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Sex Roles (2008) 59:377391 DOI 10.1007/s11199-008-9424-4
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Intersectional Invisibility: The Distinctive Advantages and Disadvantages of Multiple Subordinate-Group Identities
Valerie Purdie-Vaughns & Richard P. Eibach
Published online: 7 April 2008 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008
Abstract The hypothesis that possessing multiple subordinate-group identities renders a person invisible relative to those with a single subordinate-group identity is developed. We propose that androcentric, ethnocentric, and heterocentric ideologies will cause people who have multiple subordinate-group identities to be defined as non-prototypical members of their respective identity groups. Because people with multiple subordinate-group identities (e.g., ethnic minority woman) do not fit the prototypes of their respective identity groups (e.g., ethnic minorities, women), they will experience what we have termed intersectional invisibility. In this article, our model of intersectional invisibility is developed and evidence from historical narratives, cultural representations, interest-group politics, and anti-discrimination legal frameworks is used to illustrate its utility. Implications for social psychological theory and research are discussed.
Keywords Intersectionality . Race . Gender .
Sexual orientation . Multiple identities . Double jeopardy . Social dominance theory
If the most violent punishments of men consisted of floggings and mutilations, women were flogged and mutilated, as well as raped. (Davis 1981,p.7)
Without in any way underplaying the enormous problems that poor African American women face, I want to suggest that the burdens of African American men have always been oppressive, dispiriting, demoralizing, and soul-killing, whereas those of women have always been at least partly generative, empowering, and humanizing. (Patterson 1995 pp. 623)
Introduction
The politics of research on the intersection of social identities based on race, gender, class, and sexuality can at times resemble a score-keeping contest between battle-weary warriors. The warriors display ever deeper and more gruesome battle scars in a game of one-upmanship, with each trying to prove that he or she has suffered more than the other. In intersectionality research the debate has centered on whether people with multiple subordinate-group identities (e.g., ethnic minority women, white lesbian women, black gay men) are worse off, that is, experience more prejudice and discrimination, than those with single subordinate-group identities (e.g., ethnic minority heterosexual men, white gay men).
On one side of this debate are scholars who support the double jeopardy model which claims that disadvantage...