Intersectionality: A Core Feminist Principle

Intersectionality is the idea that people have multiple social identities (such as race, gender,
class, sexuality, disability, etc.) that overlap and shape their experiences of privilege and
discrimination. In other words, instead of thinking about sexism, racism or other forms of
prejudice in isolation, intersectionality shows how they can reinforce each other. For
example, a Black woman might experience both racism and sexism at the same time, and
these combined experiences are different from what a white woman or a Black man faces.
This concept was formally named by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, but the
intuition goes back much further. Intersectionality acknowledges that categories like
“woman” or “minority” are not one-size-fits-all. It helps us see that someone’s life is
influenced by all their identities at once – for instance, a disabled immigrant woman may
encounter barriers that a non-disabled native-born woman does not. In practice,
intersectionality means asking how various systems of power (patriarchy, racism, classism,
ableism, etc.) work together to affect different people differently.

Origins and History of Intersectionality

Intersectional thinking has deep roots in feminist and civil-rights history. One of the earliest
expressions came in 1851 when Sojourner Truth, a former slave and early women’s rights
activist, gave her famous speech “Ain’t I a Woman?” at a women’s convention. She pointed
out that Black women’s lives and struggles were different from those of white women or
Black men, highlighting overlapping oppressions of race and gender.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Black feminist activists and writers further developed these ideas.
Groups like the Combahee River Collective (a Black feminist lesbian organization) explicitly
talked about “interlocking systems” of race, gender, class, and sexuality in their 1977
statement. Authors like Toni Cade Bambara and Barbara Smith edited anthologies celebrating
Black women’s voices, insisting that any movement for justice must address how these
identities combine.

Finally, in academic circles Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” in 1989.
She used it to explain how laws and society often ignore women of color, because they only
look at race or gender separately. Crenshaw’s work helped name the pattern that activists had
already been describing. Since then, intersectionality has become a key concept not only in
feminist theory but also in social activism and policy-making. It reminds us that new forms of
inequality can emerge when multiple identities overlap, and that these forms were always
experienced and spoken about by many women of color and other marginalized groups long
before the word existed.

Importance of Intersectionality in Feminism

Intersectionality is important in feminism because it makes feminism more inclusive and

realistic. Early feminist movements were often led by and centered on the experiences of
middle-class white women, which meant that the concerns of poorer women or women of
color were sometimes overlooked. Intersectionality helps correct this by insisting that all
women’s experiences count. For example:

 Inclusive Understanding: Intersectionality teaches that a “one-size-fits-all” approach

to women’s rights can leave some women behind. A policy or campaign that only
considers gender may miss how class or race changes women’s needs. By considering
multiple identities, feminism can truly fight for all women’s equality, not just some.
 Complex Analysis: Real life is complicated. Intersectionality brings attention to the
ways that sexism interacts with racism, classism, homophobia, ableism, etc. This
means activists and thinkers use a more complex analysis of social problems. They
understand that a Black lesbian mother of two will experience society very differently
from a single straight white student, for instance.
 Avoiding Exclusion: Historically, some feminist movements unintentionally excluded
non-white or non-wealthy women. Intersectionality pushes movements to avoid this
pitfall. As one feminist writer put it, “‘Woman’ is not a catchall category” that covers
everyone’s experience. Without intersectionality, feminism risks speaking only for the
most privileged women and failing those who face extra barriers.

In short, intersectionality makes feminism stronger by ensuring it listens to diverse voices and
addresses the root causes of multiple oppressions. It encourages solidarity among women
with different backgrounds, because it recognizes that their struggles are linked rather than
separate.

Real-World Applications of Intersectionality

Intersectionality isn’t just academic theory – it has many practical uses in society today:

 Policy and Law: Governments and organizations can use an intersectional lens when
making laws or policies. For example, when designing domestic violence shelters or
health programs, officials might realize that immigrant women, disabled women, or
women speaking minority languages need special support. Laws against
 discrimination are increasingly recognizing intersectional cases, such as when
someone is harassed for being both a woman and a racial minority.
 Social Activism: Intersectionality guides activists to build coalitions across different
movements. Campaigns like Black Lives Matter or movements for disability rights
often emphasize women’s voices within their struggles. Feminist groups may also join
forces with labor unions or LGBTQ+ organizations, since many people belong to
more than one group. This leads to more united efforts, like protests or community
programs that address racism, sexism, and classism together.
 Healthcare and Education: In healthcare, intersectionality means doctors and
researchers pay attention to how gender, race, and class affect health. For instance,
studies show that certain minority women have higher risks of health problems
because of combined factors. Intersectional approaches in education create curricula
that reflect different students’ backgrounds, helping schools support, say, girls from
refugee families or students with disabilities.
 Media and Culture: Intersectionality affects how we understand representation in
media and culture. When creating stories or characters, writers use it to include more
diverse perspectives. This might mean a movie portraying a transgender woman of
color facing unique challenges, or textbooks that discuss women scientists from
various countries. By doing so, media become more engaging and realistic.

Overall, intersectionality ensures that real people’s complex lives are considered. For
example, campaigns against sexual violence now often highlight that lesbian or disabled
women report higher rates of abuse, which shows victims need tailored help. In short,
applying intersectionality makes social initiatives fairer and more effective by recognizing
everyone’s unique experiences.

Key Feminist Thinkers and Intersectionality

Many feminist writers and activists have shaped intersectional feminism by reflecting on how
their own identities influenced their struggles. Here are a few influential figures:

bell hooks (1952–2021)

bell hooks (born Gloria Jean Watkins) was an American author, academic, and activist who
grew up in rural Kentucky during segregation. She chose the pen name “bell hooks” (after her
maternal great-grandmother) and used lowercase letters to emphasize ideas over ego.
Growing up as a poor Black girl in the American South, she saw firsthand how race, gender,
and class all affected her community. In college, she noticed that mainstream feminist
writings almost never included Black women’s stories. This led her to write Ain’t I a
Woman: Black Women and Feminism (1981), a classic work highlighting how Black
women’s experiences were left out of both the civil rights and feminist movements.
Throughout her career, bell hooks argued that systems of oppression are intertwined – she
famously called this mix “white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” In her essays and books
(such as Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center), she insisted that true feminism must
tackle racism and poverty as well as sexism. Her own life – balancing identities as a Black
woman, scholar, daughter, and mother – gave her a clear view that feminist thinking had to
be inclusive of all women’s situations.

Audre Lorde (1934–1992)

Audre Lorde was a Caribbean-American poet, writer, and activist who described herself as a
“Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet.” Born in New York City to Caribbean immigrant
parents, she experienced racism and sexism from a young age. Later, as a Black lesbian and
mother of two, she saw how different parts of her identity could make her feel both strong
and marginalized. Lorde became a powerful voice for intersectional feminism by insisting
that people do not live single-issue lives. In her landmark essay collection Sister Outsider and
other works, she famously wrote that “there is no such thing as a single-issue struggle”
because life’s challenges overlap. She confronted the mainstream (mostly white) feminist
movement for ignoring racism and homophobia, and she also fought within civil-rights
circles for recognizing women’s voices. Lorde’s poetry and speeches often wove together
themes of race, gender, sexuality, and class. Her personal struggles – including facing breast
cancer and a sense of isolation – deepened her view that understanding one’s own multiple
identities can be a source of power. Audre Lorde’s life and work taught later feminists that
solidarity must honor all parts of each person’s identity.

Angela Davis (1944–Present)

Angela Davis is an American political activist, scholar, and author. Born in Alabama and
raised in the segregated South, she was influenced by the civil rights movement and Black
Panther Party politics in her teens and twenties. Davis became famous in the 1960s and 70s
as a prison activist and a leader in Marxist and Black liberation circles. She was even jailed
and tried for a shooting (and later acquitted), experiences that highlighted how the legal
system can be biased against Black activists. These early life experiences made her keenly
aware of how race and class intersect with gender. In her widely read book Women, Race &
Class (1981), Davis analyzed U.S. history to show how slavery, capitalism, and patriarchy
combined to oppress Black women differently from others. She pointed out, for example, that
rich white women benefitted from movements (like suffrage) in ways that Black or poor
women did not. Her career as a scholar and lecturer continued this theme: Angela Davis
emphasized that fighting for gender equality must include tackling economic inequality and
racial injustice. Her life as a Black woman activist – leading protests, writing, teaching, and
speaking out – demonstrates intersectional feminism in action, blending intellectual work
with grassroots struggle.

Gloria E. Anzaldúa (1942–2004)

Gloria Anzaldúa was a Mexican-American feminist writer and cultural theorist from the
U.S.–Mexico border region. She was born in Texas into a poor family of migrant farm
workers and grew up speaking Spanish as her first language. Anzaldúa experienced
discrimination for being Latina in the United States and sometimes felt like an outsider in her
own country. She was also a lesbian, which added another layer of feeling outside
mainstream society. These intersections of ethnicity, language, gender, and sexuality deeply
shaped her thinking. In 1981, she co-edited the influential anthology This Bridge Called My
Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, which brought together essays by women of
color around the world. Her own most famous work, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New
Mestiza (1987), is partly an autobiography that describes life on the literal border between the
U.S. and Mexico. In it, she introduced the idea of “mestiza consciousness” – a blended
cultural awareness that emerges from living between cultures, languages, and identities.
Anzaldúa’s concept of the borderlands goes beyond geography: it symbolizes how people can
exist between societies (for example, being neither fully Latino nor fully Anglo). By writing
in both English and Spanish and discussing the struggles of Chicanos, Indigenous people,
LGBTQ+ communities, and women, Gloria Anzaldúa highlighted how social categories
overlap. Her experiences as a Chicana, queer woman informed her belief that a person’s
feminist perspective must account for cultural background and sexuality, not just gender.

Each of these thinkers shows intersectionality in action by connecting their personal history
to their ideas. They not only defined how multiple identities interact, but also built
communities and literature around those ideas. Their lives and works remind us that
understanding feminism means understanding all of a person’s identity, not isolating one part.