I think the person you're responding to is referencing intersectional feminism (more recently mainstream in social justice and feminism discussions), which is perhaps somewhat related to what's being discussed, but really not the topic at hand.
What is relevant is that the general discourse focuses more on systemic differences in opportunity to disadvantaged groups. In this case, we're talking about women as the ostensibly disadvantaged group.
I think what people fail to understand though, is that marginalization can take many forms. If women are less likely to continue interviewing after rejection, this doesn't mean that they have the same opportunity; instead, it suggests that systemic factors play into this. The "intersectional" take on this is really focused on how different components of identity work together to shape an individual's experience, in subtle ways that compound. Hence, just growing up in a society where young women and men have even mildly different attitudes impressed upon them from a young age, can have more noticeable effects on their outcomes much later in life
No it doesn't. This is a false dichotomy. It can be any number of things, including something systemic, but only one explanation of many is eliminated. All that it suggests is that interviewers don't discriminate (against women).
That's not at all what intersectionality is. It's just a name for the fact that the hardships you face as, say, a black woman isn't the union of the hardships of women and the hardships of black folks. They don't exist independently. This was an important idea because feminist movements focused almost exclusively on white women and it assumed this was fine because "rising tide raises all ships" and that white women had a better chance of having their voices heard -- but it didn't shake out that way and this was the reason.
That's the reason today there's a lot of focus on black trans women because activists are trying not to repeat this mistake.
> any disparity between any demographic groups is wholly attributable to bias
Unless you're literally arguing that some groups are genetically superior or inferior, or that something in the Y chromosome just really draws you to programming this statement is true by definition -- that's what bias means.
If you’re like oh well part of the wage gap is explained by women not being as aggressive in salary negotiations your options are either that there is a bias somewhere or resorting to gender essentialism.
I haven't heard of it either, but "intersectionality" means (according to Google, but in my experience, sounds accurate.)
> Intersectionality is a theoretical framework rooted in the premise that human experience is jointly shaped by multiple social positions (e.g. race, gender), and cannot be adequately understood by considering social positions independently.
This feels like saying that (generalized) linear regressions without interactions are inadequate. And criticisms of intersectionality seem to be that (a) high order interactions are statistically volatile and (b) multivariate averages miss important information.
If you're a member of two different minority groups, your experience is not described by taking a union of the bad things from each. Eg. If being black results in 3% less <> and being a woman results in 5% less <>, then being a black woman does not result in 8% less <>.
What is relevant is that the general discourse focuses more on systemic differences in opportunity to disadvantaged groups. In this case, we're talking about women as the ostensibly disadvantaged group.
I think what people fail to understand though, is that marginalization can take many forms. If women are less likely to continue interviewing after rejection, this doesn't mean that they have the same opportunity; instead, it suggests that systemic factors play into this. The "intersectional" take on this is really focused on how different components of identity work together to shape an individual's experience, in subtle ways that compound. Hence, just growing up in a society where young women and men have even mildly different attitudes impressed upon them from a young age, can have more noticeable effects on their outcomes much later in life