Sister, Outsider was published in 1984, though the original dates of publication for the essays and speeches in it range from throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The term "intersectionality," meanwhile, was coined slightly later, in 1989, by the legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw. It was further popularized in Crenshaw's 1991 article "Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color." Though Sister, Outsider was indeed published prior to Crenshaw's articulation of this idea, Lorde advocates an intersectional framework in her writing. In many ways, this makes her ahead of her time—in the decades since the publication of Mapping the Margins, the concept has become one of the guiding principles of third-wave feminism.
What exactly is intersectionality? According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, it is "the complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups.” Crenshaw developed this concept specifically to address the injustices and forms of discrimination leveled against Black women in the workplace. Crenshaw demonstrated her analysis by referencing a 1976 case in which several Black, female employees of General Motors sued their employer for racial and gender discrimination. The courts found no evidence of either widespread racial discrimination or gender discrimination in their workplace, and therefore these women lost their case. Crenshaw argued that the legal system had failed to take into account the discrete category of discrimination against Black women, which had affected the plaintiffs in this case but had not affected the white women or Black men employed by General Motors. She argued that Black women were subjugated in unique ways entirely distinct from those used to subjugate white women or Black men. More recently, the term has been used in a broader sense to refer to discrimination on the basis of sexuality, class, age, religion, and a variety of other factors.
Audre Lorde frequently reminds her readers that her experience as a Black woman, a lesbian, and a mother is unique, connected to but distinct from the experience of living with any one of these identities. Moreover, she argues, nearly every person experiences life at the intersection of a complex, mingling set of identities. Too often, though, Lorde writes, even nominally tolerant and progressive communities expect their members to shed and disguise that complexity, elevating one identity above all others. Largely-white feminist spaces, she writes, are often ridden with racism and homophobia. Male-dominated Black spaces, meanwhile, are plagued by misogyny and, similarly, homophobia. While Lorde primarily draws on her own experiences, she clearly regards this flattening of identity as a broader problem, since she speaks about similar problems facing Jewish women, Black boys and men, and poor women. This exclusion isn't merely rude and unpleasant for the person who is subjected to it, Lorde implies: it actively perpetuates the injustices prevalent in the dominant culture, and therefore helps oppressive forces remain in power.
Intersectional politics presents itself as a solution to this problem. Since Crenshaw's theories, as well as Lorde's intersectional politics, have been embraced by an increasingly mainstream audience, these ideas have been put into greater use, as well as sometimes diluted, misunderstood, or debated. The platform of the Women's March, one of the most prominent American feminist organizations of this century, references racial justice, LGBTQ rights, the right to healthcare, workers' rights, and immigrants' rights, among other political causes. Some critics have argued that such a broad focus is essentially meaningless, and even Kimberlé Crenshaw herself has cautioned activists against using the complexity inherent in an intersectional framework as an excuse for avoiding action. Still, there is no doubt that this concept is one of the most important in contemporary progressive politics, and there is no doubt that Audre Lorde articulated many intersectional arguments long before they became widely known.
