Intersectionality is a powerful idea that has not gotten enough attention, and when we do hear about intersectionality, we often just hear about it as a way to talk about our many different identities (for example, our race and our gender). But it is so much more than that! Understanding intersectionality can change how we understand and interact with other people and improve the services that we offer.

Intersectionality has been a central focus in Black feminist activism and their writings for nearly two hundred years.

Sojourner Truth delivered her “Ain’t I a Woman” speech at the 1851 Ohio Women’s Rights Convention where she criticized abolitionists and White suffragettes, who focused on White women or Black enslaved men, but ignored the unique oppression that was experienced by Black women.

In 1989, Black feminist legal scholar, Kimberlé Crenshaw, wrote about the legal system and how it did not recognize the experiences of Black women. She called it intersectionality theory and described how our different identities combine to create unique experiences in the world.

Intersectionality means that our identities are not independent parts of us. Instead, our race, gender, sexuality, religion, social class, and a host of other potential identities come together to create a unique understanding of my experience of myself and of the world.

As a result, understanding me as a woman requires understanding that I am a Black woman. And better yet, understanding that I am a cisgender, biracial, Black woman that grew up working class in the United States.

While many think of intersectionality is just a way of understanding individuals and their identities, intersectionality is even more complicated than that.

Intersectionality requires that we go beyond thinking about individuals and consider systems and institutions that impact each of us and how their impact may be different based on the intersecting identities that we hold.

What many do not know about intersectionality is that it is really focused on the fact that structural, systemic, and institutional processes create oppression.

These systems of oppression interact with one another and make each one a bit stronger. For example, racism blends with sexism, classism, and heterosexism, and then each of these are strengthened and supported by one another.

The impact of these different systems of oppression put each of us into social positions that then influence our lived experiences, how we see the world, and our life outcomes.

This is why intersectionality is related to social justice. In fact, Social justice is one of the most important parts of intersectionality because oppression is at the center of the lives of real people.

For example, an intersectional lens on racial health disparities and maternal health outcomes would focus on institutionalized discrimination in medical training and racist or sexist biases of providers as the important factors that create health disparities.

Rather than simply reporting racial differences in pregnancy related deaths, an intersectional framework exposes systemic racism and sexism driving those differences, and shows how women with different intersecting identities are affected by sexism and by racism.

Intersectionality also requires that our activism is grounded in social justice and that creating a more just society for everyone is our first priority.

Intersectionality highlights some uncomfortable truths.

One, our risk of being harmed increases when we have more identities that are marginalized in society. This is called Double or Multiple jeopardy. It is related to intersectionality, but not exactly the same thing. Instead, Double or Multiple jeopardy shows us the increased effects of marginalization associated with having multiple marginalized identities.

So imagine how this works.

As a woman, I may be at higher risk for sexual harassment compared to men. As a Black person, I am at higher risk of racial harassment compared to White people. So as a Black person and a woman, I am at increased risk of being sexually harassed and being racially harassed and am at increased risk of forms of harassment that combine both race and gender.

Multiple jeopardy theory acknowledges that having two marginalized identities means I am even less valuable and protected, so I not only have the increased risk from each type of harassment – this additive risk – but my risk further increases and I am a more acceptable target, generally.

And the more marginalized categories that I occupy, the higher my risk of harm and mistreatment, and we see this at play when we observe the outrageously high rates of violence perpetrated against Black Trans Women in the United States.

And of course, higher victimization rates are then associated with worse physical health and psychological well-being.

It is also important to understand that intersectionality theory is not limited to research on individuals who hold marginalized identities.

Intersectionality theory can, and really should, also be considered when we think about power and oppression among groups that experience multiple advantages, such as middle class, cisgender, heterosexual White men.

Importantly, intersectionality demands that we attend to the fact that Membership in multiple privileged groups increases the likelihood of positive experiences and multiple advantages.

In sum, intersectionality is a powerful tool that we can use to understand individual’s risk for harm as we better understand how different parts of our identities combine to influence our experiences in life. Intersectionality also moves beyond thinking about the individual and focuses on how systems and institutions create structural barriers that affect people differently due to those intersecting identities. And finally, intersectionality focuses on social justice being at the heart of our advocacy work. That we strive to create a more just society that meets everyone’s needs, regardless of the identities that they hold.