Why being in the path of multiple exclusions means you get hit twice
In short: If you are standing at the intersection of multiple forms of exclusion, you are likely to be hit by both. Law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw argues that without a specific name for these overlapping identities, the prejudice they create remains invisible, leaving victims of systemic racism and gender bias ignored by the public.
The concept of intersectionality was born from a specific legal failure. While studying law, Kimberlé Crenshaw examined Emma DeGraffenreid's lawsuit, involving an African-American woman suing a manufacturer over biased employment practices. The judge dismissed the claim because the company hired people of DeGraffenreid's race and people of her gender, but failed to hire people who were both. Crenshaw described this as an "injustice squared." This legal oversight highlighted how existing frameworks failed to account for the unique experiences of women of colour. Consequently, Crenshaw developed her theory to address these specific gaps in the law.
This phenomenon occurs because social identities—including race, gender, sexuality, and disability—operate on multiple levels to create multidimensional experiences. When activism, politics, or media lack a frame that is capacious enough to address these overlapping burdens, the resulting efforts to mobilize resources become partial and exclusionary. This creates a framing problem: if there is no name for a problem, the problem remains unseen and, therefore, unsolved.
During her 2016 TEDWomen talk in San Francisco, Crenshaw demonstrated this invisibility through a participatory poll. She asked the audience to sit down if they did not recognize the names of African-American women killed by police. The exercise highlighted a devastating discrepancy: while many recognized the names of Black male victims, very few recognized the names of Black female victims, illustrating how systemic bias can render certain lives invisible to the public eye.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Kimberlé Crenshaw: The urgency of intersectionality
- Also: The urgency of intersectionality: Kimberlé Crenshaw speaks at TED2016 | TED Blog
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