Intersectionality

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Intersectionality is a paradigmatic approach to sociology, cultural studies, and other social sciences, especially as applied to activism and social work. Intersectionality holds that the classical models of oppression within a society, such as those based on race/ethnicity; gender, religion, sexuality, class, disability and other markers of difference do not act independent of one another. Instead, these forms of oppression interrelate, based on which markers apply to a given individual (and derives its name from this intersection of forms of oppression). Intersectionality thus holds that knowing, for example, that a woman lives in a sexist society is insufficient information to describe her experience; instead, it is also necessary to know her race, her sexual orientation, her class, etc.

In the field of social work, proponents of intersectionality hold that unless service providers take intersectionality into account, they will be of less use, and may in fact be detrimental, for various segments of the population. Thus, service providers have an obligation to be aware of the seemingly unrelated factors that can impact a person's life experience and response to the service and to adapt their methods accordingly. For instance, according to intersectionality, domestic violence counselors in the United States that urged all women to report their abusers to police would be of little use to women of color due to the history of racially-motivated police brutality in that population, and those counselors should therefore develop a different approach appropriate for women of color.

Intersectionality may have had a precursor in the "holistic" analysis movement of the 1960s.