Once a subversive intervention into legal theory and feminist thought, intersectionality now appears everywhere: in HR workshops, TikTok activism, and academic curricula. Yet with its success comes dilution. What happens when a concept designed to complicate power relations is smoothed into corporate policy or meme logic? This piece explores key critiques of intersectionality—not to dismiss it, but to rethink its uses, assumptions, and future relevance.
1. From Radical Critique to Managerial Buzzword
Critics argue that intersectionality has been co-opted by the very institutions it sought to challenge. Once a tool to highlight structural exclusion, it now risks becoming a checkbox in DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) protocols. Rather than interrogating how institutions reproduce power, intersectionality is sometimes reduced to a count-the-identities framework: the more boxes checked, the more "diverse" the space.
As Rinaldo Walcott and others have noted, this neutralization of intersectionality turns it into an instrument for institutional legitimacy, rather than structural change. The question becomes not just who is included, but whether inclusion itself is the right goal when the system remains intact.
2. The Politics of Recognition vs. Redistribution
Nancy Fraser's distinction between recognition and redistribution is useful here. Intersectionality tends to focus on recognition—how identities are acknowledged or marginalized. But critics argue this can obscure deeper economic or material inequalities. A workplace might celebrate trans Black visibility while continuing to underpay and overwork all employees.
This tension reveals a potential blind spot in intersectional praxis: the risk of symbolic politics overshadowing structural critique. When identity becomes the primary axis of analysis, questions of class, labor, and capital can recede into the background.
3. Category Fatigue and the Paradox of Specificity
Another critique comes from within theory itself: intersectionality, in its effort to be inclusive, may proliferate categories to the point of incoherence. As identities multiply, so do the intersections. This can create what philosopher Amia Srinivasan calls the "paradox of specificity": the more precise the identity, the harder it becomes to build coalitions or shared political goals.
Moreover, critics like Sirma Bilge warn that intersectionality can devolve into a "disciplinary feminism" that polices speech and identity claims, rather than fostering emancipatory politics. The very framework meant to open up analysis can become a gatekeeping mechanism.
4. Ontological Critiques: Do Identities Precede Structures?
Post-structural and post-colonial thinkers have also challenged the ontological assumptions behind intersectionality. Does it assume stable, nameable identities (e.g., woman, Black, queer) that exist prior to their social articulation? Judith Butler, Paul Gilroy, and others question whether this reifies identity categories rather than destabilizing them.
Jasbir Puar's concept of assemblage offers one response: rather than seeing identities as intersecting lines, we might see them as emergent properties of more fluid, shifting networks. This challenges the foundational metaphors of intersectionality and invites new ontologies of the self.
Why These Critiques Matter
None of these critiques call for abandoning intersectionality. Rather, they ask what happens when a once-radical framework becomes hegemonic. Can it still do the work it was meant to do? Can it be re-politicized, re-complicated, or even partially undone?
The challenge ahead is to preserve the analytic power of intersectionality without allowing it to harden into dogma or dissolve into platitude. A living theory must invite friction, not just affirmation.
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