Leadership Journeys and Intersectional Resources

This chapter examines how intersectional feminism, for young feminists, became discursively synonymous with “inclusive leadership.” But while leadership was a seemingly open discourse, institutionally addressed to participants across class and ethnic backgrounds from childhood, it created a binary distinction between those who led and those who were led. It instantiated a logic of capitalizing on experience, such that personal experiences of marginalization could easily become resources for others’ leadership journeys. And yet, like much work that is highly gendered in nature, this inclusive leadership was often undervalued in practice. Young people who were singled out as intersectional leaders felt burnt out by the weight of expectation and the DEI work they were expected to perform with little protection or support.