Mapping the Margins

Introduction

The article appeared in the Stanford Law Review in 1991 and develops the concept Crenshaw had introduced two years earlier, now applied to violence against women of colour. She distinguishes three forms. Structural intersectionality concerns how shelters and services fail women who also face poverty, language barriers or immigration rules that tie their legal status to their husbands. Political intersectionality describes how antiracist and feminist politics each push women of colour to the margins, for instance by suppressing data on domestic violence in minority communities. Representational intersectionality concerns cultural images, discussed through the obscenity case against the rap group 2 Live Crew. Crenshaw argues that identity politics should not be abandoned but understood intersectionally. The article is among the most cited in American legal scholarship.

Connections

Builds on

• Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex1989 · Kimberlé Crenshaw

More works by Kimberlé Crenshaw

• 1989Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex