Image Credits: University of Maryland, 2013
(1993) - Toward a New Vision: Race, Class, and Gender as Categories of Analysis and Connection - Patricia Hill Collins
In her 1993 essay, Toward a New Vision: Race, Class, and Gender as Categories of Analysis and Connection, Patricia Hill Collins argues that race, class, and gender aren't separate systems that simply add up in a person's experience — they're interlocking parts of one larger structure of domination. She notes that treating them as additive (as if a Black woman experiences "racism plus sexism") obscures how each system actually shapes and reinforces the others in practice. She notes that everyone occupies a position within this matrix of domination as both dominant and subordinate simultaneously, depending on the category — so no one stands entirely outside these systems, even those working to dismantle them.
Once we realize that there are few pure victims or oppressors, and that each one of us derives varying amounts of penalty and privilege from the multiple systems of oppression that frame our lives, then we will be in a position to see the need for new ways of thought and action.