Intersectionality

Intersectionality is a term that was coined by Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. Intersectionality considers people’s overlapping identities and experiences. It is a framework for conceptualizing a person, group of people, or social problem as affected by a number of discriminations and disadvantages. It allows you to think about how gender, class, race and other individual characteristics “intersect” with one another and overlap.

This is important as people identify with multiple characteristics (e.g. their race, gender, age) at the same time, and it’s the intersection of these that can determine the complexity of prejudices and discrimination that they encounter. Many everyday approaches to equality tend to focus on tackling one form of discrimination at a time, but intersectionality allows us to understand and address all the potential barriers an individual is facing.

Intersectionality is a complex term that is often mis-used and misunderstood. Paris Lees, a white, transgender activist, notes that it is not a case of liking intersectionality. It is about accepting that some people have more to struggle against than you.

Below are some examples of how individuals can face discrimination due to a combination of protected characteristics. 

Gender-Disability

Girls diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are doubly disadvantaged because of their gender compared to boys with the same diagnosis of ADHD (who, themselves, are disadvantaged compared to neurotypical students in schools).  This is an intersection between gender and disability where there is a compounding effect of disadvantages.  The disadvantages from overlap of gender and disability is because boys have been historically over-diagnosed with ADHD and girls have been under-diagnosed.  ADHD presents in a greater proportion of girls as chattiness, daydreaming and shyness. These behaviours are overlooked in comparison to the typical behaviours boys with ADHD present with e.g., disruptiveness and interrupting others. This over-emphasis from psychologists and scientists on how boys present with ADHD is to the detriment of girls’ ADHD behaviour that tends to get overlooked.

Race-Sexual Orientation

Historically, people who are black have faced discrimination due to the colour of their skin.  Similarly, people who are gay have faced discrimination due to their sexuality.  So, people who are black and gay face discrimination of two fronts, putting them at an intersectionality of disadvantage.  Studies found that black people also face the problem that they are underrepresented in research on LGBTQ+ experiences.  For example, Couzens et al (2017) found that “Most research on LGBT people uses white western samples.”  As a result, black gay people’s experiences can be marginalised, not truly understood nor captured by health and social care professionals.

Gender-Race-Religious Beliefs

A Muslim woman wearing the Hijab faces several layers of discrimination.  The complex convergence of religion, Race and gender makes it impossible to dissociate this person from her Muslim identity, her race and gender identity and to better identify the dimension(s) causing her experiences of discrimination.

Age-Race-Gender

A young woman of Roma ethnicity working in industry experiences discrimination due to the overlap of her identities.  Being Roma can be perceived to be ‘dangerous’ by some who have only heard negative things being spoken about Roma people. Also, because she is a woman, she is considered undependable because she is ‘bound to have children soon’. Being young she is also judged to be inexperienced and not as capable.  The combination of these factors creates a negative intersectionality issue.  Being considered inexperienced and unskilled, the woman shares certain experiences of discrimination faced by other young people; being assumed to fit a traditionally defined role for women, she has similar experiences with other women; and being considered as threatening, she shares experiences with all Roma, include Romani men.  However, it is the specific ‘intersection’/’overlap’ of all these factors that makes her situation distinctive and extremely challenging.

Leaders should be aware that their team members may face complex barriers to progressing their career because of a convergence of intersecting factors. It is important for leaders to understand the nature of these intersecting barriers and be open to listening to those who are affected by these issues. Think about how you can support individuals and what opportunities you can share with to support their career and research.

Taking an intersectional perspective can help leaders to better understand these complex barriers and diverse realities. For example, if a colleague is Black and is a woman, think about not only the difficulty and discrimination they may face as both a woman and as person who is Black, but the discrimination they face as a Black woman. Think about the complex barriers your team may be facing and the variety of challenges they could be facing, not just those that may seem most obvious.

Be mindful of your own privileges and potential subconscious bias. Recognise where others do not share this same privilege and that your set of perspectives may be incomplete. Ask yourself, what impact would this have on their lives or my life if I were in their position? There are many resources and videos online that can help you understand these issues and the impact it can have on individuals. For instance, check out this video where a teacher uses a race to show social inequalities.

We recognise that not everyone has the same learning styles, so to complement some of the written information and resources listed throughout this section, below there are a range of video recommendations to engage with, as well some further research articles that may interest you. It is important to take the time to do self-directed learning. Learn more about intersectionality with the resources listed below.

• Video: What is intersectionality?
• Video: Kimberlé Crenshaw talks about the urgency of intersectionality in a TED talk.
• Video: Kimberlé Crenshaw on Intersectionality: An Interview
• Podcast: Intersectionality Matters!
• Research Article: Re-Thinking Intersectionality (Nash, 2008)
• Research Article: Intersectionality's Definitional Dilemmas (Collins, 2015)
• Article: Times Higher Education suggests 5 ways to practice intersectionality.
• Article: The intersectionality wars

Below you will find a list of services and resources available to colleagues and students at Newcastle University. You may find it useful to be aware of these either for yourself or to direct members of your team to.

Training courses and workshops

You can access training on the Learning Management System (LMS) that covers the topic of Intersectionality (ncl login required).

Newcastle University Life Journeys Series – The Black Dyspraxic

Tumi Sotire runs the Instagram page, The Black Dyspraxic, where he aims to raise awareness of the barriers faced by people who lie in the intersection of being from an ethnic minority, as well as being disabled.