Intersectionality

Intersectionality examines how various social identities (e.g., race, gender, class, sexual orientation, ability, etc.) interact and create overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.

Intersectionality helps highlight these overlapping forms of discrimination and their cumulative impact. For example, a working-class woman of color may experience racism, sexism, and exploitation as a proletarian simultaneously, each influencing and exacerbating the others.

Sowing division along various social lines creates pockets of economically and politically vulnerable workers that the Capitalists can exploit to a much greater degree. The relative oppression of certain groups also help to depress wages and worsen working conditions for the entire workforce, due to competition in the labour market.

Intersectionality as a concept emerged from liberal sociology; Marxism-Leninist theory has always recognized and developed analyses of interlocking oppressions. The difference is that Marxism-Leninism recognizes that class struggle is the basis of all oppressions.

Origin

Intersectionality, a term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, is a framework for understanding how different social categories, such as race, gender, class, and sexuality, intersect to create unique experiences of discrimination and privilege