Intersectionality: Multiple Axes of Oppression

Course Logistics and Information

• Course Title: Psychology of Colorism and Anti-Black Racism

• Course Code: $PSYC | AADS 4440-01$

• Date: March $31st$, Week $12$

• Lecture Theme: Intersectionality: Multiple Axes of Oppression

Announcements and Grading

• Final Paper & Grades:     - Outline: Due on March $31st$. It is intended primarily for the student's benefit and can vary from lightly detailed to heavily detailed.     - Rubric: The final paper rubric is available under the "Assignments" section.     - BC/Boston Event Papers: The final deadline for submission is the last day of class, April $28th$.     - Creative Class Discussions: Grades for these assignments were scheduled to be released by April $1st$.

Weekly Readings

• Cole, E. R. (2009): "Intersectionality and research in psychology," The American Psychologist, $64(3)$, $170–180$.

• Purdie-Vaughns, V., & Eibach, R. P. (2008): "Intersectional invisibility: The distinctive advantages and disadvantages of multiple subordinate-group identities," Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, $59(5-6)$, $377–391$.

• Sesko, A. K., & Biernat, M. (2010): "Prototypes of race and gender: The invisibility of Black women," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, $46(2)$, $356–360$.

• Hudson, S. T. J., & Ghani, A. (2023): "Sexual Orientation and Race Intersectionally Reduce the Perceived Gendered Nature of Normative Stereotypes in the United States," Psychology of Women Quarterly, $48(1)$, $56-79$.

Definition and Foundations of Intersectionality

• The Combahee River Collective (1977): Stated that it is difficult to separate race from class from sex oppression because in life they are experienced "simultaneously."

• Core Definition: Refers to how multiple forms of coinciding power-based inequality (e.g., racism and sexism) produce unique obstacles not captured by a single identity alone (e.g., race or sex).

• Kimberlé Crenshaw: Coined the term in a $1989$ legal paper to specifically describe legal discrimination against Black women.

• Clarification: Intersectionality is specific to structural and systemic oppression. It is not intended to be a framework for personal uniqueness surrounding every single identity a person holds (e.g., being a cat owner, a baker, or a loc’d girly). It specifically addresses the interaction of power-based oppression.

• Intersectionality as a Lens: Crenshaw describes it as a lens to see where power comes and collides, interlocks, and intersects.

Legal Foundations: Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex (1989)

• Context: Crenshaw highlighted three legal cases of racial and sex discrimination where the court's view exemplified the limitations of a "single-axis analysis."

• DeGraffenreid v. General Motors:     - The Suit: Five Black women sued General Motors (GM) for a seniority policy they argued specifically targeted Black women.     - The Conflict: Seniority-based layoffs in the early $1970s$ led to Black women losing jobs. Because Black women were not hired at all prior to $1964$, they could not accrue enough seniority to avoid these layoffs.     - The Ruling: Judge Wangelin ruled that "Black women" could not be considered a separate, protected class under the law, suggesting that doing so would open "Pandora's box."     - Crenshaw’s Argument: By treating Black women as purely Black (analogous to Black men) or purely women (analogous to White women), the specific challenges they face are ignored.

Cole’s (2009) Framework for Psychological Research

• Three Essential Questions for Researchers:     1. Who is included within this category?     2. What role does inequality play?     3. Where are the similarities?

• Implications for the Research Process:     - Generation of Hypotheses: Researchers should be attuned to diversity within categories and social/historical contexts of inequality. It may be exploratory to discover similarities.     - Sampling: Focus on neglected groups where memberships mark unequal access to power. Includes diverse groups connected by common relationships to institutional power.     - Operationalization: Develop measures from the perspective of the group being studied; conceptualize differences as stemming from structural inequality (upstream) rather than individual-level differences.     - Analysis: Test for both similarities and differences; attend to diversity within a group; view categories as institutional practices.     - Interpretation of Findings: No group’s findings should represent a universal or normative experience; interpret differences in light of structural positions.

Models of Multi-Marginalized Identities

• Double Jeopardy (Purdie-Vaughns & Eibach, 2008):     - Additive Model: A person with multiple intersecting identities experiences the distinct forms of oppression associated with each subordinate identity summed together.     - Interactive Model: Subordinate identities interact in a synergistic way, experienced as one merged identity.     - Evidence for Double Jeopardy: Found in economic and social indicators (wages, job authority), sexual and ethnic harassment (ethnically minoritized women fare worse than White women or minoritized men), and cumulative disadvantage.

• Social Dominance Theory (SDT) and Subordinate Male Target Hypothesis (SMTH):     - SDT Core: Describes systematic processes forming societal inequality. Group conflict arises from hierarchies where dominant groups hold resources and cultural capital.     - Three Systems of Hierarchy: Age, Gender, and Arbitrary-set (ethnic or religious groups).     - SMTH: Suggests that group members with a single devalued identity (specifically subordinated men) bear the brunt of discrimination. Resource competition is viewed as a largely intra-male phenomenon.     - SMTH Evidence: Higher incarceration rates and employment discrimination for subordinate men compared to subordinate women; larger bias favoring dominant men over subordinate men than favoring dominant women over subordinate women.

Intersectional Invisibility

• Definition: The general failure to fully recognize people with intersecting identities as members of their constituent groups.

• Mechanisms:     - ** distortion:** Intersectional persons' characteristics are distorted to fit prototypes of constituent identity groups.     - Context: Occurs when subordinate identities are viewed as non-prototypical (e.g., men are the prototypical professor, but women are the prototypical grade school teacher).

• Influences on Prototypicality:     - Androcentrism: Men are viewed as the prototype of a group.     - Ethnocentrism: Whiteness is viewed as the prototype of a group.     - Heterocentrism: Heterosexuality is viewed as the prototype of a group.

• Specific Prototypes resulting from Invisibility:     - Prototypical member of a subordinate racial group = Heterosexual man.     - Prototypical woman = Straight and White.     - Prototypical gay person = White man.

Questions & Discussion

• Crenshaw Interview Question: "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 Response: "Intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides… Some people look to intersectionality as a grand theory of everything, but that's not my intention… If the tool works, great. If it doesn't work, it's not like you have to use this concept."

• Generalizations in Psychology: How should researchers approach the impossibility of avoiding generalizations while trying to make meaningful contributions, and does Cole ($2009$) provide helpful answers?

• Score-Keeping Limitations: What are the limits of the "score-keeping" approach (counting disadvantages) to understanding discrimination?

• Invisibility Impact: Which form of intersectional invisibility (historical, cultural, political, or legal) has the greatest impact at the individual, interpersonal, and institutional levels?

• Re-evaluating Classic Psychology: In studies like the Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment, cognitive dissonance, or Milgram’s conformity experiment, how might an intersectional perspective have led to alternative conclusions?

• Institutional Reproduction: How might cognitive and institutional reliance on prototypical group representations continue to reproduce invisibility even in inclusive spaces?

• Equitable Comparison: How can we understand intersectionality equitably without turning groups experiencing unique oppression into a hierarchy?