4.3 Intersectionality

You may have noticed that our identities are not singular, but rather our identities are multiple, overlapping, and intersecting. This intersectionality can fundamentally alter how social problems are experienced, and how our individual realities are grasped, all of which come into play in our interactions in the learning environment.

There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.
- Audre Lorde, 1984

If we aren’t intersectional, some of us, the most vulnerable, are going to fall through the cracks.
- Kimberlé Crenshaw, n.d.

Engaging with and exploring the key elements and characteristics of intersectionality is an essential part of understanding individual identities. Intersectionality and its distinct approach to equity can also be applied effectively in practice and teaching.

Intersectionality promotes an understanding of human beings as shaped by the interaction of different social locations (e.g., ‘race’/ethnicity, Indigeneity, gender, gender identity, class, sexuality, geography, age, disability/ability, migration status, religion). These interactions occur within a context of connected systems and structures of power (e.g., laws, policies, governments and institutions) creating interdependent forms of privilege and oppression.

Venn diagram illustrating overlapping identities, such as race, religion, class, etc.

However, intersectionality is not simply about adding up identities. Rather, it is about how the world we live in (its policies, its institutions, its structures) have different impacts on us, in part depending on our identities. In this keynote at the 2016 World of Women Festival Links to an external site., Kimberlé Crenshaw explains:

[Intersectionality] is about how structures make certain identities the consequence of and the vehicle for vulnerability. So, if you want to know how many intersections matter, you’ve got to look at the context. What’s happening? What kind of discrimination is going on? What are the policies? What are the institutional structures that play a role in contributing to the exclusion of some people and not others? - Kimberlé Crenshaw