Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of a person's social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of advantage and disadvantage. Examples of these factors include gender, caste, sex, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, disability, weight, and physical appearance. These intersecting and overlapping social identities may be both empowering and oppressing. Intersectionality broadens the scope of the first and second waves of feminism, which largely focused on the experiences of women who were white, middle-class and cisgender, to include the different experiences of women of color, poor women, immigrant women, and other groups. Intersectional feminism aims to separate itself from white feminism by acknowledging women's differing experiences and identities. The term intersectionality was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. She describes how interlocking systems of power affect those who are most marginalized in society. Activists use the framework to promote social and political egalitarianism. Intersectionality opposes analytical systems that treat each axis of oppression in isolation. In this framework, for instance, discrimination against black women cannot be explained as a simple combination of misogyny and racism, but as something more complicated. Intersectionality engages in similar themes as triple oppression, which is the oppression associated with being a poor or immigrant woman of color. Intersectional analysis aligns very closely with anarcha-feminist power analysis frameworks. Criticism includes the framework's tendency to reduce individuals to specific demographic factors, and its use as an ideological tool against other feminist theories. Critics have characterized the framework as ambiguous and lacking defined goals. As it is based in standpoint theory, critics say the focus on subjective experiences can lead to contradictions and the inability to identify common causes of oppression. Historical background The concept of intersectionality was introduced to the field of legal studies by black feminist scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, who used the term in a pair of essays published in 1989 and 1991. While the theory primarily began as an exploration of the oppression of black women within society and the ways in which they experience intersecting layers of different forms of oppression, the analysis has expanded to include many more aspects of social identity. Identities most commonly referenced in fourth-wave feminism include race, gender, sex, sexuality, class, ability, nationality, citizenship, religion, and body type. The term was not adopted widely by feminists until the 2000s and has only grown since that time.