Intersectional feminism
 Kimberlé Crenshaw - On Intersectionality - keynote - WOW 2016: Southbank Centre
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Intersectionality is a term coined by American feminist legal scholar, critical race theorist, and civil rights advocate Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw to describe overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination, or discrimination. Intersectionality is the idea that multiple identities intersect to create a whole that is different from the component identities. These aspects of identity are not "unitary, mutually exclusive entities, but rather ... reciprocally constructing phenomena". The theory proposes that individuals think of each element or trait of a person as inextricably linked with all of the other elements in order to fully understand one's identity.
This framework, it is argued, can be used to understand how systemic injustice and social inequality occur on a multidimensional basis. Intersectionality holds that the classical conceptualizations of oppression within society—such as racism, sexism, classism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and belief-based bigotry—do not act independently of each other. Instead, these forms of oppression interrelate, creating a system of oppression that reflects the "intersection" of multiple forms of discrimination.
Under this hypothesis, intersectional identities usually are not addressed or mapped out in normal social discourses and often come with their own set of oppression, domination, and discrimination. Laws and policies usually only address one form of marginalized identity. The intersections of multiple oppressed identities often go overlooked. Since these identities are ignored, there is a lack of resources needed to combat the discrimination, and the oppression is cyclically perpetuated.
Intersectionality proposes that all aspects of one's identity need to be examined as simultaneously interacting with each other and affecting one's privilege and perception in society, and that these facets of identity cannot simply be observed separately. As such, intersectionality is not simply a view of personal identity, but rather an overarching analysis of power hierarchies present within identities. The framework of intersectionality also provides an insight into how multiple systems of oppression interrelate and are interactive. Intersectionality is not a static field; rather, it is dynamic and constantly developing as response to formations of complex social inequalities. Intersectionality can be seen as an "overarching knowledge project". Within this overarching umbrella, there are multiple knowledge projects that evolve "in tandem with changes in the interpretive communities that advance them".
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