In recent years, intersectionality has become somewhat of a buzzword in conversations about diversity and inclusion. However, its frequent use often comes along with misunderstandings or oversimplifications.
Let’s start with what most people agree on: in our society, various characteristics such as ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, ability, immigration status, and economic background shape different experiences of privilege or disadvantage. These characteristics intersect, with some combinations contributing to opening doors and others creating barriers.
American activist and professor Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality to refer to how these overlapping identities interact to create unique forms of discrimination or privilege.
Even though the concept is not complicated or contentious by itself, there is still considerable confusion about how intersectionality applies to efforts for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). The lack of understanding may be a reason why many companies still focus their DEI efforts on isolated categories without considering the broader, interconnected identities people hold.
“Intersectionality is essential to doing DEI right, but unfortunately, I do not see it enough in the DEI efforts of European organizations,” reflects global DEI expert MK Kirigin, a passionate advocate for the intersectional approach. “Europe tends to focus the DEI conversation largely on gender justice, which, of course, is very important, but most of the efforts I’ve seen are not intersectional,” she says.
To fully understand intersectionality, let’s explore its origins and why it has become such a critical part of the DEI conversation today.
The traffic metaphor
In 1989, scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw wrote a paper for the University of Chicago Legal Forum in which she evaluated legal claims by Black women and discussed how the courts failed to address discrimination. In Crenshaw’s view, the single-axis framework dominant in antidiscrimination law treated race and gender as mutually exclusive categories. As a result, when the issues of intersectionality were presented in a court of law, the plaintiffs were left with no justice.
Crenshaw used a metaphor to explain the intersectional perspective on how discrimination works: “Consider an analogy to traffic in an intersection, coming and going in all four directions. Discrimination, like traffic through an intersection, may flow in one direction, and it may flow in another. If an accident happens in an intersection, it can be caused by cars traveling from any number of directions and, sometimes, from all of them.” She was interested in knowing what happens, from a legal perspective, when a Black woman is harmed at the intersection of race and sex discrimination.
The General Motors’ case
One of the cases Crenshaw examined was the suit brought by five Black women against General Motors in the 70s, arguing that the company’s seniority system perpetuated discrimination against them due to both race and sex. Evidence showed that the company had not hired Black women before 1964 (the year of the American Civil Rights Act), and those hired after 1970 were laid off during a recession, when GM used a “last hired-first fired” criteria. However, the court rejected the plaintiffs’ attempt to bring a case as black women, reasoning that since black men and white women were employed by GM, there was no discrimination based on sex and gender.
When intersectionality is misinterpreted or ignored, the consequences extend beyond theory.
Crenshaw criticizes the court’s decision for failing to see that individuals within the same marginalized group are not discriminated against in the same ways. The experiences of black men and black women may differ despite both belonging to the marginalized group of black people, as well as the experiences of white women and black women, despite both belonging to the marginalized group of women.
In Crenshaw’s words, for white women, “there is no need to specify discrimination as white females because their race does not contribute to the disadvantage for which they seek redress. The view of discrimination that is derived from this grounding takes race privilege as a given.”
Even though the original paper focuses on the intersection of gender and race, the concept of intersectionality includes a broader range of overlapping identities, such as social class, sexuality, immigration status, age, and ability, making it a robust framework for understanding the complex ways in which discrimination operates.
What intersectionality is not
Some critics have wrongly interpreted intersectionality as an attempt by Crenshaw to create a new hierarchy with black women at the top. In other words, some see it as a form of “reverse discrimination.” In reality, intersectionality is not an effort to establish a new dominant group; instead, it challenges the one-size-fits-all approach to discrimination and advocates for a more nuanced framework to cover the full spectrum of inequality. It helps highlight how systems of privilege and oppression interact in complex ways, affecting people differently depending on their unique combination of identities.
Intersectionality doesn’t assume that privilege equals happiness — that’s another misconception. Even in the form of being a high-income, heterosexual, cisgender, neurotypical, nondisabled, non-immigrant Caucasian man, privilege doesn’t eliminate personal hardships. What privilege does is provide some individuals with societal advantages that others, particularly those with intersecting marginalized identities, may not have access to.
The consequences of doing DEI without intersectionality
The neglect of intersectionality can result in DEI initiatives that only benefit the most privileged members within each marginalized group. As the outcomes of such one-dimensional initiatives become evident, there has been increasing criticism that the idea of “diversity in tech” often translates to simply hiring white women. In fact, a 2022 study found that women of color do face a different workplace in tech compared to white women, with Asian and Asian-American women reporting many of the worst experiences in the survey. As a group, women of color reported receiving lower pay than their similarly situated colleagues at a rate 22.3 percentage points higher than white women.
Kirigin provides a couple of examples of the results of non-intersectional policies: “For instance, in Germany, I see some policies set forth to increase gender diversity on leadership teams. But what this tends to result in is more white women stepping into leadership roles, while women of color or women from a refugee background are not progressing at the same pace. I also see neurodivergence becoming a more frequent topic of discussion in German workplaces, which I’m thrilled about, but the more vocal voices on this topic tend to be men, which does not represent the experience of women or nonbinary people who are neurodivergent.”
In her TEDx Talk titled ‘Why Europe Needs To Stop Being Colorblind,’ Kirigin addresses intersectionality by critiquing the ‘colorblind’ approach. This approach avoids acknowledging race and ethnicity and focuses solely on gender diversity, limiting the effectiveness of DEI initiatives.
How to get started?
A good starting point to incorporate intersectionality in your DEI efforts is to collect data on multiple identity factors (race, gender, ability, etc.) within your workforce. Then, cross the collected data with your hiring, retention, and promotion statistics to identify if any particular group is being left behind. If so, the company should investigate why and create a strategy to tackle the problem. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: GDPR is no excuse to avoid having conversations about racism in the workplace,” reinforces Kirigin.
Key takeaways
Intersectionality is a concept that highlights how systems of privilege and oppression impact people differently depending on their unique combination of identities. Incorporating intersectionality into your DEI efforts helps prevent bias favoring the most privileged individuals inside each marginalized group.
By incorporating intersectionality, organizations can enhance their DEI strategies to create truly inclusive workplaces, ensuring that all employees are valued and rewarded based on their professional abilities without being disadvantaged by other factors.
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