If we try to eliminate pay gaps by monitoring only single characteristics like gender or ethnicity, we can still end up with pay gaps between combinations of characteristics. One way to do this would be to appoint white women and Black men to senior management positions, but not appoint any Black women.
The idea of an intersection comes from set theory and describes where two sets overlap. For instance, the intersection of the set of Black people and the set of women is the set of Black women.
Intersectionality is a broad framework that promotes the study and elimination of oppression and exploitation of people in terms of combinations of characteristics.
Is intersectionality a theory, explaining why this form of discrimination occurs? Here’s Patricia Hill Collins (2019, p.51), a leading scholar in this area:
“Every time I encounter an article that identifies intersectionality as a social theory, I wonder what conception of social theory the author has in mind. I don’t assume that intersectionality is already a social theory. Instead, I think a case can be made that intersectionality is a social theory in the making.”
References
Collins, P. H. (2019). Intersectionality As Critical Social Theory. Duke University Press.