Intersectionality

Woman sign with the text "feminism"

Intersectionality is common in feminist research and activism. Intersectionality is a tool for analysing how and why people are treated the way we are, and what can be done to make the world more equal.

It’s a difficult word, and many who use it would probably struggle to explain what it means. Intersectionality is a tool for understanding power orders. Simplified, you could say that power orders affect each other, and make life different depending on how they intersect in your life. There are many different kinds of power orders. The power order that men generally have advantages over women, like getting paid more for the same job, is usually called “the patriarchy”. That getting a job is usually tougher if your name doesn’t sound “Swedish”, or that those who aren’t perceived as “Swedish” receive worse health care is an effect of the power order called racism.

Intersecting power orders

The word intersectionality comes from “intersection”, meaning where things meet. Despite that, it’s not possible to just “add” or “subtract” power orders from each other. When power orders intersect, they hook into each other and become a completely new power order, inseparable. For example, both white and black girls are affected negatively because of the gender power order. But black girls are also subjected to racism in Sweden. A white girl will never experience gender oppression that is affected by racism, and the racism black guys are subjected to is not affected by the oppression of women.

Like we said, intersectionality is tricky. But the most important thing to remember is that it doesn’t mean “one oppression plus/minus another oppression makes your life ‘worse’ or ‘better’”. Rather, intersecting oppressions become something different in quality, not just “more” or “less”.


Working intersectionally

But what about intersectionality in practice? How do you do intersectionality that amounts to more than just talk? Because reality is complicated, the short answer is that it depends on the situation. But a good starting point is remembering that no person is stuck in only one power order, and that the same power order will affect everyone differently. The beginning of any practical intersectionality is to not tar everyone with the same brush just because they might share one attribute, like sex/gender or skin colour.

There are many good books on intersectionality, but they are often abstract and theoretical, since intersectionality is comparably new in feminist research. Kimberlé Crenshaw, who invented the term, says that intersectionality isn’t a magic trick that explains how everything works. It’s more like a filter that you can use to look at problems. There is plenty of good Youtube content about intersectionality, for example Crenshaw's TED talk on intersectionality from 2016.

Text by Dannie Milve, Förenade tjej-, trans- och ungdomsjourer