ABSTRACT
In recent years, the focus of feminist studies has shifted away from the concept of gender as an isolated category of analysis towards a concern with the way in which gender intersects with other categories of identity for purposes of understanding and combating inequality. This shift is in large part spawned by rejection within feminism of ‘essentialist’ invocations of sex and gender and the corresponding collapse of the category ‘woman’ as a core unit of feminist engagement and critique. As such, it may properly be welcomed in its promise to provide more effective ways of tackling the complex and diverse manifestations of inequality which women experience. At the same time, it is arguable that the conceptual and analytical framework generated by ‘intersectional’ approaches has not proved adequate to this challenge and has been dogged by difficulties of application and delivery in the context of feminist theory and strategy.
