Intersectional discrimination of women and LGBTIAQ+ individuals in their access to employment, education, and public services: the role of social drivers and of subnational policies

This paper presents part of the findings of a current socio-legal project that focuses on the intersectional discrimination that women and LGBTIAQ+ individuals (incl., migrants or with a migration background) face in their socioeconomic participation, that is, access to employment, education, and public services after two years of pandemic. By building upon the theory of intersectionality (Crenshaw 1989 and 1991; Collins 1990) and the “paradigm intersectionality approach” proposed by Hancock (2019), it looks not only at how gender and ethnicity intersect but also at how this intersection operates and relates with other social drivers (e.g., age, class, domestic division of labor, degree of agency, religion, urban-rural reality, violence) to explore how different factors operate and shape multiple forms of social inequalities for women and LGBTIAQ+ individuals in their socioeconomic participation. It situates its discussion at subnational level, in two sub-state units that share similar autonomous settings, a broad cultural diversity and several societal challenges, i.e., South Tyrol (Italy) and Catalonia (Spain). In this frame, it also explores how local public policies address this intersectional discrimination and what is still missing to enhance the access to employment, education, and public services of women and LGBTIAQ+ individuals at subnational level. Collins P. H. (1990) Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Unwin Hyman. Crenshaw K. (1989) Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. The University of Chicago Legal Forum, 140, 139-167. Crenshaw K. (1991) Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241-1279. Hancock A. (2019). Empirical Intersectionality: A Tale of Two Approaches. In O. Hankivsky & J. S. Jordan-Zachery (eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of Intersectionality in Public Policy (95-132). Palgrave-MacMillan.