The term was conceived by black feminist scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in 1989. While the theory began as an exploration, primarily of the oppression of black women within society and the ways in which they both exist at an intersection, and experience intersecting layers of different forms of oppression, today the analysis has expanded to include many more aspects of social identity. These different aspects include race, gender, sex, sexuality, class, ability, nationality, citizenship, religion and body type.

The concept of intersectionality was intended to shed light on dynamics that have often been overlooked by feminist theory and movements. Racial inequality was a factor that was largely ignored by first-wave feminism. Instead, their primary concern was with gaining political equality between white men and white women. Early women's rights movements often exclusively relate to the membership, concerns, and struggles of white women. Second-wave feminism worked to dismantle sexism relating to the perceived domestic purpose of women, which still pertained mostly to white women. However, third-wave feminism—which emerged shortly after the term "intersectionality" was coined in the late 1980s—noted the lack of attention to race, class, sexual orientation, and gender identity in early feminist movements, and tried to provide a channel to address political and social imbalances.

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Crenshaw identifies three aspects of intersectionality that affect the visibility of non-white women: structural intersectionality, political intersectionality, and representational intersectionality. Structural intersectionality deals with how non-white women experience domestic violence and rape in a manner qualitatively different than that of white women. Political intersectionality examines how laws and policies intended to increase equality have paradoxically decreased the visibility of violence against non-white women. Finally, representational intersectionality delves into how pop culture portrayals of non-white women can obscure their own authentic lived experiences.

 

In the media we see a lot of white people. Times have changed no doubt, and there have been huge improvements to showing more diversity in the world of art and media, but not enough. Growing up, I saw a lot of white things. My Barbie's were all white, my American girl dolls, even my Polly Pockets. My school was white washed and catholic, I grew up hearing a lot of racist things being said before I knew it was racist. I never saw curly hair in ads or dark skin tones for foundation in our makeup stores. The world I was raised in was a neutral white, which isn’t the case in real life. We are taught to see the world in a neutral “white wash” instead of the reality that is diversity and culture of everyone else.

 

I ended up leaving home when I was eighteen to become a Navy wife, and during that time I saw a lot of sexism endured by the women serving our country. If a new woman joined the unit my husbands friends would talk about her body and looks instead of her achievements or hobbies, unlike if they had been talking about one of their fellow male Seamen. I even took my tools to a wife's house to help with shelving and her husband asked where my husband was, as though it were shocking I could hold a power tool on my own. But my experiences of being a white woman have been covered in all the feminist movements, so I wanted to focus on the more pressing matter of women of color and their hardships.

I struggled to make posters, only because I am not Black, and I can’t speak for their experiences. But I am an ally and I am here to help even if that is just with some artistic skill to bring another poster to the surface that touches on feminism as a whole.