What exactly does “Intersectionality” mean – and why does it matter? – Wired PR Lifestyle Story

When I had dinner with my friend recently Diandra, founder Intersectional environmental, we remembered the first time we met. It was on FaceTime last summer (I also interviewed creator Leah, here.) We were both in quarantine, facing the madness of the world, but we still found ways to engage. I will never forget to lighten my face, as he said, “We started a very important platform and it is going viral.”

Intersectionality, mutual nature race, class, gender and other individual characteristics were created by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. In the last five years or so, it has gained worldwide recognition. hierarchies in an effort to eradicate those around our most important identity markers.

Language is one of our most precious tools. It is essential to have a word to help you understand (and deal with) what oppression means, by appearance or identification. The multiple identities of a person do not live in separate containers; in fact, people are at the crossroads of identities.

Below is a breakdown of intersectionality: what it means, answers to the most common questions in the area, and resources for learning more.

“Intersectionality is one of the tools that black feminist thought has created,” she says Jennifer Nash, JD, Ph.D., Professor of African American Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies at Northwestern University. “It has been carried out for decades by black feminist intellectuals, scholars and activists, including Kimberlé Crenshaw, Patricia Hill Collins, Deborah King, Frances Beal and the Combahee River Collective.”

Feminism is the most common space for intersectionality. While not all women face oppression, not all women face the same challenges. It is not a competition or a comparison. On the contrary, this practice is a tool for dismantling the system of errors. Challenges are not complementary to each other. In fact, they come together and intensify and create unique forms of difference.

Intersectionality can be established in many spaces of social impact, including some of the following examples:

• Climate change. Racial and ethnic minorities tend to live in communities with higher levels of pollution and particulate matter. Climate change plays into the etiology of inadequate air quality, exacerbating these differences.
• Health. In the United States, it has been significantly higher COVID morbidity and mortality between blacks and Latins.
• Gay rights. Society, especially at the beginning of the LGBT + proclamation, they sided with the wealthy white men who could pass. Thus, they used their privilege to develop and shape the LGBT Rights agenda.

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Crenshaw said “Contrary to the events of his critique, intersectionality is not an effort to create a world in the opposite image of what it is now.

Intersectionality is important because it works to dismantle existing power dynamics, which in turn would change structures that exacerbate our politics, law, and culture.

We are not working to overthrow the totem. We are working to level the playing field.

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“Intersectionality functions as a tool for respecting and analyzing power imbalances and completely eliminating these power imbalances. And complying with power imbalances, so often true, is much more debatable than a tool for eliminating them.” – Jane Coaston

If you want to know more about intersectionality, here are some resources to dive deeper:

Podcasts

Books

Articles