Notwithstanding its relative newness, the concept of intersectionality has gained considerable popularity in the modern sociopolitical discourse. Among the possible reasons for this is the substantially broader perspective on identity as well as diversity, which it allows. Thus, the widespread opinion tells that, unlike other intellectual tools that target to explore and examine oppression, intersectionality enables multidimensional research in the area and, consequently, more realistic outcomes. This is essential for attracting the wider public’s attention to cases that combine several types of discrimination.
The primary step in evaluating the approaches to analyzing oppression is to define this phenomenon, which, in turn, allows for specifying the scope of the analysis. Although the term is quite complex, a range of features characterizes oppression in all cases, enabling its identification. Specifically, it involves harm due to belonging to a certain group along with the benefit for the opposing groups and is institutional, in other words, “structured within a society” (Pooley & Beagan, 2021, p. 408). In the simplest terms, oppression means the dominance of particular categories of the population over the other, who, consequently, are treated as inferior.
The essential nuance that complicates the above perspective is that a particular individual can belong to several categories in parallel, as the possible criteria of grouping are various. Thus, two females are members of the same group, while a white and a black are not. Within the framework of intersectionality, their experience will be less similar in comparison with that of two African American women, which determines the need for black feminism as a separate movement (Collins, n.d.). Its representatives believe it to be able to prevent unique or marginal cases from erasing due to its broader focus. Notably, traditional feminism covers women without considering their identities other than gender, such as ethnicity; those, meanwhile, also can be the reasons for oppression, which not only aggravates it but also transforms its nature.
An opposite situation, where the movements whose main topic is the rights of African American population neglect other criteria, for instance, gender, is possible as well. Meanwhile, according to Crenshaw (n.d.), such an attitude can reduce the visibility of black women in comparison with black men. To illustrate this, the speaker conducts an experiment; its outcomes show that the names of the female African Americans whom the police killed are less familiar to the audience. Although it is not reasonable to make any quantitative assumptions without broad-scale research on appropriate selection, the lecture exemplifies brightly what intersectionality as an approach is. Specifically, it is expected to provide a unique set of tools for analyzing oppression against those who belong to several historically disadvantaged groups at once, such as the female and the black.
To summarize, intersectionality is a perspective on oppression that attracts public attention to its multidimensional cases of it. The supporters highlight that various rights movements normally focus on a single criterion of grouping, for instance, gender or ethnicity. Such a limited scope results in neglecting and erasing the people who have more than one identifier associated with prejudice and discrimination. The intersectional perspective, meanwhile, rests on combining two or more parameters into one lens through which it regards people’s experiences. This approach allows for better visibility of those who frequently find themselves beyond the diapason of the traditional movements due to the exclusively one-dimensional nature of those.
References
Collins, P. H. (n.d.). Black feminism, intersectionality and democratic possibilities [Video]. TED. Web.
Crenshaw, K. (n.d.). The urgency of intersectionality [Video]. TED. Web.
Pooley, E. A., & Beagan, B. L. (2021). The concept of oppression and occupational therapy: A critical interpretive synthesis.Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 88(4), pp. 407-417. Web.