Kheiron Module 3

Gender Perspective, Diversity and Inclusion in Mentoring Intersectionality is an analytical approach to understanding how multiple identities and systems of oppression (such as racism, sexism, ableism, ableism, homophobia, classism, among others) intersect and generate unique experiences of discrimination or privilege. It is not a matter of adding axes (‘I am a woman + I am a migrant + I have a disability’), but of recognising that these categories combine and reinforce each other, modifying both the impact of each one and the possible forms of resistance. Like a crossroads, intersectionality has been treated as a metaphor to explain the crossover or overlap between different systems of oppression. It is the meeting point between two or more oppressions or resistances (Revista Emancipa, 2020). In recent months in our society, we see this clearly reflected in the trans debate, and how trans women find themselves doubly oppressed by two very violent and unequal systems. Kimberlé Cranshaw is the African-American woman credited with the official definition of intersectionality (Viveros, 2016) in 1989. Although the concept had been discussed before, by well-known authors such as Angela Davis, Crenshaw proposed something very important: a frame of reference. That is, he offered the ability to name within the justice system a problem that apparently no one could see because it had no name (Crenshaw, 2016). She introduced the term to highlight how black women simultaneously experience racism and sexism, and are rendered invisible when the two are only addressed separately. 01