More stories from The New Rules Summit Special Report.

The term “intersectionality” was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a professor of law at Columbia University and the University of California, Los Angeles, almost 30 years ago, although it never had the prominence — at least in some circles — it has now.

“I think about this all the time,” said Stacy Brown-Philpot, the chief executive of TaskRabbit. “When I get on stage, I’m a black woman. And I’m a black C.E.O. Being a C.E.O. in general can be lonely sometimes. As one of the few black female C.E.O.s, the loneliness builds.”

A study by Catalyst, a nonprofit consulting and research organization on women in business, looked at what it called the emotional tax women and men of color face in the workplace.

“It’s a feeling of having to protect against bias or unfair treatment — of having to be on guard,” said Dnika J. Travis, vice president of research for Catalyst.

The survey of almost 1,600 participants in a variety of corporate and noncorporate settings included those who identified as Asian, African-American, Latino or a combination of any of those, she said.