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  • Gender and Intersectionality

Gender and Intersectionality

Intersectionality is a term used to explain the idea that various forms of discrimination, such as those centered on race, gender, class, disability, sexuality, and other forms of identity, do not work independently but interact to produce particularized forms of social oppression. Intersectionality acknowledges that power dynamics and social systems and structures are complicated and that people can experience multiple forms of oppression like racism, sexism, classism, ableism, ageism, and homophobia at the same time. This synchronicity creates unique experiences of oppression (Taylor, 2019).

Origin and Explanation of the Term

Kimberlé Crenshaw first coined the term "intersectionality" in her 1989 article, Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics. Her 1991 article, Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color builds on her initial thinking. In this video, Crenshaw speaks about how intersectionality expands our understanding of social oppression and how it operates in a given society, culture, or environment.

Put simply, viewing discrimination through an intersectional lens, the inequities and inequalities that people experience are never the result of a single, distinct factor. Rather, they are the outcome of intersection and overlap of different social identities enmeshed in power dynamics and contextual factors in a given environment (YW Boston Blog, 2017).

 

Application to Gender

Regarding gender, as is explained in What is Intersectionality and What Does it Have to Do with Me? (Hopkins, 2018), intersectionality accounts for gender and its interaction and overlap with other social identities. People experience disadvantages according to the relative value and social standing of their multiple social identities, which creates a complex convergence of oppression:

Intersectionality is a way of understanding social relations by examining intersecting forms of discrimination. This means acknowledging that social systems are complicated and that many forms of oppression, like racism, sexism, and ageism might be present and active at the same time in a person’s life. Intersectionality is about understanding and addressing all potential roadblocks to an individual or group’s wellbeing. For example, while the career of a young white able-bodied woman might improve with gender equality protections, an older, black disabled lesbian may continue to be hampered by racism, ageism, ableism, and homophobia in the workplace.              

But it’s not as simple as adding up oppressions and addressing each one individually. Racism, sexism, and ableism exist on their own but when combined they compound and transform the experience of oppression. 

 

Another Angle to Consider

At the same time, Hopkins explains, intersectionality can also consider the privileges or advantages that people experience in line with their social identities, and how those advantages and disadvantages interact and overlap. That is, depending on a person's society, culture, or environment, they can experience specific advantages over other individuals or groups in line with power dynamics and contextual factors, but if that same person lived in a different setting, they could experience distinct disadvantages. Thus, intersectionality provides an essential framework to truly engage with how privilege, oppression, and power operate in a given environment.

Intersectionality, Gender, and Social and Behavior Change

The Gender and Development Network states that an intersectional approach to gender-transformative programming in social and behavior change (SBC) means being mindful of three main points:

  1. Anyone can experience gender discrimination in one way or another, with some groups being more disproportionately burdened. But not only gender shapes experiences of discrimination, marginalization, and oppression, but also race, socio-economic status, and other factors.
  2. An individual’s particular experience of intersecting discriminations is unique; it is not simply the sum of different discriminations.
  3. Politically, gender equality proponents must tackle all forms of discrimination and oppression whether based on gender, race, or class.

As Hopkins states:

The concept of intersectionality challenges us to adopt a more systems-oriented and complexity-aware lens in understanding and addressing how gender interacts with other social locations to shape and influence the conditions and outcomes of people’s lives across diverse contexts. It means listening to others, examining our own privileges and asking questions about who may be excluded and adversely effected by our work. By doing so, we can better identify and shift the structures, pathways, and mechanisms through which intersecting inequalities continue to operate and negatively impact lives. By applying an intersectional lens to our work, we can design multi-level, norms-shifting interventions in collaboration with partners and stakeholders that can tackle gender and other social injustices in more transformative ways.

This work is challenging and requires a lot of introspection and reflection on the part of SBC professionals as we negotiate the ways in which our own social identities impact how we do work that is truly intersectional and inclusive.

In this Trending Topic we share resources and tools to help with understanding and applying an intersectional lens to SBC programming, and several examples of intersectionality as applied to gender-integrated programming across the globe. If you have materials you would like to share with us, please upload the items, or contact info@thecompassforsbc.org.

 


Hopkins, P. (2018, April 22). What is Intersectionality? [video] YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1islM0ytkE

Taylor, B. (2019, November 24). Intersectionality 101: what is it and why is it important? Womankind Worldwide. https://www.womankind.org.uk/intersectionality-101-what-is-it-and-why-is-it-important

YW Boston Blog. (2017, March 29). What is intersectionality, and what does it have to do with me? YW Boston. https://www.ywboston.org/2017/03/what-is-intersectionality-and-what-does-it-have-to-do-with-me

 

Photo credit: MONUSCO Pictures / Myriam ASMANI Retrieved from Flickr

 

Resources

  • Tools
  • Examples

Kimberlé Crenshaw: What is Intersectionality?

In this brief video, Kimberlé Crenshaw, a 2017 National Association of Independent Schools People of Color Conference speaker, civil rights advocate, and professor at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law and Columbia University Law School, talks about intersectional theory, the study of how overlapping or intersecting social identities—particularly minority identities—relate to systems and structures of discrimination.

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What is Intersectionality?

This short video explains the concept of intersectionality and its application in social sciences.

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Gender and Intersectionality Online Course

This free course provides an excellent starting point for either individuals coming to gender studies for the first time, or those who wish to brush up on the basics through a more visual experience.

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Intersectionality: Reflections from the Gender & Development Network

This thinkpiece describes the concept of intersectionality as helping one to both understand and respond to complex and multifaceted identities. It describes the way that inequalities and oppression manifest themselves, but also proposes the way in which program interventions should be shaped, and political resistance can be built.

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Gender and Health Hub

The Gender and Health Hub is a network of policymakers, researchers, and implementers working at the intersection of gender and global health.

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Align - Advancing Learning and Innovation on Gender Norms

ALIGN is a digital platform and program of work that works to create a global community of researchers and thought leaders, all committed to gender justice and equality. It provides new research, insights from practice, and grants for initiatives that increase our understanding of – and what works to change – discriminatory gender norms.

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Intersecting inequalities: Gender Equality Index

Since its inception, the Gender Equality Index has strived to reflect this diversity. Intersecting inequalities capture how gender is manifested when combined with other characteristics such as age, dis/ability, migrant background, ethnicity, sexual orientation or socioeconomic background. An intersectional perspective highlights the complexity of gender equality.

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Gender Integration in Social and Behavior Change: What Does it Take

Social behavior change (SBC) programs are uniquely placed to make a difference in achieving gender transformative goals. Integrating gender into SBC programs is key to promoting gender equality and achieving intended outcomes among persons of all genders and age groups.

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Gender Implications for Extension and Advisory Services during COVID-19

The social impacts of COVID-19 have important implications to food security and, like many other social and environmental calamities, are not gender or spatially neutral. In many regions across the world, deep-rooted gender norms that devalue women’s unpaid domestic labor burdens also marginalize the health, nutrition, and decision-making power of women and girls.

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Gender Norms, Intersectionality and Social Protection: In Conversation with UNICEF's Dr Zahrah Nesbitt-Ahmed

Dr. Zahrah Nesbitt-Ahmed is a Gender and Development Manager (Research) at UNICEF Office of Research, Innocenti, where she also manages the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office-funded Gender-Responsive and Age-Sensitive Social Protection (GRASSP) research program. Zahrah works in the area of gender and women’s economic empowerment, the care economy, and social protection.

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Re-politicizing Intersectionality: How an Intersectional Perspective can Help International Non-governmental Organizations be Better Allies to Women's Rights Movements

This paper argues that the international development sector can become a better ally to women’s rights movements by changing its approach to intersectionality.

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The Health Stigma and Discrimination Framework: A Global, Crosscutting Framework to Inform Research, Intervention Development, and Policy on Health-related Stigmas

In order to halt the stigmatization process and mitigate the harmful consequences of health-related stigma (i.e. stigma associated with health conditions), an explicit theoretical framework is critical for guiding intervention development, measurement, research, and policy.

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Zéro discrimination envers les femmes et les filles

À l’occasion de la Journée zéro discrimination et dans le cadre du mouvement mondial pour l’égalité des femmes et des filles, l’ONUSIDA met en évidence sept domaines dans lesquels la discrimination à l’égard des femmes et des filles persiste, en sensibilisant et en appelant au changement.

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Women's Economic Empowerment and Domestic Violence: Links and lessons for Practitioners Working with Intersectional Approaches

This paper examines the intersectional elements of the links between women's increased market-oriented economic activity and women's experience of domestic violence.

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Intersectionality: Race, Gender and Other Aspects of Identity in Social Work with Young People

This is a synopsis of Community Care Inform’s guide to initial meetings with young people: an intersectional and systemic approach.  

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What Does it Mean to Leave No One Behind? A United Nations Development Programme Discussion Paper and Framework for Implementation

This paper suggests a framework that governments and stakeholders can use in their countries to take action to enable and accelerate national progress to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals while leaving no person in their society behind.

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Intersectionality 101

The aim of this primer is to provide a clear-language guide to intersectionality; exploring its key elements and characteristics, how it is distinct from other approaches to equity, and how it can be applied in research, policy, practice and teaching.

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10 Best Resources on Intersectionality with an Emphasis on Low- and Middle-Income Countries 

The authors conducted a literature review on articles about intersectionality and chose articles based on the proportion of the article that was devoted to intersectionality, the strength of the intersectionality analysis, and its relevance to low and middle income countries.

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Gender and Health Hub COVID-19 Buzzboard

The COVID-19 and Gender Buzzboard covers many topics generated by users, and is a collaborative tool for agenda setting and research initiatives.

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The Reality of Intersectional Factors in Gender Inequality

Middle East, North Africa, and Greater Arabia
Afghanistan
Syria

In 2017, Islamic Relief Worldwide piloted protective and inclusive programming in six countries. For the pilots, the humanitarian organization created several tools, including an intersectionality framework to help understand gender identities, their social positions and immediate and strategic impacts.

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Tracing Change in Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting through Social Networks: An Intersectional Analysis of the Influence of Gender, Generation, Status, and Structural Inequality

Senegal

Policies and programs designed to eliminate female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) in Senegal have been implemented over several decades, but the practice has been surprisingly tenacious.

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Building Gender Sensitive Resilience through Women's Economic Empowerment Lessons Learned from Pastoralist Women in Ethiopia  

Ethiopia
Senegal

The paper explores how the overlap of a double marginalized identity produces particular disadvantages for pastoralist women in Ethiopia, and how the Oxfam intervention in the Somali region addresses the connection between these disadvantages and poverty and power.

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Integrating Intersectionality in Work with Lesbian Women, Bisexual Women and Transwomen in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe

This paper presents the work of Voice of the Voiceless (VOVO), a civil society organisation based in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and development partner of Oxfam.

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Gender and its Intersectionality: Guidelines for Programming and Engagement in Governance

United Kingdom

The Commonwealth Foundation sets policy guidelines for all countries within the British Commonwealth. This document provides an understanding of intersectionality and its application to the Foundation’s focus in supporting people’s participation in governance.

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Considering Intersectionality in Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa

This is an entire issue of the journal Agenda (Volume 31, Issue 1) which focuses on intersectionality and gender in Africa.

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At the Intersection of Inequities - Lessons Learned from CIFOR’s Work on Gender and Climate Change Adaptation in West Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa

This article states that in West Africa, gender relations, roles and perceptions are changing at the local level, furthered by environmental and climate change impacts and the adaptation process to them.

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Annotated Bibliography: The Intersecting Norms of Gender and Caste in South Asia

India

This bibliography brings together key resources on the intersection between caste and gender and explores the central significance of gender for the operation of caste, and the impact of caste on gender. It groups the implications of the intersection of gender and caste norms into the themes of theory, education, health, violence, politics and work.

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February 8, 2021
April 27, 2021
Danette Wilkins
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