What do we mean by “Intersectionality”?

 ‘Intersectionality’ is a concept developed in Black feminist activism and later named by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw to describe how multiple kinds of marginalisation compound and intersect to create additional and unique harms and barriers to care and justice. It is not additive — meaning a Black women doesn’t not have twice as much oppression as a white woman because she is Black + a woman. It is ‘reconstitutive’ — meaning it completely changes the kinds of oppression she faces. The racism she experiences is different because she is a woman, and the sexism she experiences is different because she is Black. This can be a barrier to her accessing safety, care, and legal protections, which makes it especially important that our communities, movements, and legal systems incorporate intersectionality into their systems.

Resources: The Combahee River Collective Statement (which speaks of interlocking oppressions), Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics (a Kimberlé Crenshaw article that outlines intersectionality), On Intersectionality (a plain-language explanation of intersectionality and what people get wrong about it by writer Mary Maxfield, written after a murderous shooting spree at an Atlanta massage business).

Recommended citation: “Intersectionality.” Movement Glossary. Collective Threads Initiative, 2026. https://www.collectivethreads.org (date accessed).