Over the last 30 years, intersectionality has travelled from its roots in Black feminist political struggle and Black feminist thought to its current status as an idiom in popular culture as well as the lingua franca for research and methodologies across all fields and disciplines. This long history of honing intersectionality theory and methodology demonstrates that single-issue approaches to identity, knowledge, and social power generate research that risks failure. By contrast, multi-vector research design helps us to address better the complex challenges of differential life-chances conditioned by social differences.

Scientists have, for example, realized that the convention of viewing heart disease as a male disorder results in misdiagnosis and inadequate healthcare for women. Racially and gender-biased algorithms and data amplify biased knowledge in the public sphere to the benefit of some, while further harming already oppressed people. Engineers attentive to intersectional research design will be better able to design robotics for assistive technology for independent living for an ageing population. Social scientists have pointed out how maternal health and motherhood are affected by anti-Black racism, anti-indigeneity, sexism, classism and other forms of intersectional violence.