Discrimination and oppression is found in almost all societies in the world. A number of discrimination is based on race, gender, age, and ethnicity. It is possible for an individual to experience single or multiple forms of discrimination. For instance, it is possible for a woman to experience both gender and racial discrimination in the workplace. The multiple discriminations a person faces what is known as intersectionality ( Garry, 2011) . Therefore, the paper mainly focuses on intersectionality as a sociological concept.
Intersectionality is relatively a new word, even though it has been in existence since 1980s. Generally, it is a sociological concept or theory that is used to describe multiple threats of discrimination, especially when a person’s identity overlaps with other minority classes like gender, race, and age ( Garry, 2011) . It is the theory that is used to explain the interconnection between various oppressive institutions. Intersectionality was originally designed to discuss systematic oppressions that that were targeting women. For instance, women were facing multiple discriminations such as race, gender, and age in the workplace. Therefore, intersectionality refers to multiple threats of discrimination or oppression that are faced with people with multiple minority identities in a given society.
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The word was first coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 in one of her famous essay titled “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color”. She used the word “intersectionality” to express various problems that immigrant women of color were facing in the American society. According to Crenshaw, existing legal and policy mechanism are not able to effectively address problems facing people of multiple identities, especially with regard to discrimination and oppression ( Garry, 2011) . Even though intersectionality originally applied to women, and individual of any gender may be affected by the overlapping minority status ( Crenshaw, 2001) . For instance, it is possible for a man of Hispanic origin to encounter xenophobia in American society even though he is a naturalized citizen. Therefore, intersectionality can affect any individual with multiple identities.
There is a difference between intersectionality and multiplicity. Unlike intersectionality that focuses on multiple identities, multiplicity refers an individual with multiple characters. Multiplicity refers to the ability of an individual to shift from one personality to another based on what is demanded them or the situation at hand. Under multiplicity, an individual’s different personalities work together as a team but not against one another (Carter, 2008). For instance, a mother feeding her child at home switches to a different personality when she reaches workplace. Hence, intersectionality is about multiple identities that are used as institutions of discrimination while multiplicity refers to multiple personalities or characters that are used by an individual based on the situation or conditions.
There are two main types of intersectionality and they include structural intersectionality and political intersectionality. Structural intersectionality refers to ways in which social locations makes an individual experience different from each other. It takes place when social structures that create various social groups interact to produce unintended effects ( Stirratt et al ., 2008) . For instance, black women are likely to experience oppression differently compared to white women due to the intersection of their race and gender. Political intersectionality, on the other hand, occurs when political ideas, agenda, policies, and viewpoint marginalize a group of people with intersecting subordinate identities. At the same time, political intersectionality can take place when a political movement working towards a given course of justice for various groups ends up marginalizing the interests of some sub-set groups, leading to a new form of injustice. Structural and political intersectionalities are common in societies that are characterized by many racial or ethnic groups.
Kimberlé Crenshaw who is an American civil right advocate is one of the key personalities who are associated with intersectionality and critical race theory. She was born in 1959 in Canton, Ohio where she lived with her parents. She pursued a number of academic fields such as degree in government and Africana studies and she also studied law at Harvard Law School in 1984. Even though she is associated with many achievements, she became famous after coming up with intersectionality theory in early 1980s. Although intersectionality was not originally coined by Crenshaw, she was the one who made the concept to be widely recognized by various scholars after deriving a theory out of it ( Crenshaw, 2001) . She particularly focused on how the available laws were responding to issues such as gender and racial discrimination. Therefore, she is remembered as the founder of intersectionality theory. Crenshaw is a civil rights advocate who specializes in racial and gender issues, making her to come up with critical race theory and intersectionality that are used to explain discrimination facing people with multiple subordinate identities.
In conclusion, people of multiple subordinate identities face a number of discrimination and oppression that may not be solved by existing laws. According to intersectionality theory, as coined by Crenshaw, existing laws and government interventions cannot effectively address challenges facing people with multiple identities like black women. Crenshaw used intersectionality theory to explain challenges people with multiple minority identities.
References
Carter, R. (2008). Multiplicity: the new science of personality, identity, and the self . Little, Brown & Company.
Crenshaw, K. (2001). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford law review , 1241-1299.
Garry, A. (2011). Intersectionality, metaphors, and the multiplicity of gender. Hypatia , 26 (4), 826-850.
Stirratt, M. J., Meyer, I. H., Ouellette, S. C., & Gara, M. A. (2008). Measuring identity multiplicity and intersectionality: Hierarchical classes analysis (HICLAS) of sexual, racial, and gender identities. Self and Identity , 7 (1), 89-111.
