{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.04373333333333333, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0192, 'mean_word_length': 5.316498316498317, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Teaching Gender and Intersectionality

Feminist and multicultural psychologists and researchers have agreed on the importance of addressing intersectionality when engaging with students and trainees (Cole, 2009; Enns, 2008; Stewart & McDermott, 2004). Intersectionality is defined as the ‘‘mutually constitutive relations among social identities’’ (Shields, 2008, p. 301) that affect a person’s psychology. In other words, all of us have multiple cultural backgrounds that impact our experiences. Cole’s (2009, p. 170) review notes that social and cultural categories ‘‘depend on one another for meaning, despite the obvious fact that every individual . . . occupies multiple categories (i.e., gender, race, class, etc.) . . . simultaneously.’’ Enns (2008) further describes how social structures and institutions (e.g., sexism, racism, classism, and ableism) can impact the experience of intersectionality. I teach a course on Psychology and Culture at James Madison University in Virginia where the demographics of the campus are roughly 60% female and psychology enrollment in classes is often at least 75% female. Therefore, gender is on the forefront of students’ minds. This experience, however, may occur at the expense of students’ ability to consider how other cultural variables and backgrounds may impact human functioning. The University’s demographics (about 86% White, higher than national demographics) yield an absence of visible classroom diversity. I therefore revised the interactive activities I use to help students attend to the effects of intersecting cultural backgrounds, even if they cannot see it directly. To overcome this challenge of addressing intersectionality, in the present article, I will describe the approach of dilemma-based discussion that I use to address intersectionality with gender and to foster students’ sense of social justice.