notion : Intersectionality

Intersectionality

"Intersectionality is an analytical and political orientation that brings together a number of insights and practices developed largely in the context of Black feminist and women of color theoretical and political traditions. First, it approaches lived identities as interlaced and systems of oppression as enmeshed and mutually reinforcing: one aspect of identity and/or form of inequality is not treated as separable or as superordinate. This “matrix” worldview contests “single-axis” forms of thinking about subjectivity and power (Crenshaw 1989) and rejects hierarchies of identity or oppression (Combahee 1983; Lorde 1984; B. Smith 1983). An intersectional justice orientation is thus wide in scope and inclusive: it repudiates additive notions of identity, assimilationist models of civil rights, and one-dimensional views of power. Focusing on the interplay of identities and the push–pull of multiple forms of power, intersectionality highlights the workings of racist sexism: for instance, its matrix model changes the terms of what “counts” as a gender, race, sexuality, disability, nation, and/or class issue or framework. Intersectionality also approaches lived identities, and systemic patterns of asymmetrical life opportunities and harms, from their interstices, from the nodal points where they hinge or touch." (May, 2015)