I’m co-organizing a series of learning events at work in honor of Pride month. One of them is on the topic of intersectionality. In feminist literature, this originated as looking at the way that race and socioeconomic status interact with gender to create systemic disadvantage that is more complex and more intractable than just any of those factors alone. More broadly, we’re using it to capture the way that different aspects of identity come together to create experiences that may be very different from what others may see or understand. That might include other aspects of identity like sexuality or veteran status or disability, or even things like being a parent or non-parent, or being tall, or an only child, or musical. Some of these are things that we can see at first glance, and some are things that you can’t know by looking.
So when I saw this post earlier this week, I thought, this dude is my new icon of intersectionality:
Look at that guy on the left — he’s huge! Apparently this attracted some notice and a follow-up:
A master chef who does cake decorating and ice carving! Because you can be a huge muscled veteran who likes to feed people attractive food. People are complex. And because everyone has a unique set of experiences that they’re dealing with, we all have the opportunity to be each other’s allies — to listen and learn and be respectful and supportive.