Kimberlé Crenshaw

American scholar

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June 23, 2026

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Kimberlé Crenshaw is an American scholar who coined the term intersectionality in 1989. Her work highlights how social categories like race and sex interact, creating unique experiences of discrimination. Crenshaw argued that the discrimination faced by Black women is not simply a combination of racism and sexism, but a distinct experience resulting from the intersection of both.12

Initially applied in legal contexts, intersectionality gained wider recognition in the 21st century. It has influenced fields such as women's and gender studies, education, and sociology, and has inspired parallel movements among various identity groups.123

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Black feminism
Third-wave feminism and intersectionality
…scholar and critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw in her 1989 essay “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics.” Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality maintains that the unique experiences and injustices faced by Black women cannot be understood along a…
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…scholar and critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw in her 1989 essay “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics.” Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality maintains that the unique experiences and injustices faced by Black women cannot be understood along a…
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intersectionality
Origin and development
…term intersectionality was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a prominent American civil rights advocate and a leading scholar of critical race theory, in her 1989 article “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics.” Crenshaw introduced the concept to address…
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…term intersectionality was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a prominent American civil rights advocate and a leading scholar of critical race theory, in her 1989 article “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics.” Crenshaw introduced the concept to address…
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third wave of feminism
Foundations
…one of the earliest was Kimberlé Crenshaw’s 1989 article “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics.” Crenshaw’s article introduced the term intersectionality to convey how various aspects of individual identity—including race, gender, class, and sexuality—interact to create distinct…
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…one of the earliest was Kimberlé Crenshaw’s 1989 article “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics.” Crenshaw’s article introduced the term intersectionality to convey how various aspects of individual identity—including race, gender, class, and sexuality—interact to create distinct…
Read More