People have overlapping identities, but the typical D&I program is built on recognizing an individual’s single trait. Intersectionality is an important concept for achieving true inclusion, and many companies are accepting the challenge of integrating it into D&I strategies.
— By Joseph Warren
The concept of intersectionalism is credited to Kimberlé Crenshaw, a civil rights activist and legal scholar at Columbia University. She wrote about antidiscrimination theory that, when put into practice, marginalizes African-American women by denying they face unique discrimination due to overlapping identities. Today, the term is now used more broadly to refer to any individuals with multiple self-identities.
In the business environment, intersectionalism has become a front-and-center conversation because it is becoming clear that single-identity networks that place employees in a category in the workplace are limiting collaboration and knowledge sharing. They are perpetuating marginalization rather than ending it.
Intersectionalism in the workplace does not refer only to the factors of a person’s identity. It is a concept that recognizes the identity factors and how they influence privilege and marginalization, power and influence, emotional impact, and individual and intersecting behaviors.
Despite programs and initiatives, diverse people continue to struggle for equality in the workplace. Organizations have good intentions when they create employee resource groups (ERGs) based on a single trait, like age or gender or race. The challenge that remains despite the efforts is developing true inclusion in which people can bring their authentic selves to work.
Intersectionalism is more than listing the factors that makeup human complexity. The Chief Executive of TaskRabbit is a black woman. She says that when she gets on stage, she is a black woman and a black CEO, and she experiences an accumulation of loneliness.
The research group Catalyst did a study on the emotional tax women and men of colour experience in the workplace. Diverse people feel like they have to continually protect themselves against bias. People are guarded at work, challenged in ways white males are not challenged, change behaviors to appear less threatening, and constantly battle stereotyping.
People cannot separate their identities without suffering an emotional tax because it means they must work at hiding identities. Identity includes a plethora of factors that include race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, immigration status, religion, disability, age, ethnicity, indigeneity, gender, education, language, and life experiences shaping people’s personalities and perspectives.
Employees should have the right to self-identify with multiple identities, placing themselves in an identity position. Instead, people with multiple identities often try to conform.
Layers of Discrimination
Incorporating intersectionalism in diversity and inclusion (D&I) programs is one step toward ending the emotional tax. Integrating it into the typical D&I program means recognizing people on their terms and ending bias based on those terms
For example, an Asian woman who speaks English as a second language and immigrated from a country where she has low socioeconomic status is approached simply as an Asian woman, while the other identities are ignored. It is exhausting and leads to marginalization.
Understanding the systemic reasons why is key to ending discrimination. For some people in power, it might be due to the fact she is Asian, but others are biased due to her faulty English or immigration status. Training organizational members to not “discriminate against Asians” does not address the biases that have nothing to do with race.
There are groups of people who experience discrimination in multiple forms and at the same time. In the workplace, intersectionality is an asset because it references people who have persevered despite multiple discrimination experiences. They are problem solvers, creative, unique and able to connect with people on their authentic level. Leveraging intersectionality requires bringing networks together.
Intuitively, some companies have already moved in the direction or bringing people together by adding people in power, typically white males, to ERGs. There are also companies that have eliminated ERGs because they believed the ERGs perpetuated the single-identify perspective. Instead they create groups around other factors besides single identity, like common work goals.
Perhaps a good strategy is to start ERGs for people of intersecting identities and have the various ERGs interact. This could create a powerful knowledge-sharing collaborative workforce based on understanding and not biases.
Intentional Sharing
It takes a high level of emotional maturity and self-awareness for leaders to understand and incorporate intersectionality. They must be willing to reflect on their own multiple identities, share personal stories, and think about their behaviors and business relationships.
Once understanding is at the leadership level, workforce assessments can drive better understanding of intersectionality in the organization. Collect the demographics of job applicants and employees, identify the gaps, train recruiters and hiring managers on intersectionality bias, and develop strategies for reaching and including the groups of people. Incorporating intersectionality in D&I strategies requires being intentional about who is recruited and hired, who is invited to the table, who shares their stories, and the discussions that build knowledge and corporate culture.
Bentley University’s Center for Women and Business explored intersectionality. In the research report “Intersectionality in the Workplace: Broadening the Lens of Inclusion,” the point is made that leaders are needed “who create constant opportunities for cultural intersections.”
Starting with the CEO, leaders need to acknowledge that some people are invisible to them due to their privileged positions. Top leaders need to create a culture in which people with multiple identities have equal opportunities. One step toward this culture is publicly acknowledging the profound impact that identity-based biases are having on individuals. An employee should feel comfortable discussing experiences of bias rather than believing the trauma must be hid.
Additional recommendations for incorporating intersectionality into D&I and the culture included leaders honestly assessing the organization’s culture, serving as active allies to underrepresented groups, holding everyone accountable, making inclusivity a core value (never tolerate even micro-inequities), widening the definition of diversity, and making sure the board of directors and leadership group reflect D&I.
Also recommended is encouraging model intersectional viewpoints, giving unique identities a voice, holding courageous conversations, intentionally connecting with people who are different, and establishing rules for meetings that protect the most vulnerable.
Creating a Just and Inclusive Culture
Deloitte’s Head of Inclusion, Diversity & Wellbeing, Gina De George interviewed Lin Surch, CEO of Beyond Gender. Surch is an out queer leader and an ordained interfaith/interspiritual minister. Her advice is nearly identical. Create a welcoming and non-judgmental environment for intersectional employees, and they will be more willing to share this part of themselves at work. By helping people be their best selves, they will work together more effectively to generate innovation.
Surch mentions facilitated conversations, storytelling, and sharing in relation to the particular factors of intersectionality. The singular siloed approach of D&I has merit because it recognizes people’s unique set of challenges and sensitivities, but there must also be understanding that many people live with intersectional identities.
There is a lot of untapped potential in a workforce where people are categorized by a single identity. Including intersectionalism in the D&I discussion will uncover that potential through a just and inclusive workplace culture.