Beyond Additive Models? The Flemish Women’s Council and the Challenges of Intersectional Feminism and Activism

This study critically explores the application and operationalization of intersectionality within the Flemish Women’s Council (Nederlandstalige Vrouwenraad), an important umbrella organization in the Flemish context advocating for women’s rights and gender equality. Intersectionality, as a framework for understanding how multiple, intersecting forms of inequality, such as gender, ethnicity, class, and sexuality, create unique experiences of discrimination, challenges the traditional notion of treating these inequalities in isolation. While intersectionality as a theoretical framework has gained significant academic traction, its practical application, especially in European contexts, often falls short. In many cases, organizations inadvertently adopt additive models, where gender is prioritized over other axes of inequality, such as ethnicity, class, and disability, thus failing to capture the complex, interdependent nature of these identities. Building on the concept of political invisibility (Strolovitch, 2007), this paper argues that, despite their broad claims of representing all women, women’s organizations like the Flemish Women’s Council may still marginalize those with intersecting subordinate identities, such as women of color or disabled LGBTQ+ individuals. By drawing on semi-structured interviews with current and former employees of the Council, this study aims to explore how the organization navigates these challenges and the extent to which it embraces a genuinely intersectional approach in its internal operations, organizational structure and advocacy work. Through this inductive analysis, the paper sheds light on the practicalities of translating intersectional theory into organizational practice, highlighting the tensions between strategic inclusivity and the risk of reducing complex identities to essentialist categories. Ultimately, this paper contributes to broader, ongoing debates about the potential of intersectional feminism to drive social justice and genuine inclusivity in advocacy and activism.