Belle - I don’t know the answers to #1. + #2.

For #3., I’d argue the answer is a resounding “yes” and there’s lots of good sociology that does precisely that. Take a look at Christine Williams’ book on female marines and male nurses for a really well-designed methodology that looks at gender as imbedded in institutions, rather than as a ‘variable.’ Britton extends this work in her look at correctional officers.

For #4., I think if you want a scholarship of resistance and truth you have to look to critical theory /the Frankfurt School, and specifically Marcuse and Adorno. Joan Alway has a good book from 1995 called “Critical Theory and Political Possibilities.”

For the bonus #5., all due respect, but uhm, hogwash. CRT did not come up with “intersectionality,” though someone in the field may have coined that term (which I’m not crazy about, though I’ve recently taken to using it), but certainly not the intellectual project. People in sociology like Bonnie Thornton Dill, Elizabeth Higginbotham, Patricia Hill Collins, Margaret Andersen(to name just a few), were all doing what’s now referred to as “intersectionality” before CRT appeared on the horizon.

Make mine a Bombay Sapphire please, 3 olives. ;-)

As to the origins of intersectionality theory, I think Kim Crenshaw and Angela Harris both have a claim (full disclosure, harris was on my dissertation committee) but so does Elizabeth Spellman who wrote the first book on it (that I know of) Inessential woman.

Belle - email me — I want to get together at LSA.

In case you haven’t heard about it and speaking of UC-Irvine, if you’re nearby (and it sounds like you may be), you might check out the following conference (Gomez is one of the organizers):

http://www.lawandsociety.org/review/UCI_call.htm

I suspect many of the issues that you raise above will be discussed at length.