I think that the "tight cubbyholes" is a bit of a strawman (in general, not that you're using it as such. Its absolutely how these ideas are often presented in

I think that the "tight cubbyholes" is a bit of a strawman (in general, not that you're using it as such. Its absolutely how these ideas are often presented in the mainstream). I know a lot of feminist/anti-racist/queer activists. None of them are trying to put people into tight cubbyholes. They are actually all pushing for greater awareness of how people don't fit into these cubbyholes. The whole idea of intersectionality* (which is foundational in modern "woke" politics) is based on this. The tight cubbyholes aspect is often either a strawman presented by people who are against making changes (at the softest end, or actively hateful at the hardest). Or is something that the powers that be (managers, politicians, whatever) insist on when they implement any changes. Often these are either against what activists are calling for or a begrudged concession to bureaucracy and data collection. The data analysis aspect is unfortunately important. In an ideal world it wouldn't be, but thats not where we are. It doesn't just highlight outright bigotry, but inadvertant discrimination (eg only holding interviews at times which inadvertantly don't work for people (often women) with child care responsibilities), or even problems beyond an organisation (eg the pipeline issue). *Intersectionality is about recognising all the different aspects of a person's identity and the different ways that they priviledge/disadvantage them in different circumstances. It was explicitly developed by black women who were being let down by both black support systems which all targeted at black men, and women's support networks which targeted white women. They recognised that just adding a "black women" box only addressed the immediate issue so built a framework to analyse the Intersection of identities more generally.