Patricia Hill Collins

The matrix of domination describes how systems such as racism, sexism, class inequality, and heterosexism operate together rather than independently. Collins developed the idea prominently in Black Feminist Thought, first published in 1990.

Collins is a foundational theorist of intersecting systems of power through her work on Black feminist thought and the matrix of domination. Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality in 1989, while Collins developed a closely related sociological framework.

The outsider-within describes people who participate in an institution while remaining socially marginalized inside it. Collins used Black women's domestic work in white households as a key example of how partial inclusion can produce a distinctive view of power.

Black Feminist Thought is her central theoretical work and examines knowledge, power, and Black women's intellectual traditions. Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory, published in 2019, offers a later account of intersectionality's methods and political possibilities.