Systemic intersectionality
Part of the 'Equity Change Project'
Introduction
This section highlights the need for systemic intersectionality to address systemic oppression. We help you think about how you can change the system – whatever your role or position – to enable you to do better things to increase equity.
Lived experience of the system
It can be more important for the system to keep the barriers up than to respond to the experiences of the person.
Change Project participant
If we used intersectionality, we would have a different impact on people’s lives. People would be in a position where they feel more accepted. We would understand each other. I think the system would be far more geared up to dealing with multiple things that impact on people. We tend to compartmentalise people.
Change Project participant
Clenton Farquharson spoke of his experience of the adult social care system:
All of who I am is intersectionality. How I describe myself would be a triple threat. I am a disabled man. I am a black man. I use mental health services. If we are talking about divisions and borders and connections, for me, it is a factor of identity. It is very hard when you are drawing on adult social care to be considered as a whole person.
The lens of intersectionality will help us to create better equity. We have to think about how we listen; are we listening to reply or are we listening to respond? What does our intersectional listening look like? How does our intersectional listening lead to intersectional action in practice?
Inequity is designed. People have created systems, criteria, eligibility. A few people around the table decided this. If inequity is designed, it can be redesigned. By making sure those most marginalised voices are present and are listened to. That is the intentional intersectional action.
My fear is that we will get confused again by intersectionality and start to think about a list of characteristics or forget about structural characteristics that have been imposed. We have to make sure that the system doesn’t reframe intersectionality as something that is about individuals. How do we make sure nobody gets left behind?
Understanding systemic intersectionality
Systemic oppression exists, for example, systemic racism. Systemic oppressions do not operate in isolation but through an interdependent interplay. Therefore, we need systemic intersectionality to understand the wider picture and the impact of systemic oppressions on people.
Identity categories are constructed in our social world and they’re constructed in hierarchical ranking: some identities are given more power, privilege and position, and some identities are marginalised, subjugated and silenced. It is no coincidence that hierarchical ranking is replicated (both visibly and invisibly) in systems, organisational structures, policies and processes.
Social world constructions have a habit of becoming internal world constructions. The concrete structures of the adult social care system and our own internalised models make it harder for us to act intersectionally. For example, if someone has a learning disability then they are directed into learning disability services by external organisational expectations – but this will also impact on their internal world constructions as well. These structures and expectations make it hard to do things differently. We need to recognise the barriers that are already in the system and the way that practice upholds them. The response needs to be to do things differently so that the barriers are removed. This means ‘doing better things’ rather than ‘doing the same things better’.
Different people and groups stand in different places with different situated knowledge. There are different roads, vehicles, collisions and injuries. These need a range of responses. We need to consider:
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Who uses our services?
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Who is missing out? Whose needs are unmet, undermet or wrongly met?
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What differences are there in the experiences of people with different characteristics and intersecting characteristics?
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How do we change our data to understand better?
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How do we act on what we learn?
Unfortunately, when we try to respond to the problem we can reproduce the issues that cause oppression – for example, by using the professional gift model to include some chosen people into spaces that ultimately remain exclusive. The question is: what understanding is our anti-oppressive practice based on? We need an intersectional approach.
Reflective question
What model of the social world underpins our work to increase equity?
A different system
Grassroots organisations, with criss-crossing and interweaving voices, enable inclusivity and action through alliances.
Change Project participant
Intersectionality is the path to equity. It is a journey of improvement
In social care, comprehending how different forms of disadvantage intersect is essential to addressing the challenges individuals may face. However, we must remember the wisdom in the phrase, 'the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house’ (Lorde, 1979). Equity requires a re-evaluation of the very tools and systems that keep inequity alive. It's not merely about providing equal opportunities within existing structures but about reimagining and reshaping those structures to truly level the playing field.
We are asking people to be fully human and fully in touch with their humanity and the humanity of others, to truly relate to them and to respond. This requires a system that privileges relationships and personal response. It is human activity that needs human support.
We need to intentionally use the value of social justice to co-produce a system that works for everyone. Intersectionality enables us to grasp the complex problem of inequity, to gather information that truly reflects what is happening, to work towards meaningful outcomes and, in the language of the Care Act 2014, to promote genuine wellbeing.
This must be done with adults and carers. Evidence, law and policy, professional capabilities and ethics can help to reinforce doing better things for equity. Specific and concrete changes are needed across the whole of the redesigned system – for example, changing what we record about people, rebalancing power in commissioning and valuing care workers differently.
Reflective question
How do we engage with adults and carers to co-produce change?
Use this tool below to reflect on what an intersectional system would look like.
This tool helps you to consider what an intersectional system looks like.
Collection of resources supporting 'Intersectionality in action - System change'.