Discrimination and intersectionality
- Racial characteristics
- Religious and philosophical convictions
- Bekijk alle categorieën
Some people are discriminated against more than others because they belong to multiple identity groups. This is known as multiple discrimination. Intersectional discrimination is one such example. It affects people at the crossroads of multiple vulnerabilities and confronts them with very specific and complex experiences. For example, an elderly woman belonging to a certain ethnic group, who has a disability...
In the fight against inequality, the intersectional approach aims to highlight the structural and systemic oppression suffered by certain groups within society. And to better protect their rights.
What is intersectionality?
Intersectionality is a concept which refers to situations of multiple discrimination experienced by certain groups of people and which are interdependent.
Inequalities arise at the intersection of different personal characteristics of the individual and are influenced by various systems of power, such as capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy and racism.
Anti-discrimination laws refer to protected personal characteristics such as gender, sexual orientation, skin colour, origin or religious and philosophical beliefs. These protected criteria must not lead to disadvantageous treatment. (Learn more about the protected criteria).
An intersectional approach means that people are not reduced to a set of individual characteristics, but instead, a dynamic analysis of discriminatory mechanisms and structures can be applied.
Multiple discrimination: case examples
Multiple discrimination refers to discrimination based on more than one protected ground. More specifically, multiple discrimination can take the form of successive, cumulative (or additive) or intersectional discrimination.
Open Successive multiple discrimination
Successive discrimination occurs when a person is discriminated against on multiple grounds. These discriminations occur separately and at different times.
For example, a gay man from an ethnic minority may be discriminated against in one situation on the basis of his sexual orientation and in another situation on the basis of his ethnic origin.
Open Cumulative (or additive) multiple discrimination
Cumulative (or additive) discrimination refers to a situation in which a person is treated unequally on different grounds at a given time. These inequalities of treatment can be counted together, but they can also be dissociated from each other.
For example, a 44-year-old man's job application is rejected because the employer assumes that he will not be able to work in a team made up entirely of women aged between 20 and 30. The man is therefore doubly discriminated against: on the basis of his age and on the basis of his gender.
Open Intersectional multiple discrimination
Intersectional discrimination occurs when an individual or group of individuals is discriminated against on the basis of criteria that are so intertwined that they create a unique and new form of discrimination. The protected criteria interact and become inseparable through the interplay of different systems of power such as patriarchy, capitalism, racism, colonialism, etc.
For example, a woman from a certain ethnic minority faces different discrimination, because she is a woman and belongs to an ethnic minority, than a man from the same ethnic minority, or she faces a different type of sexism than a white woman.
Intersectionality as a legal and policy-making tool
When treating discrimination cases, intersectionality offers a frame of reference that makes visible the specific experiences of people at the crossroads of multiple vulnerabilities. It thus takes them out of the blind spot of legal analysis.
From a broader perspective, the intersectional approach shifts the focus from the individual to systems of power, analysing how they operate and their impact on particular categories of people.
For Unia, intersectionality therefore becomes a policy-making tool that can enable us to:
- identify the groups most affected by structural racism and discrimination
- develop ways of reaching the groups that need the most support
- develop our structural work by going beyond the individual to achieve true inclusion.
Multiple discrimination in law
Belgian anti-discrimination legislation is made up of various laws, decrees and ordinances applicable to each federal or federated entity concerned.
Federal anti-discrimination laws
There are three federal laws that make up the anti-discrimination legislation: the anti-racism law, the anti-discrimination law and the law on equal treatment between men and women, known as the "gender law".
In June 2023, the federal parliament approved a bill to amend anti-discrimination legislation by incorporating, among other things, the concepts of cumulative and intersectional multiple discrimination.
Taking situations of multiple discrimination into account in the legal framework is a major step forward in the intersectional approach to discrimination.
Regional and Community legislation
Open Brussels Region
In April 2024, the Brussels Parliament adopted a Brussels Code on Equality, Non-Discrimination and the Promotion of Diversity (which came into force on 16 October 2024). This is a legislative framework common to all Brussels regional and community institutions (COCOM and COCOF). Among the changes made, the Code incorporates multiple and intersectional discrimination.
Open Walloon Region
"The Decree of 6 November 2008 on combating certain forms of discrimination does not, in its current form (2024), include any reference to the concepts of multiple and intersectional discrimination. However, the text does refer to "direct or indirect distinction based on one or more of the protected criteria". This wording indirectly opens the door to the invocation of multiple/intersectional discrimination.
Open Wallonia-Brussels Federation
In April 2024, the Parliament of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation adopted the draft decree (of 17 April 2024) amending "the decree of 12 December 2008 on combating certain forms of discrimination".
The draft decree defines new forms of discrimination, namely cumulative discrimination and intersectional discrimination. The text is due to come into force on 01.01.2025.
Open German-speaking Community
The decree of 19 March 2012 aimed at combating certain forms of discrimination does not include any reference to multiple and/or intersectional discrimination. However, like the Walloon decree, it indirectly provides for the possibility of invoking multiple discrimination via the wording "direct or indirect distinction based on one or more of the protected criteria".
Intersectional discrimination and gender
The intersectional approach is intrinsic to the gender issue.
The theorisation of intersectionality has its origins in the pioneering work of black feminists in the United States and Great Britain (cf. Patricia Hill Collins, A-M Hancock, Angela Davis...). These feminists questioned the supposedly 'universalised' category of 'woman' and thus rendered visible the various forms of exclusion and social inequality experienced by black women.
In legal terms, it was the jurist Kimberlé Crenshaw who conceptualised this notion. The intersectional approach to discrimination in legal analyses removes the obstacles to identifying the complex relationships between the different forms of domination prevalent in our society, such as gender, race and class. It demonstrates the extent to which these three axes of domination converge in the lives of women from vulnerable groups.
Identifying and understanding this phenomenon is therefore the first step in implementing measures to combat it.
Examples of intersectional discrimination against women :
Report discrimination
Do you feel you have experienced or witnessed discrimination? Report it online or call the toll-free number 0800 12 800 on weekdays between 9.30 a.m. and 1 p.m.
- Racial characteristics
- Religious and philosophical convictions
- Sexual orientation
- Disability
- Age
- State of health
- Physical characteristics
- Fortune
- Political conviction
- Trade union conviction
- Origin or social condition
- Birth
- Civil status
- Protected gender criterion
- Language