"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 social movements are often connected to other struggles for justice and thus involve multiple identities, issues, and forms of oppression.
Intersectionality: This concept is central to understanding social movements and how they function. It refers to the interconnectedness of various aspects of identity, such as race, gender, class, sexual orientation, and disability, and how they interact to shape experiences of oppression and privilege.
Feminism: Feminist theory is closely tied to intersectionality and has played a significant role in social movements throughout history, from suffrage to reproductive rights and beyond.
Race and racism: Discussions about race and systemic racism are essential in understanding how social movements operate and the impact they have had on marginalized communities.
LGBTQ+ rights: The LGBTQ+ rights movement has fought for the rights and recognition of people who identify as queer, transgender, and non-binary, and understanding this movement is vital to understanding social justice activism.
Disability activism: Disability activists have worked to change how society views and treats individuals with disabilities, challenging ableism and advocating for accessibility and inclusion.
Environmental activism: The environmental movement advocates for the preservation and protection of the natural world, and its intersectionality lies in the ways environmental degradation disproportionately affects marginalized communities.
Labor movements: Workers’ rights movements have often focused on economic justice and the rights of workers, including issues such as fair wages, benefits, working conditions, and unions.
Immigration and migrant rights: Understanding how social movements work for immigrant rights and protecting migrant communities is crucial in understanding social justice activism.
Anti-war activism: Those opposed to war and militarism have often organized as part of social movements, pushing for diplomacy and peaceful solutions to conflicts.
Indigenous activism: Indigenous activists have worked to dismantle colonialism and seek justice for land, language, and culture rights.
Police brutality and mass incarceration: Social movements have been fighting against police brutality and mass incarceration for decades.
Abolitionism: The movement to abolish slavery was one of the earliest social movements in the United States and has since evolved to include the abolition of all forms of modern-day slavery.
Health and disability justice: Patients, survivors, and advocates for health and disability rights have been striving to achieve equitable access to healthcare and community support for all people.
Food justice: Social movements address food inequality, which includes everything from access to healthy and culturally relevant foods in often marginalized communities, to food sovereignty and food worker rights.
Education justice: This movement seeks to address issues of inequity in the education system and create educational opportunities for all, regardless of social or economic background.
Feminism: A social movement that advocates for the rights and equality of women in society.
Black feminism: Intersectionality between race and gender that advocates for the rights and equality of black women.
LGBTQ+ rights movement: Advocates for the rights and equality of LGBTQ+ individuals.
Civil rights movement: A social movement that aimed to secure equal rights for African Americans.
Disability rights movement: A social movement that advocates for the rights and equality of people with disabilities.
Environmentalism: A social movement that advocates for the protection of the environment and conservation of natural resources.
Anti-globalization movement: A social movement that opposes globalization and promotes sustainable development.
Anti-war movement: A social movement that opposes wars and promotes peace and nonviolence.
Indigenous rights movement: A social movement that advocates for the rights and equality of indigenous people.
Animal rights movement: A social movement that advocates for animal welfare and the ethical treatment of animals.
"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."