Investigating Intersectionality: What Is It & Why Does It Matter?

In today’s world, we are starting to become more conscious of people's lived experiences and listening to how they have seen the world. It may be easy to look at someone from afar and think you understand what they go through but until you sit down and hear them out, you truly will have no idea what their day to day life entaisl. Intersectionality is a term that is being used more and more to help us understand that people are much more than what we see on the outside, and it’s really everything about them that determines the experiences they have had. The most important thing we can do is listen and watch as we simply try to improve day by day.

What Is Intersectionality?

An easy way to define intersectionality is that all oppression is linked. However, it’s much deeper than that. Intersectionality is the combination of your race, ethnicity, social class, economic status, gender, sexuality, religion, medical status, and even more of what makes you who you are. All of these aspects of someone are linked, and we must understand that they will experience racism or gender discrimination in a different way based on where they fall into these categories. For example, a black cis woman may experience racism differently than a black homosexual cis woman. And a black homosexual cis woman may express her femininity differently than a black trans woman. While these are simple examples, the key is that you cannot assume all people of a certain group have similar experiences, when there are so many different people in those groups. 

What Does It Mean for the Media?

Intersectionality becoming a part of the world means that we must learn to understand people for the deeper parts of who they are and not simply what they are. We cannot allow the majority to continue putting people in their archaic boxes when it comes to our media. Too often are minorities type-casted in the same roles over and over. We must continue to move forward and allow all voices to be heard, so that young people won’t feel so alone. For decades white cis men and women have dominated the playing field in modeling, film, and television. Finally there has been a breakthrough where we are seeing more and more people of color and people of all genders adding their stories to the big screen. It will allow young people and new generations to grow up watching people just like them, live out their dreams.

What Does the Future Hold?

The more voices that can be heard, the more young people will feel they are also a part of this new world. In the past many young people in minority groups didn’t see themselves as the stars on the screen. Too often you would have people of color as the secondary character, or simply a tool for the main lead to use. Now that things are changing we see even more representation of various groups, which will lead to younger generations being filled with hope for themselves and the specific groups they may fit into. The young child models of the future will see such beautiful diversity and being at the forefront of it is exciting and motivating. We must continue to push for intersectionality in the media industry so that all experiences may be demonstrated and heard. 

The new age of child modeling is exciting. With all types of people finally having their time to shine we at Bensimon Models and Talent are excited to usher in the new age of child models. We have been on the forefront of this for years and are always looking for children to tell their own personal stories. This is how we grow better together.