"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 practice of actively working to recognize and challenge privilege, and to support and uplift marginalized groups.
Intersectionality: Understanding the concept of intersectionality is crucial when it comes to learning about intersectional allyship. Intersectionality refers to the interconnectedness of various forms of oppression faced by individuals belonging to multiple marginalized groups, including but not limited to gender, race, sexuality, class, and ability.
Privilege and Power Dynamics: This topic revolves around understanding the ways in which privilege and power dynamics operate within social structures and how they contribute to the marginalization and oppression of various communities.
Feminism and Gender Equality: Feminism and gender equality are foundational topics that are essential to understanding intersectionality and allyship. This includes learning about the history of the feminist movement, current issues related to gender equality, and the importance of including marginalized genders in conversations around allyship.
Racism and Anti-Racism: Understanding racism and the ways in which it intersects with other forms of oppression is critical to learning about intersectional allyship. This involves examining systemic racism, white privilege, and the importance of anti-racism work.
LGBTQ+ Rights and Advocacy: This topic focuses on understanding the issues faced by the LGBTQ+ community and the importance of allyship in supporting their fight for equality. This includes learning about the impact of homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals.
Disability Rights and Accessibility: This topic focuses on understanding the needs and experiences of people with disabilities and the ways in which ableism operates within society. This includes learning about the importance of accessibility and advocating for the rights of people with disabilities.
Environmental Justice: Environmental justice is integral to intersectionality and allyship, as marginalized communities are often most impacted by environmental degradation and climate change. This involves learning about environmental racism, sustainable practices, and the importance of intersectional approaches to environmental justice.
Indigenous Rights and Land Sovereignty: This topic revolves around understanding the struggles of Indigenous communities for land sovereignty and the decolonization of oppressive structures. This includes learning about the impact of colonization, the importance of Indigenous knowledge and traditions, and advocating for Indigenous rights.
Global and Transnational Perspectives: It's important to understand intersectional allyship from a global and transnational perspective. This involves learning about the struggles faced by marginalized communities around the world and the role of allyship in supporting these struggles.
Intersectional Approaches to Activism and Allyship: Finally, this topic involves learning about the different ways in which allyship and activism can take place, including intersectional approaches that recognize the complexity of marginalized identities and the need for nuanced, inclusive approaches to allyship.
Racial Allyship: An ally that supports the struggles and challenges faced by people of color, elevating their voices, and actively fighting against racial prejudice and discrimination.
LGBTQ+ Allyship: An ally that supports individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer or questioning, amplifying their experiences, and advocating for their rights and dignity.
Disability Allyship: An ally that supports individuals who are differently-abled, acknowledging the social and physical barriers that they face, and working towards accessibility, inclusion, and acceptance.
Feminist Allyship: An ally that supports the rights and empowerment of women, challenging patriarchal norms, and advocating for gender equality and justice.
Queer Allyship: An ally that supports individuals who identify as queer, resisting heteronormativity and homophobia, and promoting acceptance and celebration of diverse sexual orientations and identities.
Class Allyship: An ally that supports individuals who come from different socio-economic backgrounds, recognizing the impact of poverty, inequality, and capitalism on people's lives, and working towards economic and social justice.
Environmental Allyship: An ally that advocates for ecological sustainability and justice, recognizing the interconnectedness of environmental, social, and economic issues, and supporting efforts to mitigate climate change, pollution, and environmental degradation.
Indigenous Allyship: An ally that supports indigenous peoples, recognizing their cultural heritage, sovereignty, and rights, and challenging colonialism, assimilation, and racism.
Anti-Racist Allyship: An ally that strives to dismantle systemic racism and discrimination, challenging the structures and policies that perpetuate racial inequalities, and actively engaging in anti-racist education, advocacy, and action.
Global Allyship: An ally that recognizes the interconnectedness and interdependence of human beings across borders and cultures, supporting efforts to promote peace, human rights, and social justice around the world, and combating racism, xenophobia, and nationalism.
"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."