‘Intersectionality’ refers to the ways in which different aspects of a person’s identity can expose them to overlapping forms of discrimination and marginalisation.
The term intersectionality comes from work by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a race and feminism scholar, who coined the term in the 1980s to highlight how gender and race combine to further marginalise Black women in the US; highlighting 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. 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, queer, post-colonial, feminist, and Indigenous activists and scholars.
More recently, intersectionality has been extended to include other aspects of diversity (e.g., our age, care-giving responsibilities, disability status, sexual orientation and gender identity).
Intersectionality is an important element of D&I practice as it recognises that D&I initiatives should be designed work across diversity dimensions.
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- Western Sydney University (Nicholas, L., Chandra, S., Hanckel, B., Ullman, J., & Ferfolja, T) Gender Equity in the Workplace: Intersectional and Gender & Sexuality Diverse Approaches, Sydney, Western Sydney University, 2022.
D. Bowyer, M. Deitz, A. Jamison, C.E. Taylor, E. Gyengesi, J. Ross, H. Hammond, A.E. Ogbeide & T. Dune, “Academic Mothers, Professional Identity and COVID-19: Feminist Reflections on Career Cycles, Progression and Practice”, Gender, Work and Organisation, vol. 29, no. 1, 2022: 309-341.
- Diversity Council Australia/Jumbunna Institute (Brown, C., D’Almada-Remedios, R., Gilbert, J. O’Leary, J. and Young, N.) Gari Yala (Speak the Truth): Centreing the Work Experiences of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Australians, Sydney, Diversity Council Australia/Jumbunna Institute, 2020.
- Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, “Indigenous Income and Finance”, Indigenous Australians, 16 Sep 2021, https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-welfare/indigenous-income-and-finance.
- Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia, Submission to Independent Inquiry into Insecure Work, Canberra, June 2017.
- R.A. Smith, “Do the Determinants of Promotion Differ for White Men Versus Women and Minorities?: An Exploration of Intersectionalism Through Sponsored and Contest Mobility Processes”, American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 48, no. 9, 2005: 1157–1181.
- Diversity Council Australia (Brown, C., D’Almada-Remedios, R., Dunbar, K., O’Leary, J., Evans, O., and Rubin, M.) Class at Work: Does Social Class Make a Difference in the Land of the ‘Fair Go’?, Sydney, Diversity Council Australia, 2020.
- Women With Disabilities Australia (Frohmader, C) Gender Blind, Gender Neutral’: The Effectiveness of the National Disability Strategy in Improving the Lives of Women and Girls with Disabilities, Rosny Park, Women With Disabilities Australia, 2014.
- Diversity Council Australia (Shireenjit, J., O’Leary, J., Legg, A. and Brown, C.) Capitalising on Culture and Gender in ASX Leadership, Sydney, Diversity Council Australia, 2017.
- D.M. Adams, “Racism, trauma, and being the other in the classroom,” in H. Curtis Boles, D. Adams, and V. Jenkins-Monroe (eds.), Making Our Voices Heard: Women of Color in Academia, Nova Science, New York, 2012: 35–46.
- National Women’s Law Centre (Lepage, B. and Tucker, J.) A Window into the Wage Gap: What’s Behind It and How to Close It, Washington, National Women’s Law Centre, 2023. Unfortunately, no equivalent statistics are available for Australia.
- Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Australia’s Gender Equality Scorecard Key results from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s Employer Census 2021–22, December 2022