Intersectionality arguments and research findings

Intersectional arguments and research findings have had varying levels of impact in feminist theory, social movements, international human rights, public policy, and electoral behavior research within political science and across the disciplines of sociology, critical legal studies, and history.

Intersectionality is the phenomenon in which individuals experience oppression or privilege based on a belonging to a plurality of social categories.

Individuals do not fit neatly within any one category, but live as people with racial, gendered, abled and sexual identities, privileges and forms of oppression are interlinked and cannot be addressed alone. The relationship between a person's various social identities is more important than a single social identity when it comes to implementing social justice. For example, one might be an upper middle class black cisgender straight woman. This individual would experience life as a woman, as a black person, as a cisgender person, as a straight person, and as an upper middle class person at the same time while importantly also facing oppression because of the interaction of these identities. In other words, social identities are not additive, they are intersectional.

SJG