A few years ago, I published a blog post and one of the responses was that I understood intersectionality where many other commentators did not. Kudos to me! (Although I had to Google intersectionality at that point to find out what I was apparently good at!) These days lots of commentators talk about intersectionality. It is a useful concept, especially in my line of work – Queer and neurodiversity advocacy!
Intersectionality is a concept which was identified by academic and civil rights activist Kimberle Crenshaw. Initially it was used to describe the compounded disadvantage experienced by women who were People of Colour. This was back in the late 1980s. Since then, the concept has been widened to include people from a number of other marginalised groups, including people with disability and neurodivergent people.
The concept of intersectionality is basically that if you belong to more than one marginalised group then this compounds the disadvantage your experience. There is a wonderful visual example of this. A while back a video did the rounds of social media illustrating the concept of intersectionality. There was a line of people who were about to have a running race. White people were told to take two steps forward, then cis gender men, then heterosexual people, then non-disabled people and so forth. Who do you reckon won the race? Probably not the fastest runner but the person who is least marginalised / belongs to the largest number of privileged groups!
Intersectionality is not an individual concept. It is a sociological one. This means that someone who has a bunch of privilege might actually have a crappy life and vice versa. For example. I belong to a bunch of marginalised groups but most of the time being me is pretty good! Intersectionality is about society and the structural barriers marginalised people face.
An important concept in this space is privilege. In this context, privilege refers to not belonging to marginalised groups. You can have areas of privilege and areas of disadvantage at the same time. For example, I am white and middle class (privileged groups), but I am also Autistic and Queer (marginalised groups).
Being privileged is not ‘bad’ – you can’t really help it, and it isn’t a choice! However, being privileged can impact your level of understanding of the challenges faced by others. It is important to be aware of your privilege and not come from a viewpoint of lacking understanding that you are privileged. The statement ‘check your privilege’ relates here. An example was a friend of mine who worked in a public service department. My friend is a woman from a refugee background and has a pretty good bead on intersectionality. Her boss – a white, cis gender, heterosexual, non-Disabled man – was putting together a conference. He showed my friend his proposed speaker list. She looked at it and said ‘you have no People of Colour, no First Nations people, no women…’ Her manager was genuinely amazed and said, ‘where did you get such incredible insight?’ He was not being deliberately discriminatory, but he had no idea of his level of privilege and that a conference would benefit from a more diverse range of speakers – or maybe that there even WERE speakers from diverse backgrounds!
People who are privileged often have no concept of their privilege. I imagine this is because it is not something they often need to reflect on – most likely nobody is telling them! For me as a transgender and autistic person I get a lot of reminders that I am different, but I don’t think it goes the other way so much.
Another area within the intersectionality space is about the difference between who blames who when there are issues. Generally – but not always – people from marginalised groups will fight the power so to speak. This is because they are marginalised, and wider society has either casued or compounded this and put barriers in their way. Privileged people – also generally but not always – are not able to fight the power because they are not oppressed by structures in society. Sadly, this can mean the turn on marginalised people. I always think ‘punch up not down’ in this situation – thanks to comedian the awesome Hannah Gadsby for reminding me of this metaphor!
Intersectionality is an important lens through which to view society – not just for those from marginalised groups but for everyone. It helps to understand diversity and inclusion and to be able to understand and support others and address societal barriers and discrimination. It is also a great support for those seeking to make a difference – such as activists and advocates.
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