intersections

Intersectionality is a term that was coined by civil rights advocate and law professor, Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989.

While the concept had previously existed, she put a name to it so that we could develop a framework for understanding:

“The view that women experience oppression in varying configurations and in varying degrees of intensity. Cultural patterns of oppression are not only interrelated, but are bound together and influenced by the intersectional systems of society.

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.” (womenfriendlycitieschallenge.org)

Intersectionality Displayed in a Wheel Diagram,
(adapted from the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, 2009)

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