Content area
Full Text
Sex Roles (2008) 59:301311 DOI 10.1007/s11199-008-9501-8
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Gender: An Intersectionality Perspective
Stephanie A. Shields
Published online: 18 July 2008 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008
Abstract Intersectionality, the mutually constitutive relations among social identities, is a central tenet of feminist thinking and has transformed how gender is conceptualized in research. In this special issue, we focus on the intersectionality perspective in empirical research on gender. Our goal is to offer a best practices resource that provides models for when and how intersectionality can inform theory and be incorporated into empirical research on psychological questions at individual, interpersonal, and social structural levels. I briefly summarize the development of the intersectionality perspective, and then review how the realization of its promise has been diverted by preoccupation with intersectionality as a methodological challenge. I conclude with a discussion of why intersectionality is an urgent issue for researchers invested in promoting positive social change.
Keywords Feminist psychology . Social identity . Intersectionality theory . Hybridity . Feminist theory
Introduction
Intersectionality, the mutually constitutive relations among social identities, has become a central tenet of feminist thinking, one that McCall (2005) and others have suggested is the most important contribution of feminist theory to our present understanding of gender. Indeed, at the level of theory, intersectionality has transformed how gender is
discussed. Feminist theorists reveal and challenge the taken for granted assumptions about gender that underlie conventional theoretical and methodological approaches to empirical research as, for example, psychologys homogenization of the category of gender. The intersectionality perspective further reveals that the individuals social identities profoundly influence ones beliefs about and experience of gender. As a result, feminist researchers have come to understand that the individuals social location as reflected in intersecting identities must be at the forefront in any investigation of gender. In particular, gender must be understood in the context of power relations embedded in social identities (Collins 1990; 2000).
Understanding that social location is important and discerning how to apply that knowledge in the course of conducting research, however, are not the same. Despite recognition of the significance of intersectionality, empirical application of this perspective has lagged behind, particularly in psychology and related disciplines that prize methodological approaches that do not easily lend themselves to empirical...