Intersectionality: The Web of Society’s Advantaged and Disadvantaged
2 min readOct 1, 2019
- Intersectionality is the combination of a person’s race, gender, and class that categorize them into two main groups — dominance and subordination; society structurally deems those in the dominant group as advantaged, while those in the subordinate group are disadvantaged. Due to these labels, systems are set in place that perpetually discriminate those who are considered subordinate, while uplifting those who are dominant.
- A subordinate group in society are women of color. Kimberlé Crenshaw introduces readers to Los Angeles women’s shelters, where women of color have been rooted in the subordination that society labelled them as, and as a result, they are “burdened by poverty, child-care responsibilities, and the lack of job skills…[and] racially discriminatory employment and housing practices…,” which has what led them to be the major population in these shelters (Crenshaw 2).
- This pile of subordinate identities is what leads groups like women of color to endure this increasing pressure. Crenshaw highlights the fact that because of their race and gender that is discriminated, they experience the inability to find housing and employment (2). More and more of these women are vulnerable due to the compounding of identities because they are having their independence stripped from them until they need to go to shelters not only to retreat from violence or assault, but for a place to eat and sleep for the night.
- Robin DiAngelo “grew up poor and White,” and still, she could not see the privilege that she held over other racial populations who were in the same economic situations as her (DiAngelo, 138). To understand and process her oppression, she had to center her focus on racism, as it was instead an internalized dominance that she possessed despite her class. Even though she had a poor upbringing and always felt there was something “wrong” with her, she always knew that at least she had the advantage of not being black (DiAngelo, 139).
- “I came to understand that the oppression I experienced growing up poor didn’t protect me from learning my place in the racial hierarchy” (140).
