Introduction: Intersectional Perspectives in Policy History

Abstract

Recent scholarship in women and gender history and the history of sexuality is transforming not only the categories of citizenship but also how we think about policy history. Major prizewinners, such as Alice Kessler Harris's In Pursuit of Equity (2001) and Margot Canady's Th e Straight State (2009), mark the centrality of gender and queer analysis to the policy project. 1 Th ey are in keeping with the emergence of intersectionality as a reigning paradigm in feminist approaches across the disciplines. As political scientist Angie-Marie Hancock explains, "Th e term 'intersectionality' refers to both a normative theoretical argument and an approach to conducting empirical research that emphasizes the interaction of categories of diff erence (including but not limited to race, gender, class, and sexual orientation). " 2 As a theoretical argument, intersectionality privileges the distinctions within political, social, and cultural categories, like men and women, to argue that identity is not additive, fi xed, or multiple but rather that the coming together of race, gender, sexuality, class, and other factors creates distinct wholes. Although highlighting identity, it contains an implicit critique of identity politics precisely because it questions unitary approaches to group formation. Operationalizing complex or melded statuses has proven a challenge in fi elds dependent on large data sets in which the units of collection refl ect singular characteristics like race or gender but not racialized gender. Although faced with quantitative materials with similar limitations, historians more successfully have applied the concept of intersectionality to analyzing the making, implementation, and consequences of law and social policy.