The term was coined in 1989 by the African-American lawyer and academic Kimberlé Crenshaw. She sought to highlight the specific situation of Black American women, whose difficulties were not adequately addressed by laws dealing separately with sexism and racism.
Over the years, intersectionality has become a tool for social analysis that refers to the situation of people who simultaneously experience multiple forms of discrimination or domination (gender, ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, disability). These different forms of oppression generally compound one another; they intersect and reinforce each other, creating heightened experiences of oppression and discrimination.
This concept is now widely used in the fields of sociology, law and public policy to ensure a fairer and more inclusive representation of people who experience multiple forms of oppression and discrimination.
The intersectional approach thus enables us to understand the origins and consequences of systemic inequalities by moving beyond a single or monolithic perspective.
The systemic approach is rooted in materialism, social psychology and political science. It argues that an ideology is not the result of a single social institution but, on the contrary, of a plurality of institutions which, taken together, form a system.
Thus, speciesism – since that is what concerns us – is the product of the interaction between various social institutions that interlock and form a system in order to better legitimise themselves. The social institutions underpinning speciesism are political, economic, legal, cultural, sociological, religious and philosophical.
The systemic approach therefore contradicts any monolithic approach based on a single factor of responsibility.
This is the case, for example, with vegan awareness campaigns, which almost exclusively pin the blame for animal exploitation on consumers, whilst losing sight of the fact that speciesism is an ideology that springs from a multifaceted context which legitimises it. By claiming to work towards the abolition of speciesism solely through raising public awareness of veganism, the vegan approach propagates a falsehood that has now been widely debunked by the most thorough analyses of the origins of speciesist ideology.
Furthermore, by singling out the consumer as the primary culprit for animal exploitation, the vegan approach helps to obstruct the search for those truly responsible for speciesist ideology: namely, states, industrialists and all the social institutions that legitimise this ideology.
The best-known forms are racism and sexism. In recent years, social sciences and psychology have highlighted others: genderism, ableism, classism, ageism, …
Speciesism – which is a form of systemic oppression that treats species as a morally irrelevant factor in discrimination (Sarah Zanaz) – is, unfortunately, still largely unknown to the general public.
Systemic discrimination and oppression (racism, sexism, speciesism, ableism, etc.) are not the result of chance.
They are tools designed to serve a discriminatory system that fundamentally needs them to consolidate its domination and fulfil its insatiable thirst for exploitation.
One could argue endlessly about the identity or identities of this exploitative system. Some see it as the work of capitalism, others of imperialism, and still others of patriarchy, and so on…
By bringing together the insights of history, politics, the social sciences, economics and, finally, anthropology, we might reach a consensus on the nature of this common driving force behind discrimination and oppression. They all stem from human supremacist ideology or, more specifically, they primarily benefit white, able-bodied, productive Western men.
Social sciences and psychology teach us that all forms of systemic discrimination and oppression employ common structural mechanisms: hierarchisation, devaluation, denigration, humiliation, impoverishment, animalisation, ostracism, appropriation, exploitation and the commodification of bodies.
We see these mechanisms at work in racist, sexist and ableist discrimination, amongst others, as well as in speciesist ideology.
It is the interactions between them that not only reinforce them but also legitimise them. This is why the social sciences use the concept of B intersectionalityB to expose, analyse and explain them.
Thus, when discriminating against a woman, it is common for her to be animalised (a turkey, a hen, a bird, a bitch), for her to be infantilised (she can’t drive, she isn’t built for it, etc.), for her body to be fetishised (sexist advertising), for her to be exploited (wage gaps), and so on.
The same process applies to racist discrimination. It involves animalisation, classism, ableism, hierarchisation, ostracism and impoverishment. The same reality applies to minors: they are infantilised, subjected to violence, made to feel inferior, stripped of responsibility, impoverished, and so on…
And, of course, the same grim reality applies to non-human animals, who are subjected to all the aforementioned forms of discrimination without exception. Animals are deemed stupid, incapable, inferior, and so on…
All these systemic practices are based on real or even imaginary differences which are not morally relevant to justify legal discrimination but which are deliberately exploited to justify discrimination, oppression, appropriation and economic exploitation.
This is the historical tragedy and fallacy of depoliticised animalism: being convinced – and attempting to convince others – that those responsible for animal exploitation are solely the consumers of animal-derived products. A monolithic and false approach.
Those responsible for this myth, which is still all too widespread amongst activists, are people such as Paul Bashir, Ed Winter, Gary Yourofsky and many others besides. The leaders of these organisations advocate a strategy of turning the population vegan, which very often goes hand in hand with a hatred of those who do not become vegan and who are openly labelled as psychopaths, criminals, violent people, and so on…
The first key problem with this approach, apart from its misanthropic nature, is that it has failed since the dawn of time. Humanity has always had vegetarians and vegans, ever since antiquity, who have tried to convince their contemporaries of the cruelty and futility of animal exploitation – to no avail! In fact, 2,500 years ago, there were probably more vegetarians and vegans than there are today. For millennia, therefore, this strategy has failed to increase the proportion of vegans in the population beyond an average of 2 per cent worldwide. It is, therefore, a failure, compounded by a considerable waste of time and energy.
Whilst the number of vegans has stagnated, the number of non-human animals slaughtered each year has literally skyrocketed since 1950. Worse still, according to FAO forecasts, the number of victims in 2026 is set to double by 2050.
The second problem with this approach is its complete depoliticisation.
Those who advocate for veganism on the streets refuse to acknowledge that anti-speciesism is a political struggle and that speciesism is a systemic form of oppression underpinned by a multitude of institutions. But how can you possibly bring about a political programme as revolutionary as anti-speciesism if your electoral support consists of nothing more than a core of 2 per cent of voters? The answer is obvious: it is impossible. It is therefore naïve to believe that systemic change will come about in this way.
Today, in 2026, for every 100 people born, 99 will grow up to be speciesists. Furthermore, the social problems faced by the world’s populations, linked to the inexorable decline of capitalism, are definitively distancing these populations from animal rights concerns. Finally, the westernisation of Asia and the staggering growth of the world’s population unfortunately entail, as we have said, a dizzying and uninterrupted rise in the number of animal victims.
Claiming to solve the problem of animal exploitation by encouraging people to go vegan is like trying to fill a bottomless well, or emptying the ocean with a teaspoon. This strategy, when touted as THE way forward to end animal exploitation, is not only fallacious but is also directly responsible for the legal stagnation of non-human animal rights, owing to a lack of commitment in this area. Today, as in the past and even less so than in the future, non-human animals remain inexorably treated as exploitable movable property and are denied non-human legal personality – the only prospect capable of granting them the fundamental rights necessary to bring about the abolition of their exploitation.
Thus, raising awareness of veganism, provided it is not politicised through an anti-speciesist lens and is not accompanied by an intersectional political commitment calling for the convergence of social struggles, has proven incapable of combating animal exploitation on its own.
We have demonstrated that systemic oppression and discrimination (racism, sexism, speciesism, etc.) are the result of common and systemic structural processes (hierarchisation, appropriation, exploitation, the commodification of bodies, etc.).
It is because these structural processes reinforce and legitimise one another that they must be combated together. This observation is the very backbone of intersectionalism as we have defined it. It is therefore because the victims of these systemic oppressions share common interests that they must unite to fight together against their common adversary: human supremacism, embodied by the white, able-bodied, productive Western man.
Non-human animals form part of a continuum of systemic discrimination. They, too, are victims of these systemic oppressions that benefit that same adversary. It is therefore necessary to cease viewing them as scapegoats and, on the contrary, to recognise them as yet another victim of this oppressive system. Non-human animals must therefore be freed from their objectification and elevated to the status of non-human legal persons oppressed by the same system of domination, and must consequently be regarded as partners in the struggle.
This personification is made possible by recent scientific advances, which have identified sentience as a common characteristic. Sentientism—the philosophical version of political anti-speciesism—is the key to recognising non-human animals as non-human persons who have a personal interest in well-being and happiness and who experience themselves as first-person subjects of rights.
Consequently, the political prospects for anti-speciesism are radically different, and hope is rising from the ashes. Indeed, by building a common political front against oppression, the electoral base of anti-speciesism grows substantial, enabling not only the inclusion of anti-speciesism on national political agendas but also the prospect of far more promising electoral results.
Making anti-speciesism a political struggle is the only serious way to combat animal exploitation.
This is why the L.I.A. is working tirelessly to build convergence and coherence amongst social liberation struggles. The political and legal salvation of non-human persons depends on the future realisation of this fusion of social struggles into a broad anti-oppression political front.
Without this strategy, we are absolutely certain that the animal cause will not advance one iota, just as has been the case, more or less, ever since humanity has existed!