Wiktionary

intersectionality

English edit

WOTD – 8 March 2017

Etymology edit

intersectional +‎ -ity.

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

intersectionality (countable and uncountable, plural intersectionalities)

  1. The quality or state of being intersectional, that is, of being characterized by intersection (especially of multiple forms of discrimination).
    the intersectionality of these issues
    the intersectionality of race, gender, class, ethnicity, age, generation, marital status, and place of origin
    • 1993 March, Journal of Legal Education, volume 43, number 1, [Durham, N.C.]: Association of American Law Schools, →OCLC, page 45:
      The feminist movement has also laid the groundwork for new intersectionalities with other movements. The intersectionality of interests between legal feminists and fem-crits has perpetuated a progressive CLS [Critical Legal Studies]-tilt within feminist legal discourse.
    • 1998, Rhea V. Almeida, “The Dislocation of Women's Experience in Family Therapy”, in Rhea V. Almeida, editor, Transformations of Gender and Race: Family and Developmental Perspectives, New York, N.Y.: Haworth Press, →ISBN, page 16:
      With men who are unemployed men or have limited access to work this heightening of masculinity within the interior of the familial relationship is of particular relevance with differences attributable to the intersectionality of race, class, culture and sexual orientation.
    • 2014, Patrick R. Grzanka, “Introduction: Intersectional Objectivity”, in Patrick R. Grzanka, editor, Intersectionality: A Foundations and Frontiers Reader, Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, →ISBN, page xx:
      [Lisa] Bowleg details how she went about a psychological study of Black lesbian women only to find—in the midst of data collection—that the study had been configured along an additive model of identity that could not account for the intersectionality of her participants' experiences.
  2. The study of (or a sociological methodology of studying) overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination, or discrimination.
    • 1989, Kimberlé [Williams] Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics”, in The University of Chicago Legal Forum‎[1], volume 139, archived from the original on 6 May 2016, page 141:
      One way to approach the problem of intersectionality is to examine how courts frame and interpret the stories of Black women plaintiffs.
    • 2012, Kalwant Bhopal, John Preston, “Introduction: Intersectionality and ‘Race’ in Education: Theorising Difference”, in Kalwant Bhopal, John Preston, editors, Intersectionality and “Race” in Education, New York, N.Y., Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 1:
      This book is about intersectionality and is particularly concerned with examining theorising intersectionalities and difference. In recent years, the concept of intersectionality has taken centre stage and has become a dominant model with which to engage in how differences such as ‘race’, gender, class, sexuality, age, disability and religion interweave and intersect upon individual lives in a modern ‘risk’ society […].
    • 2016, Patricia Hill Collins, Sirma Bilge, “What is Intersectionality?”, in Intersectionality (Key Concepts), Cambridge, Malden, Mass.: Polity Press, →ISBN:
      Intersectionality is a way of understanding and analyzing the complexity in the world, in people, and in human experiences. The events and conditions of social and political life and the self can seldom be understood as shaped by one factor. They are generally shaped by many factors in diverse and mutually influencing ways. […] Intersectionality as an analytic tool gives people better access to the complexity of the world and of themselves.

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