Intersectionality and art therapy

Abstract

The world is once again going through immense change and disruption: from the global pandemic and the disproportionate impact on poorer nations and classes to the murder of George Floyd and the return to prominence of the fight for racial equality; from the urgent fight for the rights of women highlighted by the reversal of Roe vs Wade in the US, the recent killings of Mahsa Amini and many more children, women, and men by the theocracy in Iran, and the young women recently denied access to their universities in Afghanistan to the World Cup highlighting the alarming lack of LGBTQ + rights and shocking labour practices towards migrant workers in some regions; and UNICEF announcing that 1 in 10 children worldwide continue to be denied basic rights due to disabilities (UNICEF, 2021). These snapshots from the past few years indicate just some of the landmarks within a much bigger problem of marginalisation and give us a glimpse of the ongoing fights for the rights of us all within the varying intersectional systems of oppression (patriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism, etc.). These flashpoints show just how much we are moulded by the socio-political as much as the psychological.