Accounting for difference became a way to speak more specifically of both knowledge and experience, as well as to complicate the notion of an essentialist, unified subject. McDowell, Linda and Joanne P. Sharp, eds. A Feminist Glossary of Human Geography . Arnold Publishers, 1999. Diversity A point of difference.
Diversity can mean difference in men and women, ethnic background, sexuality, age, etc.
Feminists are attached to the word because feminism has attempted to include different types of women and their different voices within its theories. The struggle for diversity has not always been easy, though. At times feminists have struggled to create diversity, but have been charged with essentialism in catering to gaining specific types of women within a group. At other times feminists have been charged with not focusing on diversity enough, and are claimed to be racist or lacking a desire to expand the idea of what feminism is and who it can operate for. Ethnicity should be distinguished from the term race, which emphasizes the social construction of difference between people of different origins and identities.