What is Intersectionality?
Intersectionality is the study of how overlapping or intersecting social identities, particularly minority identities, relate to systems and structures of oppression, domination, or discrimination. The framework opposes analytical systems that treat each axis of oppression in isolation. For instance, discrimination against Black women cannot be explained as a simple combination of misogyny and racism, but as something more complicated. The oppression Black women face is not simply additive, or the sum of racism and sexism, but a distinct form of discrimination that demands new analysis.
Intersectionality has been broadly characterized as a “knowledge project” engaged in by scholars and social justice activists from a wide array of disciplines whose focus is on “power relations and social inequalities.” It provides a lens for understanding how power operates through multiple, simultaneous systems of advantage and disadvantage, revealing patterns of exclusion that single-axis frameworks render invisible.
Origins & Lineage
“Intersectionality” was coined in 1989 by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a civil rights activist and legal scholar. In a paper for the University of Chicago Legal Forum, Crenshaw wrote that traditional feminist ideas and antiracist policies exclude Black women because they face overlapping discrimination unique to them. Crenshaw introduced the concept in her 1989 article “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics.” She reiterated the concept’s utility in her 1991 article “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color.”
The intellectual lineage extends further back. W.E.B. Du Bois had theorized about how the categories of race, class, and culture mutually reinforce discrimination and social stratification, though he did not explicitly include gender in his analysis. In the 1970s the Combahee River Collective, a group of Black lesbian socialist feminists, notably addressed the “interlocking oppressions” of racism, sexism, and heteronormativity, further developing the groundwork for intersectional thinking.
The Combahee River Collective was a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization active in Boston from 1974 to 1980. The Collective argued that both the white feminist movement and the Civil Rights Movement were not addressing their particular needs as Black women and more specifically as Black lesbians. Their 1977 statement declared they were “actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression” and saw “as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. The synthesis of these oppressions creates the condition of our lives.”
In 2011, Crenshaw founded the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Columbia Law School. The term became more widely used in the 1990s, particularly following further development of Crenshaw’s work by sociologist Patricia Hill Collins. Collins says Crenshaw’s term replaced her own previous coinage “Black feminist thought”, and “increased the general applicability of her theory from African American women to all women.”
How It’s Practiced
Intersectionality Framework is an analytical tool used to examine how various social identities, such as race, gender, class, sexuality, disability, and age, intersect to create unique experiences of oppression or privilege. This framework helps organizations, policymakers, and social justice advocates recognize the complexities of discrimination and develop more inclusive policies.
In practice, intersectionality appears in policy analysis, organizational equity work, research methodology, and advocacy. Consider workplace policies addressing the gender pay gap. If an organization only looks at gender, they may conclude that women earn less than men. However, by applying the Intersectionality Framework, they may discover that Black women or Latina women earn even less than White women due to compounded discrimination.
Patricia Hill Collins identified three main branches of study within intersectionality: one dealing with the background, ideas, issues, conflicts, and debates within intersectionality; another that seeks to apply intersectionality as an analytical strategy to examine how various social institutions might perpetuate social inequality; and one that uses intersectionality to bring social change through social justice initiatives.
Intersectionality Today
Intersectionality has moved from legal scholarship into widespread use across disciplines, advocacy, and public discourse. The word has migrated from women’s-studies journals and conference keynotes into everyday conversation, turning what was once highbrow discourse into hashtag chatter. The term has been widely adopted by researchers, academics, and the media to analyze the causes and effects of structural inequality, and to highlight the embedded and pervasive inequalities underlying health disparities.
Scholars and practitioners encounter intersectionality through university courses in gender studies, sociology, law, public health, and social work. It informs diversity and inclusion training in organizations, guides policy development in government and non-profits, and shapes activist strategies in social justice movements. The Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Columbia Law School brings together scholars and practitioners from law, sociology, feminist and gender studies, human rights, social justice, and other fields to explore the relationship of intersectionality to their work.
Common Misconceptions
Several misunderstandings have emerged as the concept gained mainstream attention. Recognizing people’s intersecting identities can be a form of validation for many people. However, this view often considers each identity as separate experiences that don’t have anything to do with each other. Intersectionality goes a step further by looking at how different forms of discrimination such as racism and transphobia can intersect each other.
When this concept entered the landscape of algorithmic fairness, the dominant interpretation partially reduced the term to simply mean combining identity categories; abstracting away the function of systems of oppression. The concept of intersectionality addresses the compounding impact of overlapping systems of oppression, and the dominant interpretation does not meaningfully address or challenge the unique nature of oppression that those at the intersections of identities face. Rather, the misinterpretation abstracts away how systems of oppression function at all, and reduces this term to mean combining identity categories.
Intersectionality starts to feel like a competition where people argue about which identities are more oppressed and therefore superior. This is a grave misunderstanding of intersectionality. Critics frequently contend that the notion promotes a polarized approach to understanding and addressing social problems, one that prioritizes distinctions rather than commonalities between disadvantaged individuals and communities. Such an approach, according to opponents, tends to weaken progressive social movements by discouraging the recognition of broader social problems.
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. These debates reflect both genuine methodological challenges and resistance to examining power structures.
How to Begin
For those new to intersectionality, begin with Kimberlé Crenshaw’s original 1989 paper “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex” available through legal databases and academic repositories. Kimberlé Crenshaw’s TED Talk, The Urgency of Intersectionality, asks critical questions and provides an accessible introduction to the framework’s application.
Read the Combahee River Collective Statement (1977) to understand the intellectual foundation preceding Crenshaw’s formalization of the term. Patricia Hill Collins’ work, particularly “Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory” (2019), offers comprehensive theoretical development. For practical application, seek out case studies in your field of interest—public health, education, organizational development, or policy analysis—to see how intersectional frameworks reveal patterns that single-axis analysis misses.