What is Intersectionality?
Intersectionality is a critical analytical tool that understands power relations as interconnected. It illuminates the multiple dimensions that shape people’s experience - where marginalisation on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, class, disability and migration status may overlap and reinforce one another. Intersectionality has its roots in Black feminist thought and activism, born out of black women’s experiences of confronting discrimination and social injustice.
RFSU has decided in its steering document, the Sextant, to adopt an intersectional feminist approach to its work. This approach has an ultimate aim of challenging structural and political inequalities in access to SRHR, by amplifying the voices of people facing multiple and intersecting marginalisation, and whose experiences are often overlooked.
"We cry and laugh with intersectionality"
In this 4-minute film, RFSU and partner organisations reflect on how they integrate intersectional feminist perspectives in their work.
For RFSU, translating an intersectional feminist commitment into practice entails:
- Being explicit about whose needs and priorities are de facto addressed by an intervention, and acknowledging power differences within broad categories of people, such as “youth”, “women” or “sexual minorities”.
- Actively seeking collaboration with organisations and movements led by persons who face intersecting forms of discrimination and oppression, learning from their experiences and activism and sharing spaces in solidarity.
- Joining hands with broader social movements to address SRHR as a social justice issue.