Leslie McCall

The Complexity of Intersectionality

Feminist analytic philosophers have been working in trying to define and explain the meaning of “gender”, “race”, “sexuality”, etc., using the tools of analytic philosophy in very different ways and from a variety of approaches. Many feminist philosophers, for example, have focused on the question of whether the concepts of “gender”, “race”, “sexuality” and so on are natural kind terms or socially constructed. Although we cannot claim that there is full agreement on either the methods or the theories forwarded, we can perhaps agree that the analysis of the relation between some of these categories is at times regarded as an even more difficult and contentious topic than the analysis of each category separately. It is at this point that the notion of “intersectionality” comes into play as a proposal for a framework to deal with the complexity of multiple structures (such as gender, race, sexuality, class, age, disability, etc.), on the understanding that the categories with which they operate do not act independently but rather intersect and create specific oppressions. As Ann Garry notes in a recent article, «Feminist philosophers tend to give it [intersectionality] lip service, but often fail to construct theories that integrate the insights brought to bear by intersectional analyses» (Garry, 2011, p.

Toward a field of intersectionality studies: Theory, applications, and praxis

Intersectional insights and frameworks are put into practice in a multitude of highly contested, complex, and unpredictable ways. We group such engagements with intersectionality into three loosely defined sets of practices: applications of an intersectional framework or investigations of intersectional dynamics; debates about the scope and content of intersectionality as a theoretical and methodological paradigm; and political interventions employing an intersectional lens. We propose a template for fusing these three levels of engagement with intersectionality into a field of intersectional studies that emphasizes collaboration and literacy rather than unity. Our objective here is not to offer pat resolutions to all questions about intersectional approaches but to spark further inquiry into the dynamics of intersectionality both as an academic frame and as a practical intervention in a world characterized by extreme inequalities. At the same time, we wish to zero in on some issues that we believe have occupied a privileged place in the field from the very start, as well as on key questions that will define the field in the future. To that end, we foreground the social dynamics and relations that constitute subjects, displacing what often seems like an undue emphasis on the subjects (and categories) themselves as the starting point of inquiry. We also situate the development and contestation of these focal points of intersectional studies within the politics of academic and social movements—which, we argue, are themselves deeply intersectional in nature and therefore must continually be interrogated as part of the intersectional project.

Sources of racial wage inequality in metropolitan labor markets: Racial, ethnic, and gender differences

Research on racial inequality has become increasingly specialized, often focusing on a single explanation and subgroup of the population. In a diverse society, a broader comparative framework for interpreting the causes of wage inequality for different racial, ethnic, and gender groups is called for. The effects of a range of different factors on the wages of Latinos, Asians, and blacks, relative to whites and separately for women and men, are examined. New sources of racial wage inequality are also considered. Significant differences are found in the sources of wage inequality across race, ethnicity, and gender. Differences are generally greater between racial and ethnic groups than between men and women. Key findings include a large negative effect of immigration on the relative wages of Latinos and Asians and only a small effect on the relative wages of black women (and no effect on black men). In contrast, the relative wages of blacks remain most affected positively by the presence of manufacturing employment and unions. New economy indicators of high-skill services and flexible employment conditions play only a secondary role in explaining metropolitan racial wage inequality.

Gender and the new inequality : Explaining the college/non-college wage gap

The new inequality is often characterized by the increasing wage gap between workers with a college education and those without. Yet, although the gap in hourly wages between college-educated and non-college-educated women is high and rising, the topic has been overshadowed by research on gender inequality and wage inequality among men. Using the 1990 5-percent Public Use Microdata Samples, independent sources of macro data, and controls for individual human capital characteristics, I examine the association between the college/non-college wage gap and key aspects of local economic conditions for women and men. While the college/non-college wage gap among women is comparable in size to the gap among men, significant gender differences emerge in the underlying sources of high wage gaps in over 500 labor markets across the United States. Compared with men, flexible and insecure employment conditions (e.g., joblessness, casualization, and immigration) are more important in fostering high wage gaps among women than are technology, trade, and industrial composition, the prevailing explanations of rising wage inequality over time. Based on these gender differences, I reconsider the debate on labor-market restructuring and inequality and discuss a new analytical focus on differences in within-gender inequality.

Explaining Levels of Within-Group Wage Inequality in U.S. Labor Markets *

Most research on earnings inequality has focused on the growing gap between workers of different races and at different education, age, and income levels, but a large portion of the increasing inequality has actually occurred within these groups. This article focuses on the extent and sources of “within-group” wage inequality in more than 500 labor markets in the United States in 1990. In addition to documenting that within-group wage inequality across regions varies more widely today than over the past several decades, the analysis reveals that two frequently cited explanations of rising wage inequality over time have little impact on within-group wage inequality when measured at the local labor market level: (1) industrial shifts and (2) increased technology and trade. By contrast, flexible and insecure employment conditions (e.g., unemployment, contingent work, and immigration) are associated strongly with high local levels of within-group wage inequality, especially among women.

Americans' Social Policy Preferences in the Era of Rising Inequality

Rising income inequality has been a defining trend of the past generation, yet we know little about its impact on social policy formation. We evaluate two dominant views about public opinion on rising inequality: that Americans do not care much about inequality of outcomes, and that a rise in inequality will lead to an increase in demand for government redistribution. Using time series data on views about income inequality and social policy preferences in the 1980s and 1990s from the General Social Survey, we find little support for these views. Instead, Americans do tend to object to inequality and increasingly believe government should act to redress it, but not via traditional redistributive programs. We examine several alternative possibilities and provide a broad analytical framework for reinterpreting social policy preferences in the era of rising inequality. Our evidence suggests that Americans may be unsure or uninformed about how to address rising inequality and thus swayed by contemporaneous debates. However, we also find that Americans favor expanding education spending in response to their increasing concerns about inequality. This suggests that equal opportunity may be more germane than income redistribution to our understanding of the politics of inequality.

INTERSECTIONALITY AND SOCIAL EXPLANATION IN SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH

To the extent that intersectionality is becoming a common term in mainstream social science, it is as a methodological justification to separate out different racial, ethnic, gender, class, and other social groups for empirical analysis. One might call this the “intersectionality hypothesis,” and in its best incarnation, it is about getting the facts right and finding the differences that matter. But an intersectional analysis in the social sciences often involves more than this. An intersectional approach also leads to potentially different interpretations of the same facts, or what we term a different social explanation. It is not only the intersection of categories that defines an intersectional project, then, but the theoretical framing that informs the analysis and interpretation of the subject under study. This framing often leads to an analysis of multiple and even conflicting social dynamics that enable certain kinds of social understanding that are otherwise invisible when scholars focus on a single set of social dynamics. Because the social theoretical aspects of research on intersectionality are rarely discussed, relative to the more methodological and ontological aspects of intersectionality, this is our main subject matter in this article. We focus on the process of developing social explanations rooted in the intersection of multiple social dynamics in several examples from our own research and across a variety of topics in social science research.

Women and Men as Class and Race Actors: Comment on England

Paula Englands ambition in The Gender Revolution: Uneven and Stalled (2010) is to explain why occupational sex segr gation and the gender division of familial labor are still robust despite decades of egalitarian values and policies. But because the explanations she offers have the status of hypotheses rather than well-documented conclusions (England 2010, p. 150), her article raises many questions for which we have few answers. Still, there is perhaps more evidence about some of these questions than England considers. In particular, England incorporates notions of class and social mobility into her explanations, grappling with how these intersect with gender identi ties and gendered jobs. The main argument to which I will respond is the one that treats men and women as gendered economic actors in pursuit of gender-typical jobs and family responsibilities. She proposes that occupa tion integration occurred primarily because a typically gendered path was unavailable to women from a middle-class background. The class positions of all other men and women were compatible with pursuing gendered occu pations, thus maintaining much of the gender order. Although England does not discuss counterfactuals, we must assume that if a typically female set of occupations sat atop the hierarchy alongside elite male occupations, no change whatsoever would have occurred since women would have entered those jobs. Similarly, had there been greater demand in mens blue-collar jobs, commensurate with the demand in upper white-collar jobs that pulled in women (an important factor England does not mention), women still would not have entered them because of their preference for female-dominated pinkand lower white-collar jobs. Without evidence to support these counterfactuals, Englands framework rests on shaky ground, and other interpretations of the trajectory of occu pational segregation and gender inequality seem at least as plausible. Those

The political meanings of social class inequality

Research on a wide range of topics related to rising economic inequality is flourishing throughout the social sciences. One topic that is gaining fresh attention is the politics of inequality. We know very little, however, about how Americans define and perceive inequality or how they express and enact their political desires for more or less of it. In the absence of such knowledge, and under the influence of powerful theoretical models that depict how Americans ought to respond politically to rising inequality (but appear not to be), we are apt to resort to common sense notions of American indifference. This article examines the record of new empirical research on this subject to determine whether such notions are justified. Drawing from and building on this research, I then offer a methodological and theoretical framework for future studies of the political meanings of social class inequality.

Political and Policy Responses to Problems of Inequality and Opportunity: Past, Present, and Future

There is surprisingly little research on American norms of economic inequality and opportunity, particularly in the era of rising inequality since the 1980s. In this chapter, I describe three political and policy responses to problems of inequality and opportunity and examine how they square with public opinion. Each approach is characterized by a particular mix of views concerning inequality (of outcomes) on the one hand and opportunity on the other. The “equalizing opportunity” approach places greater emphasis on equalizing opportunities than on equalizing outcomes, and even goes so far as opposing the equalization of outcomes in principle. This approach tends to be more identified today with conservatives than with liberals, but it has had broad-based appeal for much of American history. The “equalizing outcomes” approach places greater emphasis on equalizing outcomes than on equalizing opportunity, but it embraces both. It typically sees the goal of equalizing opportunities as being met implicitly through government tax and transfer policies that reduce disparities in disposable income. This approach is identified strongly with liberals. The “equalizing outcomes to equalize opportunity” approach is the one introduced in this chapter as the most consistent with public norms today. It occupies the middle of the political spectrum and fuses concerns about both opportunity and inequality. The way forward is to eschew a one-sided focus on either equal outcomes or equal opportunities so that Americans’ views are better reflected in both political discourse and public policy.