There’s no attempt to quantify how much the “whole is greater than the sum of the parts”. If the whole is just 1% greater than the sum of the parts, maybe it’s no big deal and can be safely ignored when making rough estimates. (ie, if we magically overcame all sexism to eliminate anti-women bias, and also all racism to overcome anti-minority bias, how much anti-minority-women bias would be left? Maybe “intersectional” anti-minority-women bias is 50% or more of the problem, but maybe it’s very small relative to the first-order problems of “non-intersectional” racism and sexism. I’ve never seen anyone try to explore whether “intersectionality” is a huge deal or just a minor epicycle in the social-justice universe.)
this might be a nitpick, and i generally agree with your comment, but i think that question—whether there’d be any anti-minority-women bias left after eliminating anti-women and anti-minority bias—isn’t really the right thing to ask. if the old view was that anti-minority-women bias is anti-minority bias plus anti-women bias, the intersectional view would be closer to multiplying the two factors. in that case, anti-minority-women bias would still go to zero if the other two were eliminated. it might be better to ask something like, “how much total anti-minority-women bias is there at various levels of anti-minority and anti-women bias?”
this might be a nitpick, and i generally agree with your comment, but i think that question—whether there’d be any anti-minority-women bias left after eliminating anti-women and anti-minority bias—isn’t really the right thing to ask. if the old view was that anti-minority-women bias is anti-minority bias plus anti-women bias, the intersectional view would be closer to multiplying the two factors. in that case, anti-minority-women bias would still go to zero if the other two were eliminated. it might be better to ask something like, “how much total anti-minority-women bias is there at various levels of anti-minority and anti-women bias?”