“Feminism isn’t about making women stronger. Women are already strong, it’s about changing the way the world perceives that strength.” 

— G. D. Anderson

Women over the years have been treated as a minority of the human population and encounter the problem of inequality in one way or the other. The term “Feminist”originated in the 1830s but became popularised early 1970s, predominantly in Western Europe, Australia, U. S and North America. Feminism is a movement and ideologies that seeks to fight for the right of women (Beasley, 1999). Feminism focused mainly on the various movements aimed at defending equal social and economic rights, as well as establishing equal opportunities for women. The philosophy of Feminist covers a wide range of perspectives on social, cultural, economic and political issues. Some of the early feminist philosophers are Dorothy Smith, Sandra Harding, Patricia Collins, Carol Gilligan, Evelyn Keller and others.

Concept of intersectionality

In contemporary feminism, the phenomenon of intersectionality has received much attention due to many reasons. Intersectionality was introduced in the late 1980s by a Black feminist, social theorist and law professor, Kimberlé Crenshaw. Crenshaw’s philosophy of intersectionality addressed social, cultural, economic and political failures and discriminations in gender and race specifically black feminism. Crenshaw was inspired by her activism not only to recognise gender and race but to exemplify how certain identities especially minorities and conditions are located within the structures of oppression, domination or discrimination (Guidroz & Berger, 2009). Also, Crenshaw ‘s analysis focused on public policy and legal problems and creating multiple identities in a socially-constructed world.

Many who championed intersectionality earlier on were African American women who fought for representation in civil rights and feminist movement and also for the recognition as black women or just female individuals. Patricia Hill Collins, an African American feminist scholar and socialist also contributed to the theory of intersectionality in her work “Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment” (Collins, 2000). Collins (2000) added to Crenshaw’s theory by stating that the social patterns and identities are not only interrelated but in coherence and influenced by the intersectional systems and process of society through race, gender, class, and ethnicity.

Intersectionality have been acknowledged in a range of academic disciplines around the world and even in public discourse. Intersectionality has been discussed as a paradigm, theory or methodology to study the health of women, factors that influence women’s health status and their quality of life. As defined by Hankivsky (2014), intersectionality is the way of understanding how people’s life are shaped by the interactions of different social patterns, that is, ethnicity, gender, religion, migration, status, race etc. that occur within connected systems and structures of power (for instance, policies, governments, economic coalitions, religious institutions, media). Intersectionality can be analysed in numerous perspectives namely power, equity, reflexivity, social justice, time and space and others. Dillaway & Brubaker (2006)argued that the concept of intersectionality is all about unequal distribution of opportunities and the standards of living among individuals.

Intersectional Feminism and Women’s Health

The emerging approaches in women’s health research is the intersectional feminist theory to analyse the lived experiences, opinions and needs of marginalised women in a holistic way (CRIAW, 2006). Gender issues over the years have been the greatest recipient of intersectionality in the form of sexual orientation, ability, ethnicity, race, geography, class, income and age (Johnson, 2009 & Hankivsky et al., 2012). With the urgency to address health disparities and promoting health especially among women, intersectional feminist approach should be recognised in approaching factors that impact women’s maternal and reproductive health. 

The beautiful thing about intersectional feminist framework is that, it creates greater awareness to explore factors that intersect to influence women’s health issues and address systems from the macro to micro level. Hankivsky et al. (2012)revealed that a community-based research approach could be a useful tool to fulfill the promise of intersectionality with focus on participation, partnership, self-examination, and reflexivity. This framework mostly focused on marginalized populations and/or in deprived communities faced with health inequalities and challenges in diverse areas. 

Using the intersectional feminist framework gives an opportunity to capture the lived experiences and perceptions about women’s health issues and identify the social determinants that lead to barriers and what strategies can improve their health outcome. There is the need for broad utilisation of intersectionality to research on diverse groups so that women from diverse areas with the condition of vulnerable experiences are not ignored (Caiola, Doherty & Relf, 2014). A study in Botswana used feminist intersectionality as its framework to explore the social realms to women in subjection, unequal access to education, unequal distribution of resources, marginalised labour market and decisions shape their daily lives (Hovorka, 2012). 

To be clear about this worldview, it has influenced our interest to work more in women’s health issues through volunteerism, internships, developing relationships and building trust with women around the world to find out their lived experiences about their health and social life. Our choice of social research area will give us more opportunity to discover issues outlining inconsistencies related to women’s health globally.