Theory of Intersectionality Intersectionality may be defined as an approach to analyze how social and cultural roles, identities, and categories intertwine to produce multiple axes of oppression.38 athshal Theory of Intersectionality SSA Rue aC hee eu eee SC ee RS aT answer to the question “who are you?" is complex. Ree OS e Ca ius Coe cee eee eee oar nS Ce Te eee NM Ms Rese et CU eS Ue cocl oc Reel rer Co) Intersectionality is used as an important theoretical paradigm in sociology, women and Pee ae AC Ru ccen usQa ge Theory of Intersectionality ** The complexity and compounding of social roles, social processes, and their histories that create various outcomes, such as oppression and privilege cannot be understood by concentrating on one analytical category (such as gender), or one source of oppression (such as powerful men in a heteropatriarchal society). WORLD tidenarion CLASS LL ECTIVE “AC a ‘(0@ Sea a Theory of Intersectionality Intersectionality as a concept emerged from Black Feminist Legal Studies. Black feminist tradition studies marginalization from the perspective of race relations and racial domination; it studies current social processes as rooted in African American history and the lived experience of marginalized races.Geran History, Development, and Some Major Theore' ans ‘Crenshaw wrote an article in 1989 titled "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex," where she attempted to understand how a single categorical axis of oppression/discrimination (race) erases Black women as a theoretical category, and imports such erasure to legal reforms and activism. She showed, like other Black feminists before her, that Black women are systematically excluded from feminist theory and sometimes anti-racist politics.2 Sew ~ History, Development, and Some Major Theoreticians +» Being a legalscholar, Crenshaw made her arguments through analysis of three court cases. She outlined the problem of a doctrinal response to discrimination, where the experience of racism must be aligned to Black men's experiences— and the experience of sexism, to white women's.Beat f-- History, Development, and Some Major Theoreticians * Therefore, Black women were protected only to the extent that their experiences coincided with the experiences of either of the two groups.seen ( History, Development, and Some Major Theoreticians ) > @ @ ) ) mM ICN Rue Umno ORM a cn CORES M Cie ee mC eee a ai Me ue2 Wenr0 History, Development, and Some Major TheoreticiansSheaves = History, Development, and Some Major Theoreticians v Black women's Blackness or femaleness continues to place Um E- We reece e-1M UM le Rom Una lile} PECAN eae)Qeeez f= ( History, Development, and Some Major Theoreticians This kind of monolithic thinking about identity places the most vulnerable in society at precarious positions, from a policy as well as public opinion perspective.Cam History, Development, and Some Major Theoreticians Brae cred rr ad Re eee eu ea eu mune Pun ee attaSaw Whmnno, History, Development, and Some Major Theoreticians You might have to participate in solving one problem ata time, but if you see the problems as entwined and intersecting—and it is likely that the people will tell you it is so, always a good idea to work with people rather than for them based on your own pre- conceived assumptions—chances are you will have a clearer understanding of the situation. This is exactly what Crenshaw advocated.Spetnenetn History, Development, and Some Major Theoreticians a disturbing, uncritical acceptance of the dominant paradigm of Ol | The problem of social justice, Crenshaw averred, is not a lack of which adopts a single issue framework. The parameters of discrimination are tightly defined so as to make the process simplistic. This marginalizes people whose experiences cannot be explained through singular axis of oppression.History, Development, and Some Major Theore’ Ke ala 'MHRD Sees = THOUGHT “Black feminist thought demonstrates Black women's emerging power as agents of knowledge. By portraying African-American women as self-defined, self-reliant individuals confronting race, gender, and class oppression, Afrocentric feminist thought speaks to the importance that oppression, Afrocentric feminist thought speaks to the importance that knowledge plays in empowering oppressed people (Collins 1990, 221).”od = History, Development, and Some Major Theoreticians Thus, Black Feminist standpoint is all about expanding the boundaries of feminist theories and activism and including multiple experiences, perspectives, and standpoints in it. Feminist theory is not merely the domain of middle-class White women (notice the intersectional categories) or upper class academicians. Everyone's voices must be included lest we start believing in only one form of oppression, sexism— affecting one identity category, white women who wrote about their experience that circulated in academia and media as feminist consciousness.Ban onan Wonro History, Development, and Some Major Theoreticians gender as “interlocking systems of oppression.” »> Patricia Hill Collins (1990, 3) emphasized the need for looking at race, class, and i This meant a radical re-visioning of how we understand oppression and privilege collectively and individually. race/ethnicity, class, age, religion determine our experiences. »> It is difficult to pry one structure apart and label it as most or least oppressive. 1 We all exist, Collins theorized, in a matrix of domination where structures of gender, |