From the glossary of the Information and Documentation Centre for Anti-Racism Work (IDA e.V.):
“Intersectionality means that different forms of discrimination do not work individually and cannot simply be added up, but that they influence one another and thus new forms of discrimination can arise. Crenshaw illustrates this with the image of a crossroads of two streets: one street stands for gender, the other for ‘race’. Accidents in the sense of discrimination can happen on both streets. But whoever stands in the middle of the crossroads has a higher risk of being involved in an accident. This would be the case, for example, with Black women. (…) In the concept of intersectionality, no closed list of societal ‘traffic wardens’ is fixed: rather, it is emphasised that one must look at which time, in which place, in which social environment power differences and discrimination prevail and what this means for those affected.” 220
The concept of intersectionality postulates a specific view of discrimination. It was first illustrated by the CRT activist Crenshaw using the example of Black female workers at General Motors.221 In practice, this view can indeed recognise certain cases of multiple discrimination that might otherwise be overlooked. However, in practice, intersectionality involves more than just awareness of potential multiple discriminations.
Intersectionality is a crossing of the various critical theories: allegedly, all forms of oppression are interconnected in the form of a “matrix of domination” (especially transphobia, racism, Islamophobia, sexism, cis-heteronormativity, ableism, and capitalism).222 Within this matrix structure, discriminations do not merely add up but multiply, as overlapping forms of discrimination have a different effect than the sum of the individual forms.
Together with standpoint theory, intersectionality is meant to describe how power structures “intersect”; i.e., in what way persons experience preference or oppression. Intersectionality is closely linked to allyship: privileged persons are to show solidarity by using their privileges for marginalised groups.
The distinction between privileged and oppressed groups is never complete: finding a stronger form of discrimination within one form of discrimination and thereby refining the intersectional matrix of domination is an never-ending field of activity for woke activists (see problematising).223