examines the ways in which social class intersects with other identities, such as race, gender, sexuality, and ability. It considers the socio-economic status, access to resources, and power differentials.
Global Intersectionality: This type of intersectionality recognizes how various forms of oppression and privilege intersect at a global level. It focuses on the intersections of imperialism, globalization, and colonization.
Religion Intersectionality: This type of intersectionality examines how religion, beliefs, and practices intersect with other identities to varying degrees of privilege and oppression. It considers factors such as discrimination, marginalization, and access to resources.
Body Intersectionality: This type of intersectionality deals with the ways in which societal norms and expectations of beauty and health intersect with other marginalizing identities such as race, gender, and ability. It also includes the impact of body shaming, fatphobia, and ageism.
Environmental Intersectionality: This type of intersectionality looks at race, gender, and class in relation to environmental injustices like pollution, land dispossession and climate change. It also examines the practices and concerns of environmental movements which can exclude minority groups.
Age Intersectionality: This type of intersectionality looks at how different ages or stages of life can lead to different experiences of marginalization based on differentiated access to power and resources. Apart from the experience of the young, elderly people and the middle-aged can also face particular challenges based on age.
"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."