Intersectionality and Business Ownership: The Influence of Race, Gender, and
Class on Working-Class African American Women’s Entrepreneurship
Introduction
A great deal of recent research has applied the concept of intersectionality to
understand the ways race, class, and gender affect individuals. Feminist researchers have
been particularly effective in promoting scholarship that examines race, gender, and class
as interlocking categories of oppression, wherein the experiences of some minority
groups (e.g., Black women) must be understood as a consequence of racial, gendered, and
sometimes class-based inequality (Collins 1990; Chafetz 1998; King 1988). For these
women, understanding their experiences involves more than just knowing how race and
gender lead to inequality, but mandates an understanding of how race is gendered and
gender is racialized (Browne and Misra 1998). It is this totality that researchers seek to
explore.
Accepting the premise that the intersections of race, gender, and class impact
virtually all aspects of life, feminist researchers seek to explore these intersections in
social arenas such as the workplace, community organizations, media, and others (Collins
1990; Rollins 1988; Jewell 1993). Studies that address interacting oppressions in the
workplace often focus on the ways that race, gender, and class shape minority women’s
access to certain jobs, compensation for work, and the perception of these women’s
suitability for various occupations (Browne 1999; Higginbotham 1998). These
intersecting oppressions often relegate minority women into the bottom of the labor
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