"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 interconnectedness of social categories, such as race, gender, class, and sexuality, and how they intersect to create unique experiences of oppression and privilege.
Diversity: Understanding diversity in social work involves recognizing and respecting differences in culture, ethnicity, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, religion, and ability.
Oppression: The systematic mistreatment of specific social groups based on their identity is oppression. Oppression can occur in various forms, including racism, sexism, and homophobia.
Power Dynamics: Power imbalances and their effects on social groups are important to recognize when studying intersectionality. Understanding who has power and who is marginalized is essential to creating equitable social structures.
Privilege: Privilege refers to the advantages that dominant social groups have over marginalized groups. Privilege includes access to resources, representation in mainstream media, and societal recognition.
Social Justice: Social justice is the pursuit of fairness, equality, and human rights for all people. In social work, a commitment to social justice is essential for upholding the human rights of marginalized communities.
Marginalization: The process of being relegated to the margins of society, leading to a loss of power, influence, and agency, is marginalization. This experience is common among individuals from marginalized groups.
Intersectionality: Intersectionality recognizes that people have multiple and interconnected identities that affect their experiences and social location. Intersectionality emphasizes the need to examine how various forms of oppression and privilege intersect.
Identity: Identity involves a variety of aspects, including race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ability, and socioeconomic status. Intersectionality acknowledges that identity is dynamic and multifaceted.
Inclusivity: Inclusivity involves creating an environment where individuals from all backgrounds feel welcomed, respected, and valued. Inclusivity is necessary for building social structures that promote empowerment and human rights.
Social Construction: Social construction refers to the idea that social categories and identities are created and defined by society. Intersectionality emphasizes the importance of critically examining how these categories are constructed and the implications they have for individuals and social groups.
Race and Gender: Intersectionality between race and gender considers the impact of how racism and sexism interact and affect women of color, leading to multiple forms of inequality.
Class and Gender: Intersectionality between class and gender considers the impact of how economic inequality and gender oppression intersect, leading to a complex experience of disadvantage for low-income women compared to higher-income women.
Sexual Orientation and Gender: Intersectionality between sexual orientation and gender considers how hetero and cisnormative societies maintain patriarchal structures that discriminate against LGBTQ+ individuals.
Disability and Gender: Intersectionality between disability and gender considers how women with disabilities face a range of barriers when it comes to issues like employment, healthcare and protection from violence, due to the societal perception of disability and sexism.
Religion and Gender: Intersectionality between religion and gender considers how patriarchy manifests in religious institutions that discriminate against women, with different religions having different gender roles imposed on the members.
"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."