What is Intersectionality?

Intellectual Processing

In a class lecture, I learned that many concepts and ideas follow under the notion of Intersectionality. It’s a theory that describes the multitude of discrimination when an individual identity is overlapped with other minority categories- such as race, gender, age, ethnicity, health, and many other characteristics.

The article I chose to read, People of Color with Disabilities, focuses mainly on the concept that cultural and critical race studies. The information correlates with the issue of intersectional substructures and how race, ethnicity, disability, economic are used to classify and categorize the social value assigned to individuals.

Based on what I read, the material provided by this article was to explain the complicated concept that is intersectionality. The multitude of discrimination that falls under this topic is broader than just based on race; most of the bias is due to the different characteristics of a person and beliefs.

Also, this article brings its purpose to spread awareness that disability isn’t discussed as much as other categories falling under intersectionality. It expressed how older people with disabilities experience a lot of disadvantages, there is an increased risk factor of poverty for women who are disabled, there is also a higher level of unemployment for colored people with disabilities. Considering what is mentioned, I found it very interesting to understand and as an advocate to bring awareness to the stigma and discrimination of all women with different abilities, especially those who are racial minorities. In my opinion, I believe individuals who find themselves living with different skills that challenge their everyday lives can control their independence by trusting personal assistance services who treat the like a human and isn’t abusive.

After reading the material, the author made a lot of points that are important for everyone to begin considering it. Such as the complexity of intersectionality and the complicated reasons of why, how, who will be an advocate for women who are disabled. The topic is easily ignored by the fact that people don’t understand that within political, historical, economic, cultural, service providers will become better at recognizing the importance of care of such individuals. The author wants to ensure that this article shines a light on the importance of decreasing the mistreatment of the disabled.

I have volunteered with the older community, all who have some disability, whether man or woman, there have been incidents that they have been treated harshly and unfairly merely because they are unable to defend themselves physically or orally. I related to many of the beliefs and values of the author, including the fact that there are a significant influence and combination of race, gender, accent, immigration status, sexual orientation, and disability statuses that increase discrimination in all aspects. I agree that there is a lot of stigmatization and retaliation by law enforcement due to the many expectations of sexism, racism, and homophobia.

In all, I’ve found this article very eye-opening and motivational to create a better society where intersectionality could be decreased by educating and becoming understanding people. It may be hard, but with small steps, I think it will be possible to fight harder for women in a male-dominated society and for those who are disabled treated as weak.

Emotionally Processing

There are many things I gathered from reading this article accurately, and one thing I already knew was that intersectionality is such a broad concept and is found in many of our daily lives, and some occurrences of discrimination could go unnoticed. However, I noticed that I wasn’t well informed and aware that disabled people, most importantly, colored disabled individuals are not represented in the area of discrimination as much as they should. I knew people took advantage of disabled people, but I didn’t realize it was to the extent of hostile violence and only because someone is different.

For my career down the line, I want to be open with my practice and try to work and research from the different branches a social worker has. When I possess a platform in power, I want to participate in decreasing the hierarchical power relations and spread the knowledge of how intersectionality gives a unique meaning to how individuals experience discrimination.

It was exciting to learn all these new concepts I wasn’t aware of, provided me with a more knowledgeable point of view to improve what I know about the disabled, especially when they are of different race and women.

I found interesting, but difficult reading that bringing forward a problem to the judicial system and having others learn about their sexual orientation could affect the help they will or will not receive. Women who may be of color and lesbians could bump into sexism, racism, and homophobia with police and the court system, because of the great stigmatization in law enforcement it may influence them to be less helpful in social services. It’s very frustrating that the justice system is very discriminative in all forms discrimination comes in.

Did you like this example?

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