{"id":1938,"date":"2025-03-07T16:18:34","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T16:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/edi\/?p=1938"},"modified":"2025-03-07T16:18:34","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T16:18:34","slug":"katya-sloboda-bolton-the-importance-of-intersectionality-to-accelerateaction-international-womens-day-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/edi\/2025\/03\/07\/katya-sloboda-bolton-the-importance-of-intersectionality-to-accelerateaction-international-womens-day-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Katya Sloboda-Bolton: The importance of intersectionality to #AccelerateAction \u2013 International Women\u2019s Day 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

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As International Women\u2019s Day comes by again, it\u2019s important that those of us in higher education take the time to reflect on women\u2019s access to the sector. This year\u2019s theme is \u2018Accelerate Action\u2019, inspired by the fact that, as per current estimations, it will take until 2158 to reach \u2018full gender parity\u2019 (International Women\u2019s Day, 2025). \u2018Accelerate Action\u2019 demands that each sector of society takes action to tackle gender disparities with urgency.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Th<\/span>is<\/span> theme serves as a timely reminder that, despite many gains in women\u2019s rights, the fight for women\u2019s equality globally is far from over. And although I question whether it\u2019s possible to estimate when we will reach something as subjective and debatable as \u2018gender parity\u2019, the statistic is still a useful reminder of how far we are from gender equality.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s tempting, perhaps, to feel that within higher education, the work has been \u2018done\u2019. It is undeniably true that women\u2019s access to university has been transformed in recent years. Just over 100 years ago, Oxford University had only just opened its doors to women (Oxford Royale, 2025). Now, that picture looks very different. At The University of Manchester, women now make up 57% of the overall student population, although they are still notably underrepresented in some science and engineering cohorts (University of Manchester, 2024). An intersectional lens, however, can illuminate how, despite this progress, there remains an urgent need to \u2018accelerate action\u2019 in the sector.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kimberl\u00e9 Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality to help understand how structures of oppression overlap and collide (1989). She highlighted how a narrow focus on racism and sexism as singular issues ignores the specific barriers facing Black women, overlooking the fact that they are at once both Black and female, subject to racism and sexism in ways that are interlocked and compounded (Crenshaw, 1989). Other systems of oppression, such as class, (dis)ability, migration status, and queerness, equally combine in differing ways. In higher education, an intersectional lens allows us to recognise that women who identify with other marginalised identities experience unique barriers in both accessing and succeeding in the sector (Crenshaw, 2017).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, the underrepresentation of Black women within academic staff highlights the importance of intersectionality. The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) released statistics for the 2023\/34 cycle a few weeks ago (2025). Their data reveals that although women are more than half of the student body, they are underrepresented within professors, at 32% (HESA, 2025). Crucially, if we look at those who identify as both \u2018Black\u2019 and \u2018female\u2019, this drops to 0.3% of professors nationally, much lower than the estimated 2.2% they make up of the population of England and Wales (ONS, 2023). In the Rollock Report, Black women professors reported a culture of microaggressions and a lack of transparency or fairness in promotions as just some of the many barriers they faced along their academic journey (2019).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, a commitment to intersectionality means highlighting the marginalisation of intersectional groups \u2013 which often depends on readily available statistical data. I started the research for this article taking for granted that there would be a breadth of data available about different intersectional identities at this University.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Although the quality and quantity of data regarding access to higher education has vastly improved in recent years, I was surprised by the limited amount of free-to-access statistics on intersecting identities and their barriers to both access and attainment at student level. For example, HESA\u2019s student data (2024) and the Office for Students\u2019 Access and Participation data (2023) split protected characteristics as distinct singular categories, a structural representation of the erasure that Crenshaw first warned of (1989).\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In order to \u2018Accelerate Action\u2019 this International Women\u2019s Day (and beyond), it\u2019s imperative to incorporate a strong understanding of intersectionality, as well as how marginalisation functions to erase overlapping minority identities. Black women\u2019s access to higher education is a critical example of how this is realised, from the chronic lack of representation at the higher level, right down to the very structuring of how we collect student data.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Reference list:<\/strong><\/p>\n