Intersectionality is right for the wrong reasons. Or is wrong for the right reasons?
Originally designed as an analytic framework to better understand the nature of human oppression, intersectional theory often comes across to those outside the academic bubble as a victimologist ideology, hell bent on deconstructing the alleged hegemonic white patriarchy, characterized by entangled jargon and propelled by the stigma of historical shame. The central thesis of this offspring of critical race theory and third-wave feminism is that we should interpret the world through an analysis of the intersection of our various group identities (white female, disabled Hispanic male, and so on) in order to better understand the anatomy of systemic oppression. This seems simple enough.
Why, then, would a relatively obscure analytic framework, preached from the ivory towers of academia, be responsible for the political polarization we are seeing in our society? Well, the scathing rhetoric of the intelligentsia does not stay in the university: it seeps downstream into the unsettled waters of culture and alters how we understand complex social problems. Although intersectional theory is an esoteric ideology most of the general public have probably never heard of—despite a recent tweet by presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand—the assumptions that undergird intersectionality have come to be quietly implemented beneath the surface of our culture. Areo.
.jpeg)