"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 ways in which multiple social identities (such as race, gender, and sexuality) intersect and impact an individual's experiences.
Gender: The social and cultural expectations placed on individuals based on their sex assigned at birth, which determines their behavior, interests, and roles in society.
Sexuality: A person's sexual orientation or attraction, which can be influenced by their gender identity and expression.
Race: The physical and cultural characteristics that define distinct human populations, often associated with power and privilege.
Class: The social and economic status of an individual, which shapes their access to resources and opportunities.
Disability: The physical or mental impairments that limit a person's daily activities and interactions with society, creating a cultural and social identity.
Religion: The beliefs and practices that shape a person's worldview, influencing their social and cultural identity and interactions with others.
Age: The social and cultural expectations placed on individuals based on their chronological age, which determines their roles within society.
Nationality: The legal and cultural affiliation to a country, which shapes a person's identity and experience of intersecting oppressions.
Immigration status: The legal status of a person's right to reside and work in a country, which can be used to restrict their access to resources and opportunities.
Language: The communication and linguistic abilities of an individual, which can be used to limit their access to education, employment, and civic engagement.
Body size: The physical dimensions of a person's body, which can be perceived as stigmatized, oppressed, or celebrated, depending on social norms and cultural values.
Gender and race: Intersectionality recognizes that the experiences of women of color are often different from those of white women or men of color due to the intersection of gender and race.
Gender and class: Low-income women often face unique challenges related to motherhood, workforce participation, and access to reproductive health care that are not experienced by wealthy women.
Gender and sexuality: Queer women often experience discrimination and marginalization due to the intersection of their gender and sexuality, which is different from the experiences of straight women.
Gender and disability: Women with disabilities face unique challenges related to accessibility, employment opportunities, and healthcare that are not experienced by able-bodied women.
Gender and religion: Muslim women often face discrimination and stereotyping because of the intersection of their gender and religion.
"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."