Month: September 2025

Organised chaos disorder

Again and again

The chaos of order

Again and again

Order, arrange

Its all the same

Arrange and arrange

Precise and aimed

The chaos disorder, of the orders order

Will order the orders to disorder

Order is, order is, order is, order,

Organised chaos disorder

I entered again and did not hear
Not even a whisper not even a cheer

You didn’t read it properly
Read it again
You don’t know on what this depends

My prize is the silence
My mind the thing that shook.
Take away the fans and all that’s left is the looks

You don’t understand what’s it’s like to be me
I will show you and you will see

When I’m gone you’ll see my fame
But you dashed it away, again and again

A light in my life slowly going dim
You could have saved me but you put me in the bin

So read my last entry and let it sink in
Because that is the one that will always win 

The rain was relentless, the kind that doesn’t fall but rather collapse from the sky, hammering the pavement until the street seemed to ripple under my feet. My coat was soaked through. My hair stuck to my face. Every breath tasted of iron and wet leaves. I kept my head down, eyes fixed on the glimmer of streetlamp ahead. The storm pressed close, muffling the world to nothing.

Crack.

Light split through the night sky, bricks etched with white fire and every raindrop suspended in midair, a picture of the moment.

And in that frozen instant, the street was wrong. The corner house was gone, its windows, its sagging gutters, its ivy-smothered walls, replaced by raw earth that steamed as though the rain couldn’t touch it. Vanished.

Then the darkness swallowed everything again.

Silence hung heavier between thunder, pressure curling around me with sharp, pointed claws. My legs were locked, unmoving. Unrelenting. Ignoring my silent pleas to move, to keep going. But my body only listened when the thunder finally broke, rattling the air inside my chest.

I forced a step forward. Then another. The streetlamp started to flicker up ahead, a dim beacon behind the watery veil.

Another flash.

The house was back. But its windows burned with light, every one of them. Pale figures crowded the glass, shoulder to shoulder, faces pressed so close their features flattened. Dozens of them. Watching.

Dark again.

I stumbled, catching myself on the slick iron of a gate. It was cold, or at least colder than rain should make it, like the metal had been pulled from deep underground. My fingers ached where they touched it. Ice biting at my skin, grasping me with death-chilled fingers.

The storm hissed against the ground, as though whispering.

Another flash.

The figures were no longer behind the glass. The street was crawling with them. They stood on the curbs, in the road, their outlines trembling in the lightning’s glare, every face pale and vacant. Their hair hung in dripping ropes. Their mouths hung open as if mid-breath, mid-scream, but no sound came.

Dark.

I froze. The rain lashed harder, striking my skin like nails. My breaths came sharp, each one tasting of rust, clouding my lungs in thick smoke. My eyes strained against the black, trying to find what I knew was there but couldn’t see.

The next flash didn’t come quickly. It waited. Dragged out the seconds until my chest was tight, until the silence screamed louder than thunder ever could.

When it finally came…the street was empty.

All but one.

It stood near the centre of the road, closer than the others, enough that I could see its skin. What should’ve been its skin. Thin, grey, stretched too tight over bone. Its head tilted slowly, water running off in rivulets. No eyes, only hollow sockets pooling with shadow.

Dark.

The silence closed in, thicker. A heartbeat pulsing against my head, heart thundering louder than the sky. I couldn’t hear my own breath, just the hush of water, steady and patient, as if the storm itself was waiting.

Another flash.

It was closer.

The sockets were no longer empty but glistened with something wet and moving, like worms writhing in an eternal pit. Its mouth cracked open, too wide, splitting the grey skin of its lips until black bled into the rain.

Dark.

I stumbled backward, boots slipping in water that suddenly felt deeper, ankle-deep, calf-deep, swallowing the street whole. The storm whispered again, but now the hiss carried words. My name. Drawn out, stretched thin.

Another flash.

It was right in front of me.

Its hand rose, bones jutting through the wet skin, reaching, reaching…

Dark.

And this time, the light did not come back.

Do not bring me my trophies for I will not win

Do not bring me a preacher for my simple sins

Do not bring me my weapons to try and fight the fear

Do not bring me tissues to wipe away my tears

Do not bring me money to try and buy more life

Do not sell your soul to make me feel alive

Do not change your world for me

This is how it’s supposed to be

All that I really need

Is a room full of family

The term ‘intersectionality’ frequently arises in modern social and cultural studies. Its widespread use began in the early twentieth century, and it has remained at the forefront of sociological thinking ever since[1]. In the simplest of terms, intersectionality is the analysis of how social categories – race, gender, sexuality or class, to name a few – overlap and mutually shape one another[1]. Power relations are not seen as mutually exclusive; they work together to establish the social worlds that we inhabit. In this article, along with this simple definition of the term, we aim to provide a history of intersectionality and examples of when it can be used. To close, however, we will discuss issues with the term and objections to its use that have arisen since it gained popularity.

Intersectionality as a term was introduced into legal theory in 1989 by Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw[2]. In her groundbreaking article, Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex, Crenshaw uses the example of black women in our society as a key example of intersectionality[3]. She lends the concept of intersectionality its first legal framework, noting how discrimination against black women is viewed differently depending on what sort of discrimination case they are part of, being pushed to the bottom either way. Crenshaw remarked on how in racial discrimination cases, said discrimination is viewed in terms of those with sex and class privilege, whilst in sex discrimination cases, it was viewed based on those with race and class privilege[3]. To her, black women specifically were often excluded from feminist theory because they underwent a unique set of experiences pertaining to both their race and their gender.

Although Crenshaw is often credited with the invention of the term, it existed as a concept long before she put the word to it. It was a common line of thinking amongst black feminist scholars even before she coined it, with many arguing that singular oppressions rarely affected the oppressed. Scholars like Audre Lorde maintained the position that discrimination didn’t act in isolation[4]. Even before then, however, the ‘spirit’ of intersectionality could be seen in the ideas of many of the most prolific sociological thinkers in history. A key example of intersectionality existing in this way, before the term was properly defined and given boundaries, can be found in the thinking of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, whose most famous contribution to history was their foundational work on communist theory. Although communism and socialism are commonly thought of as schools of thought based around class, the pair worked other social issues into their thinking, particularly regarding race and sex. It was clear to them that these issues went hand-in-hand with class disparity.

Looking even further back, you can find clear-cut examples of intersectionality at work. One such example can be seen in attitudes held by colonial Americans towards the indigenous people of North America, particularly towards the matriarchal systems that some of these people groups operated under. When the first colonists arrived in North America, almost immediately did they draw up a societal division between themselves and the indigenous people. Conservative thinking framed them as inferior and determined that they had to be removed for the safety of the colonists; liberal thinking framed them as the ‘noble savage’ who had a duty to integrate themselves into what the colonists considered ‘proper society’[5]. In short, this separate race of people was beneath them. However, upon closer observation, this denigration of the Native American was not based only on racial prejudice, but upon sexual prejudice as well.

In certain writings on observations of Native American tribes, it was noted that women in their societies occupied a very different role to their perceived place in Eurocentric culture. In fact, the term ‘matriarchal society’ may have been a perfect fit for their situation. Notably, in contrast to the white colonists’ approach, children were considered to be part of the mother’s line; they took the name of their mother’s clan rather than their father’s[6]. Women were held in higher esteem by indigenous men, and would even attend military meetings between tribes[6] and occasionally operate in leadership roles[7]. This reverence of women, though, was used by colonists to verify racist beliefs. In their eyes, since these ‘savage’ cultures viewed women in such high regard, surely it meant that the concept of a matriarchal society was just as backwards[7]. Their racial discrimination helped to consolidate their sexual discrimination; a clear example of intersectionality at work.

A more modern example of intersectionality at play can be seen with the LGSM movement, or Lesbians & Gays Support the Miners. LGSM was one of the more ‘novel’ groups established during the March 1984 miner strikes, often mentioned in the same vein as Women Against Pit Closures[8]. They were a group born out of the lesbian and gay communities that collected donations for the striking miners and eventually marched alongside them at a 1985 gay pride parade, as a protest against the mass closure of mines. The members of the LGSM movement felt a measure of solidarity with the miners. They recognised that this threat against their livelihood was an injustice. Fittingly, the existence of LGSM provides an example of intersectionality, but one that has a more positive bent. The LGSM movement reflects the use of intersectionality as a tool to provoke change: the members of the group used their identities as oppressed in matters of both class and sexuality to make a statement, with their queerness used as a means to support those who suffered the same class-based attacks as them.

Of course, all of this sounds very concise. But, as with most matters of society, intersectionality is not always this simple. The term was popularized in the twentieth century, but we live in quite a different world than the one that gave rise to the trailblazing scholars that laid the foundation for the concept. One problem with intersectionality, especially today, is that we may have already convinced ourselves that we have ‘solved’ it. Sirma Bilge argues that our neoliberal society frames social life not as a collective, but merely as the interactions of singular ‘social entrepreneurs’, denying the preconditions leading to structural inequalities[9]. In other words, we are able to congratulate ourselves for upholding the ideals of intersectionality whilst refusing to address structural injustice. At the same time, others have argued that the definition of intersectionality is just too hard to pin down. Patricia Hill Collins, for instance, describes the main difficulty of defining it being that to narrow the definition too much risks elevating one group’s views above the rest, whereas broadening things too much causes the term to lose all meaning[10]. Suddenly, intersectionality sounds much more complicated.

Even despite all this, intersectionality is often described as a term that is thrown around in modern gender studies so much that it risks becoming a buzzword[11]. In opposition to the challenges surrounding the term, it has managed to take off, and for good reason. For the oppressed in our society, it sheds light upon their struggles in a highly succinct way, refreshingly capturing their experiences[12]. And for those of us who do not suffer under the weight of multiple prejudices, it helps us to consider in our day-to-day lives how our social systems might be affecting others in ways that we can’t identify with. Because of that, it is very important to understand, no matter how nebulously it may be defined. All that we must do is avoid the belief that our work ends with learning what intersectionality is; we must continue to push for structural change in our society, so that the reasons for the term’s existence might one day no longer exist.

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[1] Hill Collins, P. & Sirma, B. 2020. Intersectionality. 2^nd Edition. Cambridge, UK; Medford, MA: Polity Press. p.15

[2] Carbado, D.W. & Harris, C.I. 2019. Intersectionality at 30: Mapping the Margins of Anti-Essentialism, Intersectionality and Dominance Theory. Harvard Law Review 132(8) pp.2193-2239

[3] Crenshaw, K. 1989. Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989(8)

[4] Lorde, A. 1983. There is no Hierarchy of Oppressions. Bulletin: Homophobia and Educations. New York: Council on Interracial Books for Children

[5] McGuire, R.H. 1992. Archeology and the First Americans. American Anthropologist 94(4) pp.816-836

[6] Beauchamp, W.M. 1900. Iroquois Women. The Journal of American Folklore 13(49) pp.81-91

[7] Saini, A. 2023. The Patriarchs. London, Dublin: Harper Collins

[8] Kelliher, D. 2014. Solidarity and Sexuality: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners 1984-5. History Workshop Journal 77 pp.240-262

[9] Bilge, S. 2013. Intersectionality Undone: Saving Intersectionality from Feminist Intersectionality Studies. Du Bois Review 10(2), pp.405-424

[10] Collins, P.H. 2015. Intersectionality’s Definitional Dilemmas. Annual Review of Psychology 41(1), pp.1-20

[11] Kelly, C; Kasperavicius, D; Duncan, D; Etherington, C; Giangregorio, L; Presseau, J; Sibley, K.M; Straus, S. 2021. ‘Doing’ or ‘using’ intersectionality? Opportunities and challenges in incorporating intersectionality into knowledge translation theory and practice. International Journal for Equity in Health 20(1), pp.1-7

[12] Echeverria, A. 2025. Intersectionality. Annals of Anthropological Practice 49(1), pp.N/A

The breakfast was arranged in the usual way
And at the normal time so as not to cause distress
She heard the excited footsteps
Of not one but two feet coming down the stairs
The glowing pair entered the room with an almost seeable connection
His new ‘friend’ was introduced and the pair quickly sat down
and got into conversation

As she looked at her son
The mother saw what the medication could not cure
And what her love could not give
As he sat there chatting at the breakfast table
He poured the milk for her with such care, yet confidence and grace
As his wit flowed so natural and deep
The normal routine now seems as if it could never’ve worked
As she stares at her grown up son
Something not felt and seen before

She lets it unfold

Hello shopkeeper. I’d like to buy this 18 game
It will be great to enjoy after my hard job at the end of the day
I’ve just been at the pub to volunteer
Do you like my new Rosie and Jim tattoo I’ve had for years?

I don’t need ID,
I know the code,
453470

My Legoland driving license will have to do,
I should have words with my lawyer about you

Take a look outside your see my car over there in the distance very, very far
My Dad’s with me but he has a growing disease
and looks like he is in his teens

If you want shopkeepermate we can take this outside!
Just bring the game in a bag to hide

What if I was to tell you I’ve got 6 months to live?
That’s not even enough time to get past the tutorial bit

Please let me buy it – I’ll be your best friend
Cross my heart and hope to die till the bitter end

Looks like I’ll have to take my business elsewhere,
I was going to invite you to my birthday party
But sorry life’s not fair

I’ll just go to a shop up the street
Get some fags and booze instead
Where I don’t need ID