Anti-essentialist feminist legal theory was created by women of color and lesbians in the 1980s who felt feminist legal theory was excluding their perspectives and experiences. Anti-essentialist and intersectionalist critiques of feminists have objected to the idea that there can be any universal women's voice and have criticized feminists, as did Black feminism, for implicitly basing their work on the experiences of white, middle class, heterosexual women. The anti-essentialist and intersectionalist project has been to explore the ways in which race, class, sexual orientation, and other axes of subordination interplay with gender and to uncover the implicit, detrimental assumptions that have often been employed in feminist theory. This model challenges feminist legal theorists who only address how the law affects heterosexual, middle-class white women. Anti-essentialist feminist legal theory recognizes that the identities of individual women shape their experiences, so the law does not influence all women in the same ways. It is about building actual equality for all regardless or gender, race, sexual orientation, class, or disability.