For many scholars, gender constitutes the primary focus of their research. Political scientists can and regularly do consider the effect of gender independently from other variables in their research, but viewing gender as a stand-alone factor distorts reality. Gender never acts independently from other aspects of our identity, such as our race, class, and ethnicity, so it is misleading to think of gender as the only category of analysis. In order to see the picture fully depicted on the puzzle, the pieces of the puzzle must first be put together. These individual pieces of the puzzle have to interlock to make the picture whole. In the same way, different factors of one’s life, such as gender, race, and class, are interconnected to oneself. “The integrated, mutually constitutive nature of identities is the central premise of intersectionality” (Cambridge 232).
Intersectionality is a term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, an American feminist scholar and civil rights advocate, which “rejects the ‘single-axis framework’ often embraced by both feminist and anti-racist scholars, instead analyzing the various ways in which race and gender interact to shape the multiple dimensions of Black women’s experiences” (Crenshaw 1244). The term can refer to the moment in which racism, sexism, and classism collide to form the “matrix of domination”; it can also refer to how race, gender, class, sexuality, as well as many other forms of social locations, influence the structural forms of subordination. In simpler terms, “intersectionality” aspires to provide a vocabulary that exposes the difference within the broad categories of “women” or “black”. It gives a framework that is used to better understand how systemic injustice and social inequality occur at a multidimensional basis. Crenshaw coined the term to express the particular problems that immigrant women of color face and why their issues were being ignored by both the feminist and anti-racism movements of the time.
A Caucasian woman faces the issue of sexism, whereas a colored woman faces sexism, as well as racism. Similarly, a trans woman of color faces exceptionally high levels of discrimination and threats of violence because of sexism, racism, and homophobia. White women, even though they still face sexism, have many more privileges compared to women of color, but many white women do not seem to grasp that fact. This so-called “white feminism” advocates for gender equality, but ignores the unique experiences of women of color. For example, during the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards, Nicki Minaj called out the exclusion of black women in the entertainment industry on Twitter. Taylor Swift, along with Miley Cyrus, both responded against Nicki Minaj’s statements and refused to address racism. Taylor Swift even accused Nicki Minaj of “putting women against each other,” assuming Minaj was speaking on Swift herself, which was not the case. This type of feminism is dangerously common and neglects the experiences faced by women of color.
The political birthplace of feminism in the United States was the anti-slavery movement, yet opposition of slavery did not necessarily translate into belief in racial equality (Freedman 77). This is clearly evident while looking at the history of the U.S. Constitution- the law of the land. The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave black men the right to vote, but failed to extend the same privileges to American women of any skin color. Even after the 19th Amendment was passed in 1920, which gave women the freedom to vote, women of color were still denied that privilege. According to a timeline made by the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Supreme Court actually ruled in that Japanese people were ineligible to vote in 1922, Asian-Indians could not vote in 1923, and in some states still barred Native Americans from voting even until 1957.
Of course, the ideas and thoughts behind intersectionality existed long before the term was coined. When Frederick Douglass proclaimed, “This is the Negro’s hour,” Sojourner Truth predicted that “if colored men get their rights, and not colored women theirs, you see the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be just as bad as it was before” (Freedman 79). Intersectionality addresses the multiple dimensions of black women’s oppression that have crystallized in the past four decades.