Sociology

Hill Collins portrayed women to have sought their autonomy through the following dimensions control over their bodies. This is explained by their efforts to strangle the idea of sterilization endeavors to keep their children and the persistent struggle to retain the power and control of their childrens minds. However, Crenshaw introduces the notion of intersectional discrimination that acts against all of these efforts for liberation. Hoogte V. D. Liesbeth and Kingma Koos (2004) describes intersectionality as the idea that  specifically addresses the manner in which racism, patriarchy, economic disadvantages and other discriminatory systems contribute to create layers of inequality that structures the relative positions of women and men, races and other groups. Patel (2001), on his Notes on Gender and Racial Discrimination, clarifies that The idea of intersectionality seeks to capture both the structural and dynamic consequences of the interaction between two or more forms of discrimination or systems of subordination as cited on the UNs expert group report (UN Expert Group Report, 2001, pp 9). Crenshaw in his article Whose Story Is It, Anyway Feminist and Antiracist Appropriations of Anita Hill explains that the struggle of women with color to attain various forms of autonomy has always been downplayed by the crossroads of gender and race hierarchies. In sighting Anita Hills case, Professor Kimberle Crenshaw developed a metaphor relating to a traffic intersection (Patel 2001). The metaphor gives what is considered to be an effective model for the understanding of intersectional or multiple  discrimination. In this metaphor, race, gender, class and other forms of discrimination or subordination are the roads that structure the social, economic or political terrain. It is through these thoroughfares that dynamics of disempowerment travel. Marginalized groups of women are located at these intersections of these powers by virtue of their specific identities and must negotiate the traffic that flows through these intersections to avoid injury and to obtain resources for the normal activities of life, (Page 9, Expert Group Report). The failure of national governments and the international community to adequately analyze all experiences of intersectional discrimination lies in the fact that in traditional conceptions of race and gender discrimination, certain specific problems or forms of discrimination faced by marginalized women are rendered invisible. Crenshaw describes this as the twin problems of over-inclusion and under-inclusion. For example, the notion of over-inclusion refers to situations where the racial dimension of an experience is subsumed within a gender perspective. The consequence is that only the gender aspect of the discrimination is addressed and the subsumed or radicalized aspect of discrimination is ignored. The trafficking of women and young girls is perceived to be an example par excellence of gender subordination. It is commonly held to be only a womans problem. So in the debates or strategies on the trafficking of women and young girls, little if any attention is paid to the fact that some groups of women and children may actually be selected and targeted for trafficking.

The combination of these womens gender, socio-economic position and their race that renders them vulnerable to economic and sexual exploitation is obvious but it is not addressed. The notion of under-inclusion refers to situations where a gender analysis is underplayed or ignored altogether in what is perceived to be a problem of racial discrimination. For example, the forced non-consensual sterilization of black and other marginalized women has been perceived to be a problem of racial discrimination rather than one of sexual abuse. There is another form of structural discrimination which occurs where policies intersect with underlying structures of inequality to create a compounded burden for particular vulnerable women. One example of this is the ways in which vulnerable women within radicalizedmarginalized groups may be coerced into non-violent crime in support of the criminal activity by their partners as explained by Professor Kimberle Crenshaw. Yet another manifestation of structural discrimination is where the policy in question interacts with background structures thus creating burdens that disproportionately affect marginalized women. The combined effects of racism and gender discrimination, in particular on migrant, immigrant, indigenous, minority and marginalized women around the world has thwarted the efforts of these women to gain their autonomy for example in the areas of domestic violence and immigration policies, domestic violence and the criminal justice system, domestic violence and multiculturalism.