Intersectionality, Marxism and class

Teach yourself Marxism

Intersectionality theory recognizes the crucial idea that multiple forms of oppression shape our lives, but it misses the fundamental dynamic of capitalism: social class.

The organizers of the British Women’s March 2025 describe themselves as intersectional feminists.

The idea of ​​intersectionality recognizes the impact of race, gender, class, sexuality, and disability on women’s lives. This approach constitutes a considerable advance compared to trans exclusionary feminism and other divisive strategies.

Intersectionality emerged in the 1970s as a protest against the dominance of white, middle-class feminists who believed they could speak for all women. Black feminists analyzed how the experience of racism interacted with and intensified sexism, poverty, and exploitation.

Sexism and racism have not simply overlapped: they have created a qualitatively different experience for many women. Thus, these thinkers described these processes as “intersecting axes” or “interlocking matrices of oppression.”

We don’t live a single-issue life. The idea of ​​intersectionality recognizes the multiple forms of oppression that shape our lives.

Nonetheless, Marxism offers a critique of intersectionality. For us, class is not just another category of oppression: it has the potential to challenge the entire system that perpetuates all oppressions.

This arises from the fact that oppression is not “natural”, but rooted in the development of capitalism and class society. For example, anthropological evidence shows that, for the vast majority of human history, societies were organized on egalitarian principles, without the subordination of women.

The idea of ​​“race” was created to justify the slave trade during the birth of capitalism – and reinforced by the justifications for colonial conquest.

Oppression serves the interests of capitalism because it divides and weakens the working class. Just think to the right”culture wars” strategy. They want to convince ordinary people that their problems are caused by refugees on rubber boats and not by billionaires on superyachts.

So if oppression stems from the system and serves those who run it, what force has the power to break it?

Workers occupy a unique position within capitalist society because they create wealth and keep society running. The exploitation is horrible, but there is an interdependence between bosses and workers.

The fact of exploitation also empowers workers to take on the capitalist system, unlike experiencing oppression. And class provides a material – potential – basis for unity beyond different oppressions.

The working class includes more women, black and brown people, and LGBT+ people than any other class. And the working class as a whole has an objective interest in organizing collectively to fight for a different system.

But that doesn’t mean workers are automatically anti-racist, anti-sexist, or progressive. Socialists must actively fight against sectarian ideas – whoever advocates them, whoever they are directed against.

The role of class is not always obvious. Oppression affects people regardless of what class they belong to. But the experience of oppression does not automatically give people the will, the understanding – or the material interest – to challenge it. Ask Kemi Badenoch or Suella Braverman.

They suffer from sexism and racism. But their class position means they benefit from a system that perpetuates oppression. Some intersectional thinkers criticize “Marxist reductionism.” They accuse Marxists of underestimating the importance of oppression by viewing it as a byproduct of class inequality.

There are reductionist socialists. But this is not the true Marxist tradition. The revolutionary Vladimir Lenin argued that socialists cannot simply be good trade unionists: they must be tribunes of the oppressed.

We stand in solidarity with everyone who fights against oppression because they fight for all of us.