Intersectional Feminism

Throughout this project, I’ve used a multitude of sources, mainly ones from feminist writers themselves. Intersectional Feminism as a term, was first coined by American professor Kimberle Crenshaw in the year 1989. It is the study of overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination, or discrimination. It means that women experience oppression in varying configurations and in varying degrees of intensity. Patterns of oppression are not just interrelated but are influenced by those interrelations. Crenshaw has spoken about intersectionality theory by stating that it is the study of how different power structures interact in the lives of minorities, specifically black women. This theory holds great value and has witnessed a crucial space in academia. The theory has basically come out of black feminism. It began with the quest of understanding how and why people are getting disappeared from various articulations, from theories, from books, from pages of history, from the movement, and from various other intersections and junctures in feminist scholarship. Intersectionality draws attention to the different invisibilities that exist in feminism, in anti-racism, anti-classism, etc. Basically, it compels us to attend to many different aspects of power that not everyone experiences. This is one way we can draw our attention to what has been erased from our histories, what we need to unlearn, what we need to challenge, and who needs to be given space to share power and have a voice of their own.