Thereâs no attempt to quantify how much the âwhole is greater than the sum of the partsâ. If the whole is just 1% greater than the sum of the parts, maybe itâs 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 âintersectionalâ anti-minority-women bias is 50% or more of the problem, but maybe itâs very small relative to the first-order problems of ânon-intersectionalâ racism and sexism. Iâve never seen anyone try to explore whether âintersectionalityâ 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 questionâwhether thereâd be any anti-minority-women bias left after eliminating anti-women and anti-minority biasâisnât 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, âhow much total anti-minority-women bias is there at various levels of anti-minority and anti-women bias?â
this might be a nitpick, and i generally agree with your comment, but i think that questionâwhether thereâd be any anti-minority-women bias left after eliminating anti-women and anti-minority biasâisnât 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, âhow much total anti-minority-women bias is there at various levels of anti-minority and anti-women bias?â