Understanding Intersectionality

Professor @kimberlecrenshaw coined the term intersectionality over 30 years ago when she published a paper in the University of Chicago Legal Forum titled, Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex.” However, the term hasn’t been widely discussed or understood until very recently and even still there’s so much confusion around it.

Link to the paper, here.

I’ll admit, I didn’t fully know what the term meant until I took a course at @harvardextension in gender studies last year. For many, it means “because you’re a minority you get special treatment” - this is such a dangerous definition to be floating around and 100% untrue.

Here’s a direct quote from Crenshaw explaining intersectionality, “Intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects. It’s not simply that there’s a race problem here, a gender problem here, and a class or LBGTQ problem there. Many times that framework erases what happens to people who are subject to all of these things.” @columbialawschool

A little more about Kimberle, she's a leading thinker and scholar in the field of critical race theory, a professor at Columbia Law School, directs the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies and is a co-founder of the African American Policy Forum, a think tank, both based on campus.

Hoping this post sheds a new light on the term for some of you! #knowledgeispower

📷: Kimberle Crenshaw & @ms_magazine