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The terms class and stratification are both used usually to focus on inequality as such and by implication as characteristic of a whole population. But until recently, studies of class and stratification commonly looked at white men and ignored women and people of color (including immigrants). This was true not only of sociology but also of government statistics and the approaches of business and trade unions.

Since the 1960s, there has been more and more effort to include race and gender as variables in quantitative analyses. We may measure income, for example, and find out that on average US women are paid about 18% less than men – and Black men are paid 27% less than White men (though Asian men earn 17% more). Of course, some of this has to do with differences in education and jobs, but not all. We can quantify how much more housework and childcare women do than their male partners. We can study the lower rates of pay in disproportionately female occupations. We can quantify racial segregation in housing and schools. Taking race and gender seriously requires not only adding a variable but also rethinking what questions to study. Availability of childcare and rates of imprisonment immediately become prominent questions. So do who is allowed to speak in different settings, and who listens and a whole series of questions about visibility and invisibility.

Moreover, it is crucial to take race and gender seriously together, not only separately. The experience and pay of women are different from those of men. But, the experience and pay of Black women are different from those of white women. Women had different roles and representation in the Civil Rights movement; Black women had different roles and representation in the mostly white feminist movement. From observations like these came the theme of “intersectionality.” The term was coined in 1989 by the Law professor and social theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw (excerpted here).²⁶ It reflected and helped to focus attention on the ways in which race and gender were connected in discrimination and could be better connected in feminist and antiracist response.

Crenshaw credited a number of predecessors in Black women’s thought, including the 19th century sociological pioneer Anna J. Cooper and the contemporary critical theorist Angela Davis, with developing the concept before the term. Though he did not use the word, W.E.B. Du Bois had something related in mind in 1903 when he wrote of the “double consciousness” involved in being simultaneously Black and American.²⁷ Patricia Hill Collins (excerpted here) has developed the concept as a dimension of critical theory focused both on analyzing discrimination and providing tools for emancipatory struggles.²⁸

Greater inclusivity was a primary motivation for attention to intersectionality. But, the concept is also important to call attention to processes – including symbolic interactions – by which intersectional identities are managed. And as Har Yeon Choo and Myra Marx Ferree show, intersectionality is systematically organized in institutions and social structure. It appears at many different levels of analysis and is relevant to different projects in contemporary sociological theory.

Race and racialization are not, of course, limited to Black and white. Intersectionality is also not limited to race and gender. Rocio Gracia (excerpted here) shows how the experiences of Latinas are commonly erased from accounts of Latin migrations that focus mainly on men. Indeed, as soon as one starts asking about intersectionality, of course, it becomes evident that almost every dimension of discrimination and inequality potentially combines with the others. Intersectionality is not limited to the dimensions of race and gender. Sexualities – lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, postbinary or cis (conventionally straight) – intersect with race and gender. So do disabilities, immigrant status, and indeed class. Individuals may suffer discrimination or claim identity on several dimensions at once.

Being Black, female, and disabled multiplies disadvantages in many areas of life. But not all intersectionalities multiply disadvantages, though they have been the primary focus of intersectionality research. One may be disable or gay (or both) but also white and rich. Intersectionality may limit rather than multiply a potential disadvantage.

Moreover, intersectionality is a challenge to movement organization. It can undermine the solidarity of all Blacks with each other, of all women in feminist struggle, or of workers in class struggle. Immigrant status may divide Hispanic Americans or disabled Britons after Brexit. Not all “people of color” identify with each other or with that category. Every category of identity and potential solidarity also divides into various dimensions. There is no automatic rule as to which identity will dominate – either in explaining discrimination or in forging collective struggles. This is why intersectionality is always an issue and also a challenge for contemporary sociological theory and contemporary struggles for justice and social transformation alike.