“What is Interectionality?
” (Video 1)
What is intersectionality? Intersectionality is a way of understanding social relations
by examining intersecting forms of discrimination. This means acknowledging that social
systems are complicated and that many forms of oppression like racism, sexism and
ageism might be present and active at the same time in a person's life. Everyday
approaches to building equality tend to focus on one type of discrimination –for
instance, sexism –and then work to address only that specific concern.
But while the career of a young, white and able bodied woman might improve with
gender equality protections, an older, black, disabled lesbian may continue to be
hampered by racism, ageism, ableism and homophobia in the workplace.
Intersectionality is about understanding and addressing all potential roadblocks to an
individual or group's well-being.
But it's not as simple as just adding up oppressions and addressing each one
individually. Racism, sexism, and ableism exist on their own. But when combined, they
compound and transform the experience of oppression. Intersectionality acknowledges
that unique oppressions exist, but is also dedicated to understanding how they change
in combination.
The roots of intersectionality lie within the black feminist movement, with legal scholar
Kimberlé Crenshaw originating the term. Crenshaw felt that anti-racist and feminist
movements were both overlooking the unique challenges faced by black women. She
stated that legislation about race is framed to protect black men, and legislation about
sexism is understood to protect white women. So simply combining racism and sexism
together does not therefore protect black women.
Intersectional theory is now applied across a range of social divisions and also to
understandings of domination such as those associated with whiteness, masculinity and
heterosexuality. Intersectionality is not only about multiple identities, and it's not a
simple answer to solving problems around equality and diversity. It is, however, an
essential framework as we truly engage with issues around privilege and power, and
work to bring them into the open. Intersectionality means listening to others, examining
our own privileges, and asking questions about who may be excluded or adversely
affected by our work. As importantly, it means taking measurable action to invite, include
and centre the voices and work of marginalised individuals.
“Kimberle Crenshaw Defines Intersectionality” (Video 2)
Many years ago, I began to use the term "intersectionality" to deal with the fact that
many of our social justice problems like racism and sexism are often overlapping,
creating multiple levels of social injustice.
Now, the experience that gave rise to intersectionality was my chance encounter with a
woman named Emma DeGraffenreid. Emma DeGraffenreid was an African-American
woman, a working wife and a mother. I actually read about Emma's story from the
pages of a legal opinion written by a judge who had dismissed Emma's claim of race
and gender discrimination against a local car manufacturing plant. Emma, like so many
African-American women, sought better employment for her family and for others. She
wanted to create a better life for her children and for her family. But she applied for a
job, and she was not hired, and she believed that she was not hired because she was a
black woman.
Now, the judge in question dismissed Emma's suit, and the argument for dismissing the
suit was that the employer did hire African-Americans and the employer hired women.
The real problem, though, that the judge was not willing to acknowledge was what
Emma was actually trying to say, that the African-Americans that were hired, usually for
industrial jobs, maintenance jobs, were all men. And the women that were hired, usually
for secretarial or front-office work, were all white. Only if the court was able to see how
these policies came together would he be able to see the double discrimination that
Emma DeGraffenreid was facing. But the court refused to allow Emma to put two
causes of action together to tell her story because he believed that, by allowing her to
do that, she would be able to have preferential treatment. She would have an
advantage by having two swings at the bat, when African-American men and white
women only had one swing at the bat. But of course, neither African-American men or
white women needed to combine a race and gender discrimination claim to tell the story
of the discrimination they were experiencing. Why wasn't the real unfairness law's
refusal to protect African-American women simply because their experiences weren't
exactly the same as white women and African-American men? Rather than broadening
the frame to include African-American women, the court simply tossed their case
completely out of court.
Now, as a student of antidiscrimination law, as a feminist, as an antiracist, I was struck
by this case. It felt to me like injustice squared. So first of all, black women weren't
allowed to work at the plant. Second of all, the court doubled down on this exclusion by
making it legally inconsequential. And to boot, there was no name for this problem. And
we all know that, where there's no name for a problem, you can't see a problem, and
when you can't see a problem, you pretty much can't solve it.
Many years later, I had come to recognize that the problem that Emma was facing was
a framing problem. The frame that the court was using to see gender discrimination or
to see race discrimination was partial, and it was distorting. For me, the challenge that I
faced was trying to figure out whether there was an alternative narrative, a prism that
would allow us to see Emma's dilemma, a prism that would allow us to rescue her from
the cracks in the law, that would allow judges to see her story.
So it occurred to me, maybe a simple analogy to an intersection might allow judges to
better see Emma's dilemma. So if we think about this intersection, the roads to the
intersection would be the way that the workforce was structured by race and by gender.
And then the traffic in those roads would be the hiring policies and the other practices
that ran through those roads. Now, because Emma was both black and female, she was
positioned precisely where those roads overlapped, experiencing the simultaneous
impact of the company's gender and race traffic. The law -- the law is like that
ambulance that shows up and is ready to treat Emma only if it can be shown that she
was harmed on the race road or on the gender road but not where those roads
intersected.
So what do you call being impacted by multiple forces and then abandoned to fend for
yourself? Intersectionality seemed to do it for me.
I would go on to learn that African-American women, like other women of color, like
other socially marginalized people all over the world, were facing all kinds of dilemmas
and challenges as a consequence of intersectionality, intersections of race and gender,
of heterosexism, transphobia, xenophobia, ableism, all of these social dynamics come
together and create challenges that are sometimes quite unique.