"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 recognition that people's experiences of gender are influenced by their intersecting identities, such as race, class, sexual orientation, and ability.
Gender: The socially constructed roles, behaviors, and identities associated with being male or female.
Race: The grouping of people based on physical characteristics, ancestry, and shared cultural heritage.
Class: The societal ranking of individuals based on economic and social status.
Sexual Orientation: A person's emotional, romantic, and sexual attraction to other people.
Disability: The physical, mental, and developmental conditions that affect a person's daily functioning.
Age: The chronological and social categories that divide people based on their time of birth and life experience.
Ethnicity: A shared cultural heritage based on a common language, religion, or history.
Nationality: A legal and political status based on citizenship in a particular country.
Migration: The movement of people from one place to another for various reasons, such as work, education, or safety.
Religion: A set of beliefs and practices that guide individuals' spiritual and moral values.
Indigenous Peoples: Communities that have a distinct historical, cultural, and territorial relationship with the land they inhabit.
Intersectionality: The recognition that different social identities intersect and interact in complex ways, leading to unique experiences of oppression and privilege.
Feminism: The political and social movement aimed at achieving gender equality and challenging patriarchal structures.
Privilege: The advantages that some individuals or groups have in society based on their social identity.
Oppression: The systemic and institutionalized discrimination and marginalization of certain individuals and groups.
Power: The ability to influence and control others' behavior and choices.
Social Justice: The pursuit of equal rights and opportunities for all members of society, particularly for those who have been historically marginalized.
Anti-Racism: The active resistance to racism and discrimination, and the promotion of equality and justice for all races.
LGBTQ+ Rights: The advocacy for the rights and protection of individuals who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, or Queer.
Globalization: The interconnectedness and interdependence of nations, economies, and cultures around the world, which can both facilitate and hinder social justice efforts.
Feminist Intersectionality: Explores how gender intersects with other identity categories to shape experiences of oppression and privilege.
Womanist Intersectionality: Examines how race, gender, and class interact and intersect to produce unique and complex forms of oppression and privilege among black women.
Queer Intersectionality: Examines the intersections of gender and sexuality, and how these identities compound with other social identities to shape experiences of marginalization and privilege.
Disability Intersectionality: Examines how disability status intersects with other identity categories to shape experiences of marginalization and privilege.
Global Intersectionality: Examines how different forms of oppression and privilege intersect in different global contexts, including issues related to colonialism, imperialism, and globalization.
"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."