Privilege is defined as, a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a person or a group of people.
Intersectionality is defined as, the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage
Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced the word intersectionality to the feminist theory back in the 80’s. Intersectionality is just a word to describe how different frameworks overlap each other in society.
How does privilege and intersectionality relate to each other?
Being a black female in America would be considered something that falls under intersectionality. We live in a world where white privilege and male privilege is something real. However, we can’t let that bring us down, a lot of us may have not ever experienced racism or sexism and for those of who have there is some power in that. These are the experiences that we can use and find our purpose because we all have one. We are all privileged, just privileged differently.
There are different kinds of privilege which include sexuality, gender identity, religion, health, education and even location plays a role. Being from New York City is completely different from being from somewhere like Texas. Sometimes there are advantages to that, we need to find these advantages and use them as much as we can. Think about what you have rather than what you don’t have and make the most of it. Of course, there are people everywhere who are racist, sexist, homophobic, and just hateful in general. and that is something that I had to realize when it comes to all these different kinds of frameworks. We don’t usually think about things like sexuality as being a type of privilege. As individuals, we should be mindful of the environment around us and how we can use our own power, privilege and education to make the changes necessary. It begins with our words and our actions, we create the world that we want to live.