Introduction
At first, the intersectionality concept is the acknowledgment that each person has distinct experiences of oppression and discrimination, requiring people to consider all factors that can marginalize them, including physical ability, race, class, and gender. Therefore, to promote equality in the community and healthcare, it is crucial to integrate intersectionality. The paper will discuss the importance of intersectionality in studying society and health and its use in mental illness care.
Health and Society
To a great extent, intersectionality is essential to studying health and society. In healthcare, it assists in diagnosing a disease without resorting to hurriedly stereotyped assumptions regarding systematic biases against deprived and vulnerable patients (Lewis and Miriam 178). In addition, the methodology supports the justice and rights-grounded approaches to health. Therefore, intersectionality offers insights concerning who is involved in and impacted by the interventions and policies in diverse healthcare settings, allowing the creation of more effective regulatory prerequisites (Lewis and Miriam 177). In society, intersectionality is vital as it offers a lens via which individuals can assess practices, structures, laws, and processes that escalate the uncertainty of women, girls, and students encountering disadvantage due to their intersecting identities. For example, a black lady may experience racism and misogyny, but it varies from that of a white woman or black man. Therefore, women’s rights must be intersectional to ensure equality.
Mental Health and Nursing
I have learned that intersectionality is vital in mental illness care and nursing. Significantly, the approach’s paradigm enables nurses to attend to the issues of privilege and oppression within their profession, resulting in better and more efficient care for the clients. At the same time, using an intersectional strategy in mental health education helps identify various inequities, which can generate unique obstacles, such as discrimination and disadvantage (Lewis and Miriam 180). Therefore, intersectionality allows having extensive conversations concerning cognitive illnesses, including erasure and violence experienced by marginalized people, to care for and improve their mental health outcomes.
Conclusion
Intersectionality helps pinpoint the identity markers, including class, age, sexuality, and religion, which spearhead the escalation of discrimination and oppression in the community and healthcare setting. In society, the methodology provides the lens through which people examine policies, processes, and structures that elevate the risk of ladies, learners, and girls experiencing disadvantage. Intersectionality enables people to have conversations regarding mental illness, such as violence encountered by vulnerable individuals, to care for and enhance their mental health outcomes.
Work Cited
Lewis, Tené., and Miriam, Van Dyke. “Discrimination and the Health of African Americans: The Potential Importance of Intersectionalities.” Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 27, no. 3, 2018, pp. 176-182, Web.