One of the few sociological concepts that adversely impacts various individuals and groups is inequality. In contrast, the theory of intersectionality acknowledges that classifications such as race, gender, and class interact in complicated ways that result in a range of perceptions of advantages and disadvantages, rather than existing independently of one another. Recognizing the various manifestations of inequality in modern society and the disparate ways in which they impact people and populations depends on a grasp of intersectionality. Over the course of my research, I discovered many articles and studies that concentrate on one aspect of identity, such as gender or race; still, the intersectionality stance requires more complex methods …show more content…
B., 2007). The foundation of the intersectionality theory is the concept that harmful social structures, such as ageism, sexism, homophobia, and prejudice, never operate independently of one another but rather are always connected and shape one another. The concept of intersectionality initially emerged in the middle of the 1960s in relation to the advancement of a radical and multiracial women's activism movement. American civil rights activist Kimberlé Crenshaw of Columbia Law School and UCLA School of Law coined the term “absolute” in 1989. With an emphasis on how gender and race connect to create diverse kinds of disadvantage and opportunity in a variety of fields, including work, education, and health, the objective of this essay is to summarize and explain research on the intersectionality of inequality. In this essay, I provide a brief summary of each author's work and highlight the significance of their work for my study while analyzing both qualitative and quantitative research on intersectionality in my
In the opening chapter of their book, Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge examine the meaning of intersectionality as they apply it to three distinct examples: the FIFA World Cup, a World Congress of Sociology, and the Brazilian festival of Latinidades. Intersectionality, as defined by the authors, refers to “a way of understanding and analyzing the complexity in the world, in people, and in human experiences.” Intersectionality is often used as an analytic tool to better understand the social and political needs of those whose lives are influenced by multiple intersecting identities (i.e. Black feminism is used to call attention to the specific needs of Black women). The idea of structural power is another key component of intersectionality discussed by Hill Collins and Bilge in the chapter. They argue that power is organized in four distinct, interconnected domains (interpersonal, disciplinary, cultural, and structural), and “operates by disciplining people in ways that put people’s lives on paths that makes some options seems viable and others out of reach.” This idea is outlined in the World Cup example as the authors discuss the “pay to play” ideology in soccer that disadvantages those with lower socioeconomic status. At the conclusion of their chapter, Hill Collins and Bilge outline six core ideas that tend to come up when using intersectionality as an analytic
In many contemporary spaces, intersectionality is taught and consumed as a static concept of merely listing identities carried by one person simultaneously. It’s used more often as a checklist than a place of analysis or resistance. However, the use of intersectionality as just an apolitical tool, rather than a theory born from the knowledge of Black women experiencing a “triple jeopardy” of oppression and seeking liberation by deconstructing the institutions that bind them, is reductionist at best. In “Intersectionality is Not Neutral”May communicates that intersectionality pushes us to question and challenge the relatively mundane or acceptable norms in society that lend themselves to a continuous legacy of systemic inequality.
Understanding one another starts with understanding the various social intersections that make up our identities. Intersectionality, a concept developed by Kimberlé Crenshaw, analyzes how aspects of social location (gender, race, class, age, etc.) intersect and are linked, thereby creating multiple identities that relate to systems of oppression and marginalization (Carbado, Crenshaw, Mays, & Tomlinson, 2013). In this paper, the theme of intersectional identity will be explored using Janet Mock’s (2014) story as a case study, based off her book, Redefining Realness. Moreover, there will
In the world of sociology and the studies of human interaction, the term intersectionality has been defined as, “the idea that various biological, social, and cultural categories – including gender, race, class, and ethnicity – interact and contribute towards systematic social inequality” (“Definition of Intersectionality – Sociology”). However, as Dr. White defined the term on the Spring 2014 Final Writing Assignment sheet, these categories that make up one’s identity can “intersect or interact in ways that can either advantage or disadvantage the person’s well-being and development” (White). In regards to the text, David M. Newman’s Identities & Inequalities: Exploring the Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality, Newman progressively explores the concept of intersectionality throughout the entirety of the text, but he does not ever actually define the term itself. Although an exact, clear-cut definition of the term “intersectionality” has not been officially established, the concept of the term is fairly simple to understand. Every person has different social identities that they carry to their name. Intersectionality is simply an analysis of how those different identities play off of each other and how they affect the person they are describing.
To explain this Kimberlé Crenshaw, in her TedTalk, “The Urgancy of Intersectionality,” suggests the idea of intersectionality, which is: the overlapping of social justice problems that create many degrees of social injustice (Crenshaw). Her particular studies hinge of the fact that the intersectionality of being African American and a woman leaves women of color to often “fall through the cracks” of both the feminist and anti-racism movements (Crenshaw). In her article, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color”, in the Stanford Law Review, Crenshaw describes a time she was trying to get statistics of domestic violence arrests from the LAPD but she was unable to see the data because activist, on both sides, thought the data would be used undermine their respective causes; for feminists, it could be interpreted that domestic violence is a minority issue thus not an issue to address as aggressively, and to anti-racists the data would paint men of minorities as more violent therefore reinforcing stereotypes of men of color (Crenshaw, 1252-1253). This demonstrates the underrepresentation of women of color on the feminist and anti-racist front, demonstrating Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality. Also in contest to Frye’s
This essay will be unpacking and analysing the different elements that create my own intersectionality in my life. This essay will be discussing how class, gender/sex and race have influenced who I am and the experiences I have had throughout my life, and how various structures impact these experiences, with reference to the Crenshaw and Dill and Zambara articles, I will connect their thoughts and ideas to the intersectionality of my own life.
Currently, in our society we can see an increase in inequality and discrimination towards different people. Unfortunately, the American ideology does not take into account the diversity that exists in the country. The lack of an educational perspective that includes all people regardless of gender, race, sex, religion and social class is vitally important to take into account not just those people who meet the “normal” perspectives imposed by society, but also take in consideration those who don’t necessarily meet the social expectations. It could be said that intersectionality is a tool which helps us to analyze and defend multiple discriminations and above all to understand how different factors influence the rights and opportunities that
The identities have tended to be divided into some different categories, such as gender, race, and class, and these sources have been judged in the different ways. In other words, the different determinant factors of the individuality have been considered separately, and these components have been regarded as a unrelated simple category. Under these points of view, however, it is hard to recognize the problems of interrelated individual component of the identity. Thus, to solve the disregarding crossover point, the new theory of the “intersectionality” are essential. This essay explores the key definition of the “intersectionality” from the viewpoint of gender studies, and how the concept is connected with the social system and individual identity
People are not one dimensional. Everyone has multiple identities that when combined, form who we are. The way these identities intersect shape our realities, impact how we experience life, and influence the way we are treated by others within society. The Intersecting Axes of Privilege, Domination, and Oppression diagram addresses multiple identities such as gender, sex, race, age, class, sexual orientation, etc. The identities examined in the diagram visualize that people are more likely to have privilege or face oppression depending on their classification within a specific identity. Due to intersectionality, many experience both privilege and oppression simultaneously. The four oppressive systems that have impacted my life in various ways are race, sex, heritage, and language bias.
Intersectionality is a term used to describe a situation whereby an individual has multiple identities and as result, the person feels that he or she doesn’t belong to one community or another. Because of the many conflicts in an individual’s identities, he or she could be a victim of multiple threats of discrimination (Williams, 2017). The discrimination could be a result of race, gender, age, health and ethnicity among others. To give an example, a black transgender woman could be discriminated in the workplace because of being black and also because she is transgender. From an intersectionality perspective, the woman faces multiple threats of discrimination because of the overlapping identities of gender and race and therefore the transwoman faces a bigger struggle (Barber, 2017). Transwomen of color will most likely encounter prejudices in the form of homophobia, racism or sexism in many dimensions of their life. The perspective of intersectionality is not only applicable to women but it can also be applied to males. For example, a gay Latino man could be discriminated based on race because he is an immigrant into
Intersectionality was one of the greatest concepts this course shed light on, intersectionality is can be broadly defined as the coming together of various social groups to work together to fight against forms of oppression. In the conceptual frameworks portion of the book Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, they talk about the importance of privileged identities and disadvantaged identities coming together to work towards solving a particular issue. While before taking this course I was somewhat aware of the various forms of oppression, I never gave much thought to how I could help combat forms of oppression that I did not necessarily experience with my own identity.
Intersectionality also known as intersectional theory originally was a theory which was encoded in feminism. Intersectionality was a term in which feminists developed to explain how they were being socially oppressed because they were woman, in particular this theory addressed issues of the women’s suffrage movement and women wanting to retain the same rights as their male counterparts. As time progressed it became more common to see see it branched out into multidimensional levels of institutions such as- race, class, sexism, culture, religion, and even biological transgender. Intersectionality by definition aims to analyze multiple identities exposing different types of discrimination and disadvantages that occur
A black woman won’t face sexism and then racism independently of each other, but a racialized sexism that can only be understood by addressing them together. Modern day feminists have taken this idea and applied it to all aspects of life that can cause a person to face adversity or privilege, including but not limited to gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, race, religion, and nationality. Looking at someone’s individual situation as something with different facets of privilege and oppression has helped feminists to approach the movement in the way to help all women. My own experiences have come from the intersections between my white and socioeconomic privileges and the oppressions that I face as a woman. These oppressions and privileges stem from the patriarchal ideologies of the social superstructure and show how intersectionality is faced at the personal
It must be noted that criticism of intersectionality isn’t limited to its theoretical framing, it extends to the depoliticization of intersectionality. Yuval-Davis (2006, p. 196) writes that “in UN documents intersectionality has collapsed to ‘identity’ even when more complex arguments are being outlined”. She points out that too often, “intersectionality analysis ‘does not attend to the differential positioning of power in which different identity groups can be in specific historical contexts, let alone the dynamics of power relations within these groups. Nor does it give recognition to the potentially contested nature of the boundaries of these identity groupings and the possibly contested political claims for representation of people located in the same social positioning” (Ibid., p. 204).
Intersectionality according to Patricia Hill Collins is the “theory of the relationship between race, gender and class” (1990), also known as the “matrix of domination” (2000). This matrix shows that there is no one way to understand the complex nature of how gender, race and class inequalities within women’s lives can be separated; for they are intertwined within each other.