• Intersectionality is a term used to explain the idea that various forms of discrimination, such as those centered on race, gender, class, disability, sexuality, and other forms of identity, do not work independently but interact to produce particularized forms of social oppression. Intersectionality acknowledges that power dynamics and social systems and structures are complicated and that people can experience multiple forms of oppression like racism, sexism, classism, ableism, ageism, and homophobia at the same time. This synchronicity creates unique experiences of oppression.
• Kimberlé Crenshaw, an American law professor coined the term in 1989 and explained Intersectional feminism as, “a prism for seeing the way in which various forms of inequality often operate together and exacerbate each other”. Intersectional feminism centres the voices of those experiencing overlapping, concurrent forms of oppression in order to understand the depths of the inequalities and the relationships among them in any given context.
• Using an intersectional lens also means recognizing the historical contexts surrounding an issue. Long histories of violence and systematic discrimination have created deep inequities that disadvantage some from the outset. These inequalities intersect with each other, for example, poverty, caste systems, racism and sexism, denying people their rights and equal opportunities. The impacts extend across generations.
• Intersectional feminism recognizes that women do not experience oppression in the same way. Women with different ethnicities, religions, sexualities, social classes, abilities, and ages cannot be assumed to all experience sexism similarly.
• The intersectional perspective of feminism understands that women cannot be reduced to single categories. Their lives are multi-dimensional and complex.
• Intersectional feminism has provided a stronger understanding of how oppression uniquely affects women. Theorists of intersectionality insist that one cannot understand how women are disadvantaged through one form of oppression unless their other intersecting factors are also considered.
• Likewise, social inequality, problems, and injustices are less visible if factors such as gender, race, and social class are analyzed separately.
• Intersectional feminism does not just apply to marginalized groups of women. Social structures which disadvantage certain groups will also privilege other groups.
• Social relations are so complex that nearly everyone is privileged in some ways while simultaneously being disadvantaged in others. A lesbian woman who is white is privileged for being white but faces oppression for being a woman and not heterosexual.
• Moreover, a woman of a high social class is privileged for being wealthy, but she may have a disability that disadvantages her.
• How much someone is oppressed or privileged by their social structures also depends on the situation and context. Thus, through intersectional feminism, there is a stronger understanding of how complicated individuals and society are.

Criticism

• While intersectional feminism tries to avoid putting women into singular identity boxes, it still tends to put people into categories. While the groups may be more complex, intersectionality still groups people based on identity markers, e.g., black women or disabled women.
• Therefore, intersectional feminism may not always consider that each woman has a unique experience, and there would likely be an infinite number of shared characteristics that separate women into smaller and smaller groups until there may only be one person that fits into a new category.
• Perhaps everyone’s societal experience is so unique that they cannot be classified so simply.