What is intersectionality?
DCA’s definition of intersectionality
Intersectionality refers to how different aspects of a person’s identity expose them to overlapping forms of discrimination that greatly increase their marginalisation.
For example, a culturally and racially marginalised woman’s gender and race can expose her to overlapping sexism and racism (i.e. gendered racism) and this greatly increases her marginalisation.
Table of Contents
Our definition highlights two important things for D&I change agents:
- Intersectionality helps you understand the lived experiences of individuals who are most marginalised at work because they experience overlapping inequities.
- Intersectionality helps you understand the systemic power dynamics at work. Systems of inequity like racism, sexism or classism are interconnected and reinforce each other to:
- marginalise some people in society (reduce their power)
- benefit others (increase their power).
The origins of intersectionality
The term “intersectionality” comes from work by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a critical race and Black feminist scholar.
She coined the term in the 1980s to highlight:
- how gender (sexism) and race (racism) combine to further marginalise Black women in the US
- legal cases in which Black women suing for discrimination had to choose between bringing a claim of racism or sexism, but not the combination of both.1
While Crenshaw was the first to use the term, the idea that people can experience specific inequities due to more than one type of discrimination has long been explored by Black, Latin and Indigenous activists and scholars.2
See The Equality Institute’s Challenging power in the boardroom (PDF 7.6MB) for a timeline of how intersectionality developed as a concept with roots in Black feminism.
Check out DCA’s new guide to applying an intersectionality lens to organisations’ D&I change work.
Members can log in to explore why an intersectional approach matters and learn more about DCA’s framework for applying intersectionality at work.
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The contents of this page were last updated in July 2025.
- K Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics”, University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989, 1989(1):139–167.
O Hankivsky, Intersectionality 101, Institute for Intersectionality Research and Policy, Simon Fraser University, 2014;
Scottish Government, Using intersectionality to understand structural inequality in Scotland: evidence synthesis, Scottish Government, Edinburgh, 2022; K Lim, S Harmer, S Cerise and D Marshall, Challenging power in the boardroom: why intersectionality matters and how you can apply it – to diversity, equity and inclusion, and beyond, The Equality Institute, Melbourne, 2023.