Q: You originally coined the term intersectionality to describe bias and violence against black women, but it's become more widely used—for LGBTQ issues, among others. Is that a misunderstanding of intersectionality?
Crenshaw: Intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects. It’s not simply that there’s a race problem here, a gender problem here, and a class or LBGTQ problem there. Many times that framework erases what happens to people who are subject to all of these things.
Some people look to intersectionality as a grand theory of everything, but that’s not my intention. If someone is trying to think about how to explain to the courts why they should not dismiss a case made by black women, just because the employer did hire blacks who were men and women who were white, well, that's what the tool was designed to do. If it works, great. If it doesn’t work, it’s not like you have to use this concept.
The other issue is that intersectionality can get used as a blanket term to mean, “Well, it’s complicated.” Sometimes, “It’s complicated” is an excuse not to do anything. At AAPF and the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies, we want to move beyond that idea.