Intersectionality: Concepts, Perspectives and Challenges

This book first presents a study wherein two students, one male and one female, were interviewed about their transition from a historically black college and university undergraduate program to a predominantly white institution for their graduate studies in biochemistry. The students had similar undergraduate experiences and both shared feelings of isolation, the drawbacks of academic rigor in graduate STEM programs, and the need to represent both themselves and their race. Next, the authors explore narrative responses of bisexual Latinx women and, through an intersectionality lens, adapted the minority stress model to include their experiences. This study further supports the need for intersectional minority stress research and a necessary focus on sexually marginalized bisexual Latinx women. The closing chapter summarizes the way in which intersectionality has been at the center of both feminist debates and the theory of gender. In the United States, Canada and Europe, it has achieved a hegemonic status strengthened by its multiple possible applications.