This activity should take you about 15 minutes to complete.
Watch this video where different people talk about intersectionality. As you watch, consider the question ‘What am I learning about intersectionality?
As you listen, think about the words and phrases in the boxes below.
In the video, people talk about intersectionality as it applies to different things: to communities, to people, to policies and to ‘the big issues’.
Peter says that every community, whether it’s the LGBT community or the BME community includes many different groups within it. So, the LGBT community will include people from different ethnic backgrounds, different social classes, different genders, will have migrants and disabled folk too. Likewise, BME communities will also include people of different sexualities and genders, different social classes, genders etc. Although on first glance, LGBT and BME communities might appear very different, an intersectional way of looking at them reveals that they have much more in common than they have that is different. They are both equally concerned with issues of social class, migration, health and disability. BME communities need to be concerned about sexuality and gender while LGBT communities need to be concerned about race and ethnicity. So intersectionality shows us what we have in common and why we need to create solidarities.
For Tawassul, intersectionality enables her to think about the people she supports as having many different concerns and needs that interact with their needs around abortion. She says that people’s struggles with racism, with access to education, with poverty, with housing, all impact on their reproductive decisions and their access to abortion. Not only does intersectionality enable Tawassul to see the whole person, but it also informs her understanding of abortion that is tied up with broader issues such as poverty, education and racism.
For Jakki, intersectionality is a way of looking critically at policies and the actions of government. So even though a policy might be aimed at benefiting one group – for example women – it may impact another group negatively – for example disabled people. Taking an intersectional lens when we develop our policies or make our plans enables us to see more clearly how our policies will impact on everyone, not only the group that we are interested in benefitting from it.
Alexa picks up on the big issues such as gender equality, racism, poverty, sectarianism and conflict. An intersectional approach enables us to see that although we are all fighting for the same things, we need to remember that these different big issues affect different groups in different ways. So poverty affects men differently to women, and BME people differently to white people. Alexa gives the example of difference within the trans community and how poverty, education and social class will impact on trans people’s abilities to access the care that they need.
Now go to Lesson 2 : Where does Intersectionality Come From?