To fully understand the innovative potential of intersectional advocacy, one needs to understand the traditional policymaking process that it confronts. In Chapter 2 illustrates how policy boundaries contribute to inequality in the United States. Drawing from a textual analysis of the Congressional hearings on the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and newspaper articles covering VAWA, the chapter presents evidence that the policy boundaries in the VAWA harmed intersectionally marginalized groups. Moreover, it shows advocacy groups that did not represent intersectionally-marginalized groups contributed to the setting of these policy boundaries by participating in the policymaking process. Underscoring how advocacy groups that do not represent multiply-marginalized intervene in the policymaking process, this chapter illustrates what is at stake with the traditional policymaking process and the ways that mainstream advocacy groups have participated in it.

In Chapter 3, the overarching question of this book starts to be answered: how do advocacy groups intervene in policymaking processes to represent intersectionally marginalized populations? Here, work is presented that examines how advocacy groups representing intersectionally-marginalized groups have participated in this policymaking process. Analyses of the testimony and statements from advocacy groups during Congressional hearings over the reauthorization of VAWA from the past 25 years is provided to show that select organizations were successfully advocating for linkages between policies and issues that reflected the experiences of intersectionally marginalized groups. These linkages were between VAWA and policies on welfare, immigration, and tribal rights. In this chapter, “intersectional advocacy,” is identified to explain how advocacy groups in this setting engaged in it to change VAWA policy over time. The chapter shows that VAWA changes in remarkable ways that better represent and serve intersectionally marginalized groups.

The book concludes with a discussion of the current state of gender-based violence in the United States while highlighting the specific landscape of advocacy organizations that are working in this space to serve intersectionally marginalized populations. The chapter elaborates on the challenges that remain for intersectional advocates as they intervene in this issue, as well as the possibilities that lie ahead for their advocacy efforts. These findings are not just applicable to policies and laws related to gender-based violence but are also valuable for identifying policy gaps in U.S. political institutions more generally. The chapter then gives a call-to-action to policymakers, advocacy organizations, foundations, and individuals to critically evaluate the current structure of U.S. policy institutions—who they benefit, who they represent, and to what extent they are ineffective for resolving some of our most pressing social issues. The call is accompanied with tangible examples of how these stakeholders can practice and support intersectional advocacy to change U.S. policy institutions to be more effective, equitable, and representative of an increasingly diverse democracy.

In Chapter 4, the applicability of this practice is considered by answering the question: to what extent does participation in intersectional advocacy vary depending on the level of government or political context where the advocacy takes place? Drawing from a qualitative analysis of 43 interviews with organizational leaders, this chapter presents how intersectional advocacy was applied at the municipal, state, and federal levels. This analysis shows that organizational leaders strategically established policy connections between gendered violence and unaffordable housing, inaccessible healthcare, and mass incarceration. The chapter then describes how issue and policy linkages vary across these problem areas and the level of government advocates are situated within. The types of institutional boundaries they encountered as they intervened in these policymaking processes are also described here. Ultimately, the chapter illustrates how the practice of intersectional advocacy transcended these three different levels of government, and that groups deployed different strategies depending on these varying contexts.

Chapter 1 brings the American state into full view by showing the ways in which its policy arm reinforces gender, economic, and racial inequality. The chapter situates this institutional function within a larger historical context of patriarchal systems that reproduce these inequalities in ways that must be understood when it comes to addressing gendered violence. The chapter then introduces the original concept of intersectional advocacy and explains its theoretical and empirical contours: how it is rooted in Black Feminist theory and developed from a practical understanding of how advocacy groups represent intersectionally marginalized constituents. After establishing the theoretical and empirical groundwork for intersectional advocacy, the chapter ends with a discussion of why this practice is important, how it travels across issue contexts, and how it is studied throughout the book.

What explains why these groups take on the practice of intersectional advocacy? In Chapter 5, this question is answered from an organizational perspective. Drawing again from the qualitative analysis of interviews with organizational leaders, the chapter presents the features of organizations that practice intersectional advocacy. There are four constitutive features of their organizations that were related to their engagement in intersectional advocacy. Despite a commitment to intersectional feminism, one of these organizations did not have all of these features and it also did not fully participate in intersectional advocacy. By discussing this case, the chapter demonstrates how an analysis of the four organizational features also help identify why groups such as these do not fully take on this practice. It then ends with how organizations with commitments to intersectionally marginalized groups but have not actualized them through intersectional advocacy, can change their varying organizational structures to take on this approach. This chapter is written in a way that scholars and organizational practitioners can both understand and appreciate the practice of intersectional advocacy.