The Structure of Intersectionality: A Comparative Politics of Gender

A comparative analysis of gender relations incorporates and goes beyond a “women and politics” approach by focusing on the organization of political life, illuminating the systematic way that social norms, laws, practices, and institutions advantage certain groups and forms of life and disadvantage others. In order to illuminate the various ways that women and men are advantaged and disadvantaged as women and men, gender analysis must incorporate analysis of race, class, sexuality, and other axes of disadvantage, and explore interactions among them. These axes are defined differently in different national contexts, and so examining variation across national borders illuminates the variety of social arrangements that are consistent with human biology: This type of analysis thereby denaturalizes and politicizes gender, racial/ethnic, and class relations (among others). The wide variety of modes and degrees of resistance to these forms of social organization, and success in challenging them, illuminate and inspire new strategies of resistance for people in other countries.