Alongside the doctrine of universality, another approach is gaining increasing traction in the conversation about diversity: intersectionality. What is it all about? What is its history? What criticisms does it attract? How is it implemented in reality and in inclusion practices? Let’s take a look.
In the beginning, she was an activist… for civil rights and women's rights
Who cares about the rights of Black women?
The term “intersectionality” was coined in 1989 by Kimberlé Crenshaw. The law professor and women’s rights activist is a key figure in the fight against racial discrimination. However, she observed that universalist feminist movements had a double blind spot. They showed little interest in Black women, and advocacy groups for people of color rarely considered the specific condition of women.
In other words, Black women are on the front line of all the battles. Even though they are among the most disadvantaged populations in the United States.
Subordination and the exponential growth of discrimination
In an article entitled “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics”, Crenshaw lays the foundations for a line of thought that intersects two sociological phenomena:
- The exponential growth of multiple forms of discrimination
- The subordination of forms of discrimination
The exponential growth of discrimination is how forms of discriminations accumulate and reinforce one another: a Black woman is not just discriminated against twice over (once as a woman and once as a Black person) but faces a degree of discrimination greater than that experienced by two women or two Black people.
The subordination of discriminations describes how, when multiple grounds for discrimination are present, the most socially disadvantaging one becomes the dominant force, multiplying the overall effect. As such, in a society where patriarchal culture permeates the entire social body, being a woman will always be more disadvantageous, even in contexts where human rights are promoted. But if we find ourselves in an environment where gender equality is achieved, but heteronormativity is very prevalent, being LGBTQI+ will have the greatest multiplier effect on other discrimination criteria.
How do we measure intersectionality?
A dynamic measure in contrast to an inefficient, numbers-based approach
If we move away from viewing discrimination through the lens of broad, segmented social categories (gender, sexual orientation, ability/health status, religion, and so on) how do we design effective inequality-reduction policies, particularly in the corporate world, where issues tend to exist only if they are measurable?
The challenge is not just to measure volume but rather dynamics: how discriminations combine and evolve. And that’s what intersectionality is all about. Going beyond simple statistical categories to better assess the inclusion potential of a given environment.
The question is no longer how many women and how many men you have in your company (or how many Gen Z, Gen X or Boomers; how many white people and how many people of color) but rather whether your company has the capacity to deal with the requirements of any situation… by upholding the principle of equity! From this point on, everything put in place must provide the same level of benefits to each individual.
Why is there so much tension between the intersectional approach and the universal approach?
Toward a universal foundation of effective rights
If the goal is to put in place things that work for everyone, then surely it's enough to create and enforce a law that addresses the common denominators of all humanity, right? The universalist ideal promotes a vision in which gender distinctions disappear behind “Mankind with a capital M”, social disparities behind citizenship, differences in age behind life stages, and so on. From that standpoint, fundamental rights applying to everyone form the foundation of equality, on paper.
To achieve true equality, we must commit to guaranteeing equal opportunities: it’s not enough to give everyone the same rights, we must allow everyone to exercise those rights. That might mean using corrective measures, in particular in the form of support for those who appear particularly disadvantaged and have fewer means to exercise their rights.
A denial of real-world social hierarchies?
While attracting widespread consensus on paper, the universalist approach is called into question for the limits of its real effectiveness. The ideal clashes with the force of social hierarchies, which means that even when perfect equality of rights is declared, real disparities in lived conditions persist.
And that sums up the glass ceiling perfectly. Taking France as an example, one cannot help but notice that the legal framework for professional equality is comprehensive, and that numerous measures have been put in place to strenghten equal opportunity between women and men and address real-world disparities, some of them quite far-reaching, such as gender quotas or the requirement to establish a salary watch-up budget when a company underperforms on equal pay criteria. But invisible and unconsciours hindrances and obstacles can sabotage good intentions.
All of these obstacles share the same root cause: the stereotypes and biases that lead women to develop an inferiority complex (self-doubt, impostor syndrome, preoccupation with domestic and family responsibilities) and persist in making it so difficult for society to accept deviations from gender norms. Women’s ambition is often perceived negatively, men who don’t conform to expectations of masculinity are stigmatized, and women who don’t appear to make family life a priority come under scrutiny. In other words, universalist policies do not automatically lead to genuine equality.
The challenge of interculturalism
The universalist approach is challenged even more forcefully when we examine interculturalism, because it raises the question of who, from what vantage point, with what vision of humanity, has the legitimacy to define what is right for everyone.
To get a clearer sense of what is at stake, let’s look at the thorniest debates: those that pit visions of gender equality against religion, opinion, and real or perceived ethnic identity or any combination of the above. The classic case is pitting an atheist woman from a Western culture against a woman in a hijab from an immigrant background.
The French universalist perspective will readily cast the latter as a victim (coerced, influenced, or in a state of willing servitude) of a patriarchal order, while the former is seen as a free and liberated woman. But the intersectional perspective will challenge this reading, on one hand by defending a woman’s freedom to wear the hijab without being immediately suspected of an inability to decide for herself, and on the other by pointing out that the Western-liberated woman is liberated only within the limits that Western patriarchy permits… Without settling the debate here, we have at the very least a glimpse of what is at stake when identities intersect.
Competition or a hierarchy of discriminations?
It must be acknowledged that, in reality, there is a certain rivalry between forms of discrimination, and that can cause conflict between discriminated populations. The inequality crisis in the United States offers a telling illustration of this. As scholars of the “poor white trash” phenomenon have observed, low-income white Americans without college degrees no longer see the wealthy and privileged as their adversaries. Instead, they point the finger at women and minorities, whom they see as cutting in line for a share of a shrinking pie.
For some, such entanglements are easily resolved by developing a hierarchy of battles. It is a political undertaking in itself to decide whether social diversity comes before or after gender equality, intergenerational diversity before or after intercultural diversity, respect for opinions before or after respect for religions… But is that really in line with the spirit anti-discrimination efforts?
Undeniably complex but quite inevitable, the intersectional approach is still searching for its method, particularly for application in the world of work. It is seeking it through debate, and if you believe in productive conflict, that’s a good way of doing things. Intersectionality certainly raises new questions, addresses new dilemmas, and reveals the blind spots of our traditional policies to combat exclusion, inequality, and discrimination. By bringing to light the non-existent and the unspoken, the debate creates popular interest in the questions it raises.
From this shared awareness, certain questions are both interesting and unsettling, and we can establish a methodology for developing solutions. This consultation around methodology is a crucial step because it is precisely where the power dynamics, positioning, and rules of the game get reshuffled. It is the moment to accept that our usual frameworks will be challenged.
For example, how can we combine issues of gender inequality and generational difference to cast new light on the concept of the glass ceiling?
In this respect, age is just as powerful a driver of inequality and discrimination as gender or background. Through an intersectional lens, age can actually act as a magnifier: a woman over 50 doesn’t just hit the glass ceiling, she becomes socially invisible in a way her male peers simply don’t, since older men are often seen as carrying an air of authority that “comes with the territory”. At the other end of the scale, young talents face struggles to feel credible because of other minority markers. The challenge then, is to develop an approach that is broad enough to factor in generational differences with the same sharpness of focus as gender. Without that vision, inclusion policies will be incomplete.
Other examples of questions that could be raised include: How can we reconcile a woman’s right to control their own bodies with discrimination based on appearance, social origin, religion, and cultural differences? How can we simultaneously combat racism, which particularly affects young men of color, and the fight against sexism, which has a big impact on women?
These are all sensitive questions, and there are plenty of others. Their answers are to be found in the search for fair compromises (but with no compromise on principles).
