Intersectionality is a theoretical framework for understanding how aspects of a person's social and political identities (e.g., gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, height etc.) might combine to create unique modes of discrimination. Intersectionality identifies injustices that are felt by people due to a combination of factors. For example, a black woman might face discrimination from a business that is not distinctly due to her race (because the business does not discriminate against black men) nor distinctly due to her gender (because the business does not discriminate against white women), but due to a unique combination of the two factors.

 

It is a “problem-solving” and analytic tool that people employ in attempt to better understand the complexity in the world and in human experiences. When it comes to social inequality, people's lives and organization of pwoer in a given society are better understood as being shaped not by a single axist of social division, be it race or gender or class, but by many axes that work together and influence each other.