# Intersectionality

Intersectionality is a sociological analytical framework for understanding how groups' and individuals' social and political identities result in unique combinations of discrimination and privilege. Examples of these factors include gender, caste, sex, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, disability, height, physical appearance, age, and weight. These intersecting and overlapping social identities may be both empowering and oppressing.
Intersectionality arose in reaction to both white feminism and the then male-dominated black liberation movement, citing the "interlocking oppressions" of racism, sexism and heteronormativity. It broadens the scope of the first and second waves of feminism, which largely focused on the experiences of women who were white and middle-class, to include the different experiences of women of color, poor women, immigrant women, and other groups, and 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.$^{:385}$ She describes how interlocking systems of power affect those who are most marginalized in society. Activists and academics use the framework to promote social and political egalitarianism. 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 has heavily influenced modern feminism and gender studies. Its proponents suggest that it promotes a more nuanced and complex approach to addressing power and oppression, rather than offering simplistic answers. Its critics suggest that the concept is too broad or complex, tends to reduce individuals to specific demographic factors, is used as an ideological tool, and is difficult to apply in research contexts.

## Key concepts
### Interlocking matrix of oppression

Patricia Collins, author of Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory(2019) refers to the various intersections of social inequality as the matrix of domination. These are also known as "vectors of oppression and privilege".$^{:204}$ These terms refer to how differences among people (sexual orientation, class, race, age, etc.) serve as oppressive measures towards women and change the experience of living as a woman in society. Collins, Audre Lorde (in Sister Outsider), and bell hooks point towards either/or thinking as an influence on this oppression and as further intensifying these differences. Specifically, Collins refers to this as the construct of dichotomous oppositional difference. This construct is characterized by its focus on differences rather than similarities.$^{:S20}$ Lisa A. Flores suggests, when individuals live in the borders, they "find themselves with a foot in both worlds". The result is "the sense of being neither" exclusively one identity nor another.

### Multiple discrimination

Over the last couple of decades in the European Union (EU), there has been discussion regarding the intersections of social classifications. Before Crenshaw coined her definition of intersectionality, there was a debate on what these societal categories were. The once definite borders between the categories of gender, race, and class have instead fused into a multidimensional intersection of "race" that now includes religion, sexuality, ethnicities, etc. In the EU and UK, these intersections are referred to as the notion of "multiple discrimination". Although the EU passed a non-discrimination law which addresses these multiple intersections, there is debate on whether the law is still proactively focusing on the proper inequalities.

### Resisting oppression

Speaking from a critical standpoint, Collins points out that Brittan and Maynard say that "domination always involves the objectification of the dominated; all forms of oppression imply the devaluation of the subjectivity of the oppressed".$^{:S18}$ She later notes that self-valuation and self-definition are two ways of resisting oppression, and claims the practice of self-awareness helps to preserve the self-esteem of the group that is being oppressed while allowing them to avoid any dehumanizing outside influences.
Marginalized groups often gain a status of being an "other".$^{:S18}$ In essence, you are "an other" if you are different from what Audre Lorde calls the mythical norm. Gloria Anzaldúa, scholar of Chicana cultural theory, theorized that the sociological term for this is "othering", i.e. specifically attempting to establish a person as unacceptable based on a certain, unachieved criterion.$^{:205}$

### Standpoint epistemology and the outsider within

Both Collins and Dorothy Smith have been instrumental in providing a sociological definition of standpoint theory. A standpoint is an individual's world perspective. The theoretical basis of this approach views societal knowledge as being located within an individual's specific geographic location. In turn, knowledge becomes distinct and subjective; it varies depending on the social conditions under which it was produced.$^{:392}$
The concept of the outsider within refers to a standpoint encompassing the self, family, and society.$^{:S14}$ This relates to the specific experiences to which people are subjected as they move from a common cultural world (i.e., family) to that of modern society.$^{:207}$ Therefore, even though a woman—especially a Black woman—may become influential in a particular field, she may feel as though she does not belong. Her personality, behavior, and cultural being overshadow her value as an individual; thus, she becomes the outsider within.$^{:S14}$

## History

The concept of intersectionality was introduced to the field of legal studies by black feminist scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, who used the term in a pair of essays published in 1989 and 1991. Intersectionality originated in critical race studies and demonstrates a multifaceted connection between race, gender, and other systems that work together to oppress, while also allowing privilege in other areas. Intersectionality is relative because it displays how race, gender, and other components "intersect" to shape the experiences of individuals. Crenshaw used intersectionality to denote how race, class, gender, and other systems combine to shape the experiences of many by making room for privilege. Crenshaw used intersectionality to display the disadvantages caused by intersecting systems creating structural, political, and representational aspects of violence against minorities in the workplace and society. Crenshaw explained the dynamics that using gender, race, and other forms of power in politics and academics plays a big role in intersectionality.

### Precursors to intersectionality

The historical exclusion of black women from the feminist movement in the United States resulted in many black 19th- and 20th-century feminists—including Sojourner Truth, Anna J. Cooper, Maria W. Stewart, Ida B. Wells and others—challenging their historical exclusion from earlier feminist movements, which were primarily led by white middle-class women who suggested that women were a homogeneous category who shared the same life experiences.
In her 1851 "Ain't I a Woman?" speech, Sojourner Truth spoke from her racialized position as a formerly enslaved woman to critique essentialist notions of femininity. She highlighted the differences between the treatment of white and Black women in society, saying that white women were often regarded as emotional and delicate, while Black women were stereotyped as brutish and subjected to both gendered and racialized abuse. These observations were largely dismissed by many white feminists of the time, who prioritized the suffrage movement over addressing the intersecting oppressions faced by Black women.
Early writers and intellectuals such as Cooper, Stewart, Wells, Stuart Hall and Nira Yuval-Davis also emphasized the interconnected nature of racial and gender oppressions, prefiguring intersectionality. In her 1892 essay "The Colored Woman's Office", Cooper identified Black women as crucial agents of social change, emphasizing their unique understanding of multiple forms of oppression. In Cooper's publication of "A Voice from the South" (1892), she emphasized the importance of considering the "whole race" by focusing on the lived experiences of Black women. Cooper said that their oppression was just not racial or gender-based but a complex combination of the two.
W. E. B. Du Bois theorized that the intersectional paradigms of race, class, and nation might explain specific aspects of the black political economy. Patricia Hill Collins writes: "Du Bois saw race, class, and nation not primarily as personal identity categories but as social hierarchies that shaped African-American access to status, poverty, and power."$^{:44}$ Du Bois nevertheless omitted gender from his theory and considered it more of a personal identity category. Pauli Murray used the phrase "Jane Crow" in 1947 while at Howard University to describe the compounded challenges faced by black women in the Jim Crow south.

### Second wave feminism

Patricia Hill Collins describes the Black, Chicana, Latina, Indigenous, and Asian American feminists active between 1960s and 1980s as instrumental on the development of intersectionality. In the 1970s, a group of black feminist women organized the Combahee River Collective in Boston, Massachusetts, in response to what they felt was an alienation from both white feminism and the male-dominated black liberation movement, citing the "interlocking oppressions" of racism, sexism and heteronormativity. The collective developed the concept of simultaneity: the simultaneous influences of race, class, gender, and sexuality, which informed the members' lives and their resistance to oppression. Thus, the women of the Combahee River Collective advanced an understanding of African-American experiences that challenged analyses emerging from black and male-centered social movements, as well as those from mainstream cisgender, white, middle-class, heterosexual feminists.
In DeGraffenreid v. General Motors (1976), Emma DeGraffenreid and four other black female auto workers alleged compound employment discrimination against black women as a result of General Motors' seniority-based system of layoffs. The courts weighed the allegations of race and gender discrimination separately, finding that the employment of African-American male factory workers disproved racial discrimination, and the employment of white female office workers disproved gender discrimination. The court declined to consider compound discrimination, and dismissed the case. Crenshaw said that in cases such as this, the courts have tended to ignore black women's unique experiences by treating them as only women or only black.$^{:141–143}$
From the 1970s, a number of non-Western feminists of color also articulated ideas similar to intersectionality, such as Awa Thiam, who referred to the "threefold oppression" of racism, sexism and class oppression which impacted African women:
   The Black woman of Africa suffers threefold oppression: by virtue of her sex, she is dominated by man in a patriarchal society; by virtue of her class she is at
   the mercy of capitalist exploitation; by virtue of her race she suffers from the
   appropriation of her country by colonial or neo-colonial powers. Sexism, racism, class division; three plagues.
By the 1980s, as second-wave feminism began to recede, scholars of color including Audre Lorde, Gloria E. Anzaldúa and Angela Davis brought their lived experiences into academic discussion, shaping what would become known as "intersectionality" within race, class, and gender studies in U.S. academia. Scholar bell hooks, in her groundbreaking work Ain't I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism (1981), described the exclusion of Black women's experiences from mainstream feminist narratives and underscored the importance of addressing race, gender, and class as intersecting systems of oppression. For hooks, the emergence of intersectionality "challenged the notion that 'gender' was the primary factor determining a woman's fate". Inspired by Lorde, Afro-German women also began to explore issues of overlapping oppression in Germany.
In 1988, Deborah K. King published the article "Multiple Jeopardy, Multiple Consciousness: The Context of a Black Feminist Ideology". In it, King addresses what soon became the foundation for intersectionality, saying, "black women have long recognized the special circumstances of our lives in the United States: the commonalities that we share with all women, as well as the bonds that connect us to the men of our race".

### Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex

In 1989, Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality as a way to help explain the oppression of African-American women in her essay "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Anti-discrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics". Crenshaw's term has risen to the forefront of national conversations about racial justice, identity politics, and policing—and over the years has helped shape legal discussions. In her work, Crenshaw discusses Black feminism, arguing that the experience of being a black woman cannot be understood in terms independent of either being black or a woman. Rather, it must include interactions between the two identities, which, she adds, should frequently reinforce one another.
In order to demonstrate that women of color have different experiences to white women, Crenshaw explores domestic violence and rape committed by men, which for women of color consist of a combination of both racism and sexism. She says that because the discourses designed to address either race or sex do not consider both at the same time, women of color are marginalized within both of them a result. Crenshaw identifies three aspects of intersectionality that affect the visibility of non-white women: structural intersectionality, political intersectionality, and representational intersectionality. Structural intersectionality deals with how women of color experience domestic violence and rape in a manner qualitatively different from white women. Political intersectionality examines how laws and policies intended to increase equality have paradoxically decreased the visibility of violence against women of color. Finally, representational intersectionality delves into how pop culture portrayals of women of color can obscure their own authentic lived experiences.
Crenshaw delves into several legal cases that exhibit the concept of political intersectionality and how anti-discrimination law has been historically limited, such as DeGraffenreid v Motors, Moore v Hughes Helicopter Inc., and Payne v Travenol. There are two commonalities, amongst others, between these cases: firstly, each respective court's inability to fully understand the multidimensionality of the plaintiff's intersecting identities, and the limited ability that the plaintiffs had to argue their case due to restrictions created by the very legislation that exists in opposition to discrimination such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

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The concept of intersectionality was intended to illuminate dynamics that have often been overlooked by feminist theory and movements. Racial inequality was a factor that was largely ignored by first-wave feminism, which was primarily concerned with gaining political equality between white men and white women. Early women's rights movements often exclusively pertained to the membership, concerns, and struggles of white women.$^{:59–60}$ Second-wave feminism worked to dismantle sexism relating to the perceived domestic purpose of women. While feminists during this time achieved success in the United States through the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title IX, and Roe v. Wade, they largely alienated black women from platforms in the mainstream movement. Third-wave feminism—which emerged shortly after the term intersectionality was coined—noted the lack of attention to race, class, sexual orientation, and gender identity in early feminist movements, and tried to provide a channel to address political and social disparities.$^{:72–73}$ Intersectionality recognizes these issues which were ignored by early social justice movements.
From the 1980s, a number of non-Western feminists of color began to engage with the concept of intersectionality, such as Awa Thiam, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Chela Sandoval, and others. They often included critical concepts from postcolonialism.
The term became more widely used in the 1990s, particularly in the wake of the further development of Crenshaw's work in the writings of sociologist Patricia Hill Collins. Crenshaw's term, Collins says, replaced her own previous coinage "black feminist thought", and "increased the general applicability of her theory from African American women to all women".$^{:61}$ Collins says that cultural patterns of oppression are not only interrelated, but are bound together and influenced by the intersectional systems of society, such as race, gender, class, and ethnicity.$^{:42}$ Collins describes this as "interlocking social institutions [that] have relied on multiple forms of segregation... to produce unjust results". Collins sought to create frameworks to think about intersectionality, rather than expanding on the theory itself. She identified three main branches of study within intersectionality. One branch deals with the background, ideas, issues, conflicts, and debates within intersectionality. Another branch seeks to apply intersectionality as an analytical strategy to various social institutions in order to examine how they might perpetuate social inequality. The final branch formulates intersectionality as a critical praxis to determine how social justice initiatives can use intersectionality to bring about social change.
Audre Lorde's work was also an important influence on the development of intersectionality. Lorde suggests that ignoring the multiple dimensions of identity perpetuates systems of oppression, and criticizes mainstream feminism for failing to address the specific experiences of marginalized women. She said, "There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives," and advocates for a collective approach to dismantling these overlapping systems of discrimination.
According to black feminists such as Crenshaw, Lorde, Collins, and bell hooks, experiences of class, gender, and sexuality cannot be adequately understood unless the influence of racialization is carefully considered. This focus on racialization was highlighted many times by scholar and feminist bell hooks, specifically in her 1981 book Ain't I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism. Collins' essay, "Gender, black feminism, and black political economy", highlights her theory on the sociological crossroads between modern and post-modern feminist thought.
Chiara Bottici has argued that criticisms of intersectionality that find it to be incomplete, or argue that it fails to recognize the specificity of women's oppression, can be met with an anarcha-feminism that recognizes "that there is something specific about the oppression of women and that in order to fight it you have to fight all other forms of oppression." Cheryl Townsend Gilkes expands on this by pointing out the value of centering on the experiences of black women. Joy James takes things one step further by "using paradigms of intersectionality in interpreting social phenomena". Collins later integrated these three views by examining a black political economy through the centering of black women's experiences and the use of a theoretical framework of intersectionality.$^{:44}$
Collins uses a Marxist feminist approach and applies her intersectional principles to what she calls the "work/family nexus and black women's poverty". In her 2000 article "Black Political Economy" she describes how, in her view, the intersections of consumer racism, gender hierarchies, and disadvantages in the labor market can be centered on black women's unique experiences. Considering this from a historical perspective and examining interracial marriage laws and property inheritance laws creates what Collins terms a "distinctive work/family nexus that in turn influences the overall patterns of black political economy". For example, anti-miscegenation laws effectively suppressed the upward economic mobility of black women.$^{:45–46}$ The intersection of race and gender has a significant impact on the labor market. According to Collins: "Sociological research clearly shows that accounting for education, experience, and skill does not fully explain significant differences in labor market outcomes."$^{:506}$ The three main domains in which we see the impact of intersectionality are wages, discrimination, and domestic labor. Those who experience privilege within the social hierarchy in terms of race, gender, and socio-economic status are less likely to receive lower wages, to be subjected to stereotypes and discriminated against, or to be hired for exploitative domestic positions. Studies of the labor market and intersectionality provide a better understanding of economic inequalities and the implications of the multidimensional impact of race and gender on social status within society.$^{:506–507}$

### Other feminisms

Though intersectionality began with the exploration of the interplay between gender and race, over time other identities and oppressions were added to the theory, such as sexuality, disability and class. In this respect, Gloria Wekker describes Gloria E. Anzaldúa's work as important. She says that in the Chicana feminist theorist's approach, "existent categories for identity are strikingly not dealt with in separate or mutually exclusive terms, but are always referred to in relation to one another".
Additionally, intersectionality also attempts to address the differences between women of color even regarding shared experiences such as racism. For example, Asian American women often report intersectional experiences that set them apart from other American women. For example, several studies have shown that East Asian women are considered more physically attractive than white women and other women of color, which is often related to racialized stereotypes of Asian women as subordinate or oversexualized. Robin Zheng writes that widespread fetishization of East Asian women's physical features leads to "racial depersonalization": the separation of Asian women from their own individual attributes.
In Latin America, Maria Lugones introduced the concept of the "coloniality of gender" to explore how colonial histories intersect race, gender, and class, creating unique forms of oppression for Indigenous and Afro-descendant women. Her work reveals the imposition of Eurocentric gender norms during colonial rule, which marginalized non-Western gender identities and social structures. In South Asia, Dalit feminists have drawn on intersectional analysis to emphasize the compounded marginalization faced by Dalit women, who experience both caste-based and gender-based discrimination. Scholars such as Thenmozhi Soundararajan argue in their works like The Trauma of Caste that mainstream feminist frameworks often neglect these intersecting oppressions, calling for a more nuanced analysis that recognizes caste as a central axis of inequality.

## Forms

Kimberlé Crenshaw, in "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color", uses and explains three different forms of intersectionality to describe the violence that women experience. According to Crenshaw, there are three forms of intersectionality: structural, political, and representational intersectionality.

### Structural intersectionality

Structural intersectionality is used to describe how different structures work together and create a complex which highlights the differences in the experiences of women of color with domestic violence and rape. Structural intersectionality entails the ways in which classism, sexism, and racism interlock and oppress women of color while molding their experiences in different arenas. Crenshaw's analysis of structural intersectionality was used during her field study of battered women. In this study, Crenshaw uses intersectionality to display the multilayered oppressions that women who are victims of domestic violence face.

### Political intersectionality

Political intersectionality highlights two conflicting systems in the political arena, which separates women and women of color into two subordinate groups. The experiences of women of color differ from those of white women and men of color due to their race and gender often intersecting. White women suffer from gender bias, and men of color suffer from racial bias; however, both of their experiences differ from that of women of color, because women of color experience both racial and gender bias. According to Crenshaw, a political failure of the antiracist and feminist discourses was the exclusion of the intersection of race and gender that places priority on the interest of "people of color" and "women", thus disregarding one while highlighting the other. Political engagement should reflect support of women of color; a prime example of the exclusion of women of color that shows the difference in the experiences of white women and women of color is the women's suffrage march.

### Representational intersectionality

Representational intersectionality advocates for the creation of imagery that is supportive of women of color. Representational intersectionality condemns sexist and racist marginalization of women of color in representation. Representational intersectionality also highlights the importance of women of color having representation in media and contemporary settings.

### Other forms
#### Situated intersectionality

Expanding on Crenshaw's framework, migration researcher Nira Yuval-Davis proposed the concept of situated intersectionality as a theoretical framework that can encompass different types of inequalities, simultaneously (ontologically), but enmeshed (concretely), and based on a dialogical epistemology which can incorporate "differentially located situated gazes" at these inequalities. Reilly, Bjørnholt and Tastsoglou note that "Yuval-Davis shares Fineman's critical stance vis-à-vis the fragmentizing and essentializing tendencies of identity politics, but without resorting to a universalism that eschews difference." This approach maintains a critical stance against the fragmentation and essentialism in identity politics, aligning with Fineman's critiques but avoiding a universalist perspective that negates differences.

#### Strategic intersectionality

Marie-Claire Belleau has called for "strategic intersectionality" in order to foster cooperation between feminisms of different ethnicities.$^{:51}$ She refers to different nat-cult (national-cultural) groups that produce different types of feminisms. Using the Québécois nat-cult as an example, Belleau says that many nat-cult groups contain infinite sub-identities within themselves, saying that there are endless ways in which different feminisms can cooperate by using strategic intersectionality, and that these partnerships can help bridge gaps between "dominant and marginal" groups.$^{:54}$ Belleau argues that, through strategic intersectionality, differences between nat-cult feminisms are neither essentialist nor universal, but should be understood as resulting from socio-cultural contexts. Furthermore, the performances of these nat-cult feminisms are also not essentialist. Instead, they are strategies.

#### Transnational intersectionality

Postcolonial feminists and transnational feminists have criticized intersectionality as a concept emanating from WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) societies that unduly universalizes women's experiences. Postcolonial feminists have worked to revise Western conceptualizations of intersectionality that assume all women experience the same type of gender and racial oppression. Shelly Grabe coined the term transnational intersectionality to represent a more comprehensive conceptualization of intersectionality. Grabe wrote, "Transnational intersectionality places importance on the intersections among gender, ethnicity, sexuality, economic exploitation, and other social hierarchies in the context of empire building or imperialist policies characterized by historical and emergent global capitalism."
Both Postcolonial and transnational feminists advocate attending to "complex and intersecting oppressions and multiple forms of resistance". Vrushali Patil argues that intersectionality ought to recognize transborder constructions of racial and cultural hierarchies. About the effect of the state on identity formation, Patil says: "If we continue to neglect cross-border dynamics and fail to problematize the nation and its emergence via transnational processes, our analyses will remain tethered to the spatialities and temporalities of colonial modernity."
Chandra Mohanty discusses alliances between women throughout the world as intersectionality in a global context. She rejects the western feminist theory, especially when it writes about global women of color and generally associated "third world women". She argues that "third world women" are often thought of as a homogeneous entity, when, in fact, their experience of oppression is informed by their geography, history, and culture. When western feminists write about women in the global South in this way, they dismiss the inherent intersecting identities that are present in the dynamic of feminism in the global South. Mohanty questions the performance of intersectionality and relationality of power structures within the US and colonialism and how to work across identities with this history of colonial power structures.
This is elaborated on by Christine Bose, who discusses a global use of intersectionality which works to remove associations of specific inequalities with specific institutions while showing that these systems generate intersectional effects. She uses this approach to develop a framework that can analyze gender inequalities across different nations and differentiates this from an approach (the one that Mohanty was referring to) which, one, paints national-level inequalities as the same and, two, differentiates only between the global North and South. This is manifested through the intersection of global dynamics like economics, migration, or violence, with regional dynamics, like histories of the nation or gendered inequalities in education and property education.

## Applications

Intersectionality has been applied in many fields from politics, education healthcare, and employment, to economics. One could apply the intersectionality framework analysis to various areas where race, class, gender, sexuality and ability are affected by policies, procedures, practices, and laws in "context-specific inquiries, including, for example, analyzing the multiple ways that race and gender interact with class in the labor market; interrogating the ways that states constitute regulatory regimes of identity, reproduction, and family formation"; and examining the inequities in "the power relations [of the intersectionality] of whiteness ... [where] the denial of power and privilege ... of whiteness, and middle-classness", while not addressing "the role of power it wields in social relations".
Little good-quality quantitative research has been done to support or undermine the practical uses of intersectionality, owing to misapplication of theoretical concepts and problems in methodology.

### Domestic violence

Women with disabilities encounter more frequent domestic abuse with a greater number of abusers. Health care workers and personal care attendants perpetrate abuse in these circumstances, and women with disabilities have fewer options for escaping the abusive situation. There is a "silence" principle concerning the intersectionality of women and disability, which maintains an overall social denial of the prevalence of abuse among the disabled and leads to this abuse being frequently ignored when encountered. This can exacerbate limited autonomy and social isolation of disabled individuals, and place women with disabilities in situations where further or more frequent abuse can occur.

### Education

Intersectionality in education involves considering multiple elements of peoples' identities to increase accessibility—such as language, learning style, and disabilities. Laura Gonzales and Janine Butler say that an intersectional approach can help decrease the impact of disadvantages in the learning environment. For example, the research by Gonzales and Butler found benefits from incorporating bilingual delivery, adjustments for disability, and inclusion of marginalized subjects in their writing assignments. Authors Collin Lamout Craig and Staci Maree suggest there are also benefits for intersectionality in aiding acknowledgment and understanding in academia.
Within the institution of education, Sandra Jones' research on working-class women in academia takes into consideration meritocracy within all social strata, but argues that it is complicated by race and the external forces that oppress.

### Employment

Practices referred to as intersectionality may be implemented in different ways in different organizations. Within the context of the UK charity sector, Christoffersen identified five different conceptualizations of intersectionality. "Generic intersectionality" was observed in policy areas, where intersectionality was conceptualized as developing policies to be in everyone's universal interest rather than being targeted to particular groups. "Pan equality" was concern for issues that affected most marginalised groups. "Multi-strand intersectionality" attempted to consider different groups when making a decision, but rarely viewed the groups as overlapping or focused on issues for a particular group. "Diversity within" considered one main form of identity, such as gender, as most important while occasionally considering other aspects of identity, with these different forms of identity sometimes seen as detracting from the main identity. "Intersections of equality strands" considered the intersection of identities but no form of identity was seen as more relevant. In this approach it was sometimes felt that if one dealt with the most marginalised identity the system would tend to work for all people. Christoffersen referred to some of these meanings given to intersectionality as "additive" where inequalities are thought to be able to be added to and subtracted from one another.
Studies of the labor market using suggest there are economic inequalities due to the intersections of race and gender, including for African American women.$^{:506–507}$ In Analyzing Gender, Intersectionality, and Multiple Inequalities: Global, Transnational and Local Contexts, the authors argue: "The impact of patriarchy and traditional assumptions about gender and families are evident in the lives of Chinese migrant workers (Chow, Tong), sex workers and their clients in South Korea (Shin), and Indian widows (Chauhan), but also Ukrainian migrants (Amelina) and Australian men of the new global middle class (Connell)."

### Healthcare

Intersectionality has been used as a critical framework in healthcare, such as in addressing issues of reproductive justice, where the intersection of race, class, and gender shapes access to healthcare and family planning resources for women of color. Loretta Ross and the SisterSong Collective suggest that healthcare policies disproportionately affect Black, Indigenous, and Latina women, highlighting the importance of applying an intersectional lens in policy-making. This ensures that systematic disparities are identified and addressed to create equitable healthcare policies and resources for marginalized communities. The Women's Institute for Science, Equity and Race advocates for the disaggregation of data in order to highlight intersectional identities in all kinds of research.
Additionally, people of color often experience differential treatment in the healthcare system. For example, in the period immediately after 9/11 researchers noted low birth weights and other poor birth outcomes among Muslim and Arab Americans, a result they connected to the increased racial and religious discrimination of the time. Some researchers have also argued that immigration policies can affect health outcomes through mechanisms such as stress, restrictions on access to health care, and the social determinants of health.

### Immigration

The African American Policy Forum (AAPF) has advocated for an intersectional approach to immigration policy, considering factors such as race, marriage and gender. The AAPF says that immigrant women's lives are often threatened by abusive spouses who are already citizens, and yet such women cannot divorce their spouses for two years if they seek permanent resident status. According to the AAPF, the law currently includes "no exceptions for battered women who often faced the risk of serious injury and death on the one hand, or deportation on the other".

### Psychology

Researchers in psychology have incorporated intersection effects since the 1950s. These intersection effects were based on studying the lenses of biases, heuristics, stereotypes, and judgments. Psychologists have extended research in psychological biases to the areas of cognitive and motivational psychology. What is found, is that every human mind has its own biases in judgment and decision-making that tend to preserve the status quo by avoiding change and attention to ideas that exist outside one's personal realm of perception. Psychological interaction effects span a range of variables, although person-by-situation effects are the most examined category. As a result, psychologists do not construe the interaction effect of demographics such as gender and race as either more noteworthy or less noteworthy than any other interaction effect. In addition, oppression can be regarded as a subjective construct when viewed as an absolute hierarchy.
Even if an objective definition of oppression was reached, person-by-situation effects would make it difficult to deem certain persons or categories of persons as uniformly oppressed. For instance, black men are stereotypically perceived as criminals, which makes it much more difficult for them to get hired for a job than a white man. However, gay black men are perceived as harmless, which increases their chances of getting employed and receiving bonuses, despite the fact that gay males are also socially disadvantaged. The stereotype of gay men as harmless helps black men transcend their reputation for criminality. Several psychological studies have likewise shown that possessing multiple oppressed or marginalized identities has effects that are not necessarily additive, or even multiplicative, but rather, interactive in complex ways.
One of the main issues that affects the research of intersectionality is the construct problem. Constructs are what scientists use to build blocks of understanding within their field of study. It is important because it gives us something to measure. As mentioned previously, it is incredibly difficult to define oppression and, specifically, the feeling of being oppressed and ways that different kinds of oppression may interact as a construct. As psychology grows and changes its ability to define constructs, this research will likely improve.

### Remediation

To provide sufficient preventive, redressive and deterrent remedies, judges in courts and others working in conflict resolution mechanisms take into account intersectional dimensions.

### Social work

In the field of social work, proponents of intersectionality hold that unless service providers take intersectionality into account, they will be of less use for various segments of the population, such as those reporting domestic violence or disabled victims of abuse. According to intersectional theory, the practice of domestic violence counselors in the United States urging all women to report their abusers to police is of little use to women of color due to the history of racially motivated police brutality, and those counselors should adapt their counseling for women of color.

### Other fields

Intersectionality has also been used in critical animal studies and ecofeminist literature, particularly in considering how our treatment of animals and the natural environment has an impact upon people. For example, factory farming can be understood not just as an issue of animal welfare but also as an issue of environmental justice, workers' rights, and public health which may disproportionately impact marginalized communities and peoples.

## Responses
### Academic

Many feminists have positively engaged with the idea of intersectionality. Black feminists, in particular, suggest that an understanding of intersectionality is a vital element of gaining political and social equity and improving the societal structures that oppress individuals. Beverly Guy-Sheftall says, "black women experience a special kind of oppression and suffering in this country which is racist, sexist, and classist because of their dual race and gender identity and their limited access to economic resources". Stephanie A. Shields says that each part of someone's identity "serve as organizing features of social relations, mutually constitute, reinforce, and naturalize one another". Shields says that one aspect cannot exist individually, rather it "takes its meaning as a category in relation to another category."
Some scholars suggest intersectionality is often weaponized against other forms of feminism. Barbara Tomlinson, of the Department of Feminist Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara, has been critical of the applications of intersectional theory to attack other ways of feminist thinking. Downing says intersectionality, seen through the framework of Andrea Dworkin's class-based radical feminism, focuses too much on group identities and interests over individuality, leading to simplistic analysis and inaccurate assumptions about how a person's values and attitudes are determined. Iris Marion Young suggests that differences must be acknowledged in order to find unifying social justice issues that create coalitions that aid in changing society for the better. More specifically, this relates to the ideals of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW).
Scholar Jennifer Nash says that, using an Afropessimist framework, intersectionality may flatten the unique experiences of blackness and gender by treating different forms of identity as equivalent. Nash also criticizes the superficial use of intersectionality by some institutions without addressing systematic inequalities.

### Utility

Among scholars, proponents of intersectionality cite its broad applicability and embrace of nuance, while its critics say it is overly complex or too broad. Sociologist Kathy Davis says intersectionality's broad applicability and consideration of multiple factors makes it a useful critical tool: "It encourages complexity, stimulates creativity, and avoids premature closure, tantalizing feminist scholars to raise new questions and explore uncharted territory."
Rekia Jibrin and Sara Salem suggest that because intersectional theory creates a unified but complex idea of anti-oppression politics, this creates difficulties achieving praxis and results in significant ambiguity in how the framework should be applied. As it is based in standpoint theory, Lisa Downing says the focus on subjective experiences can lead to contradictions and the inability to identify common causes of oppression.
Brittney Cooper says that "intersectionality does not deserve our religious devotion" but that "as a conceptual and analytic tool for thinking about operations of power, intersectionality remains one of the most useful and expansive paradigms we have". In responding to critics of intersectionality who find it to be incomplete, or argue that it fails to recognize the specificity of women's oppression, Chiara Bottici says that "there is something specific about the oppression of women and that in order to fight it you have to fight "all other forms of oppression". Cheryl Townsend Gilkes and Joy James say there is value in focusing on the experiences of black women.$^{:44}$
Patricia Hill Collins also argues that without critical social theory, intersectionality falls flat. She argues that the mission of intersectionality currently within academia is too broad as a theoretical project, leading to its meaning being diluted both by the left and the right. As a result, intersectionality needs to take a position as a critical social theory in order to further it as a discipline and as a theory that can be utilized to dismantle systematic oppression.

### Research

Many recent academics, such as Leslie McCall, have argued that the introduction of the intersectionality theory was vital to sociology and that before the development of the theory, there was little research that specifically addressed the experiences of people who are subjected to multiple forms of oppression within society.
Others suggest that generating testable predictions from intersectionality theory can be complex. Liam Kofi Bright, Daniel Malinsky, and Morgan Thompson suggest a framework of graphical causal modeling to provide "empirically testable interpretations of intersectional theory" to address such concerns.
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 and 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.

### Political

Critics of intersectionality also say that it is used as a tool of neoliberalism. Cooper says: "To suggest as Puar does that intersectionality is a tool of a neoliberal agenda rather than a tool that works against it is a line of thinking that should be vigilantly guarded against." Jibrin and Salem suggest that, while intersectionality has radical origins, its ambiguities mean it has been embraced by neoliberal feminists, undermining its radical nature:
   Given the empirical examples presented, we are convinced that the rise of class domination in what we know as the neoliberal university creates the conditions for concepts like intersectionality to become diluted and commodified. By depoliticizing intersectionality neoliberal market regimes empty radical struggle of structural critiques and translate them into palatable (unthreatening) narratives of social justice, multiculturalisms.
Conservatives such as American conservative commentator Ben Shapiro suggest that intersectionality creates a "hierarchy of victimhood", where individuals are categorized as "members of a victim class by virtue of membership in a particular group".

### Others

Philosopher Tommy J. Curry published several works suggesting intersectional feminism implicitly adopts, and thereby perpetuates, harmful stereotypes of Black men. Curry says Crenshaw's intersectional model depends on second-wave feminist ideas, imported from subculture of violence theorists who argue that Black masculinity is compensatory and sexually predatory. In so doing, Curry says that the intersectional feminist concept of "Double Jeopardy" is fundamentally mistaken because intersectionality is over-determined by feminist politics. Curry also says that Crenshaw's conclusions in Mapping the Margins rely on gender essentialism that erases Black male victims of intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and lethal violence.