I Am Applying Intersectionality And The Sociological Imagination

However, intersectionality gained prominence later (the 1980s and 90s) through African American feminist scholars, Crenshaw and Patricia Hill Collins, who criticized white feminists who failed to see that their skin color provided them with advantages that are not often offered to black feminists (Norris; Murphy-Erby; Zajiceck 2007). In time, intersectionality transitioned from an individual group’s experience (black women’s identity/ discrimination) to a larger framework. C. Wright Mills was an American sociologist who created the model of the sociological imagination. The Sociological imagination is a sociological outlook that links one’s experiences with societal occurrences. The Model consists of two components: “personal troubles” and “social issues,” as Mills puts it in “The Promise” an excerpt from his book The Sociological Imagination (1959,1; 1959, 3). “Personal troubles” is a micro experience which occurs at an individual level, in relation to others, and within the limits of a social setting (Mills 1959, 5). While “social issues,” is a macro involvement that surpasses an individual status and focuses on social structures and social/historical life (Mills 1959, 5; Cammer-Bechtold 2017). By connecting the two components, one realizes that broader social, historical conditions influence personal matters. To explain the sociological imagination, Mills used unemployment as an example