Differences and Similarities of Oppression Theories - Coursework Example

Oppression Affiliation: The process of bridging the and race divide is a tall order and a critical challenge. This process requires dedicated space and time for serious analysis, internal struggle, open conversations, and deliberate actions. The process requires a careful explore of the centrality of race in shaping the history of the country, the legacy of imperialism and slavery, and the perseverance of ideas that revolve around cultural dominance (Yip, 2012). However, there is the need to explore the long history of class exploitation and the frequently hidden injuries associated with the class in the society. In order to do so, a comparison between two major theoretical texts will be carried out. The comparison will be between ‘Five Faces of Oppression, by Iris Young and ‘The Creation of Patriarchy’ By Gerda Lerner. Iris Young’s article explains the five types of oppression that include; exploitation, violence marginalization, cultural imperialism, and powerlessness. However, Gerda Lerner’s mainly explores the origin of women’s subsidiary roles to men in society. Learner’s article mainly focuses on the Neolithic period. During this period, women were exchanged between tribes for pragmatism purposes. According to Young, justice should not only apply on the feature of how it is distributed, but should also be employed to the institutional ways in which people are muffled as a group as well as an individual. After a critical review of both texts, it is clear that both writers mainly focus on oppression that is occurring in the society. This paper will seek to identify the differences and similarities in the two theorists. The main argument presented by Iris Young was to categorize the five different methods through which people that do not have the power are oppressed. Iris claims that the people who have power are the ones that oppress other people. Young’s definition for the term oppression reveals that the people in power keep down and oppress the majority who are powerless. Notably, the people who have the power gain it through ascribed status1. I concur with Youngs argument that just those with power are the ones who can mistreat. Without power, individuals cant make class frameworks, figure out who can work, have the ability to advice individuals what to do, make others acknowledge their way of life or be permitted to commit violence. These are all attributes that the overwhelming gathering in power has. Without power, individuals are enslaved to the five classifications of oppression. I think it isnt right that the individuals who control power use it to mistreat others. The individuals who have the power ought to attempt to help those without it. Learner’s argument in the creation of patriarchy concurs with Young’s arguments on oppression. Gerda claims that women in the Neolithic period were forced to produce more children so that there would be enough labor for farming. Men in the Neolithic period during that commoditized women’s production capacity which is a form of oppression. During the Neolithic period, men had power hence oppressing the women2. Additionally, during warfare, there were captives involved and included men, women, and children. So as to exercise power over the captives, men justified their control by the most seeming difference, often sex. The captives were treated depending on the sex. Men were workers while the women provided sexual pleasures and reproduction. According to Iris Young, there are two types of injustices that are present in the society namely dominance and oppression. He argues that justice does not only refer to distribution but also to institutional conditions that necessitate individual development and communication. Under this definition of justice, injustice refers to two forms of disabling constraints which are domination and oppression (Young, 2009, p. 31). The ideas of Young concerning dominance and oppression are similar to those of Gerda. Gerda argues that in the past women were forced to live under the skin of the male counterparts. Women lived under their fathers and brothers at a tender age and at a mature age they lived under their husbands. This shows that the weaker gender, Females, was always dominated over by the males. Iris Young additionally expresses that oppression is a structural idea that progressions importance in light of whether it is being characterized as in principle, and what it really is when it is all said and done (which changes in view of chronicled setting). She says that all mistreated individuals confront the normal state of being oppressed, however, all are not abused to the same degree. It is unrealistic to characterize a solitary set of criteria that applies to all. Clearly the above-named groups are not abused to the same degree or in the same ways. In the most general sense, all mistreated individuals endure some hindrance of their capacity to create and activity their abilities and express their needs, considerations, and emotions. This conforms to Lerner’s idea that patriarchy in the past and current generations hinders the ability of the females. In that conceptual sense, all oppressed individuals’ certainty a typical condition. Past that in any more particular sense, it is impractical to characterize a solitary set of criteria that portray the state of abuse of the above gatherings. In this way, endeavors by scholars and activists to find a typical depiction or the fundamental reasons for the mistreatment of all these gatherings have as often as possible prompted the unprofitable debate about whose oppression is more essential or graver (Young, 2009, p. 38). In societies, the status of men and women was in view of altogether different things as a result of the effectively subordinate part of women (Thyer, 2010). Men were judged by their resources for production, what they claimed, including the product of female sexual services; women’s status was dead set through their sexual binds to a man and his assets for generation3. Besides, women who did not comply with these hetero parts still needed to rely on upon a male overwhelming figure in their own particular family, for example, a sibling, or were basically declassed (Thyer, 2010). Customarily, women were subordinate to men all their lives and couldnt develop out of it. As the years progressed, women basically went starting with one male defender, the father, then onto the next, the spouse4. Moreover, a woman’s marriage accomplice was picked in accordance with her family’s interest. Women were likewise denied the privilege to be instructed and were let alone for History. With nothing to build plan B in light of, women were left to the abuse of patriarchy. As indicated by Lerner, "it is this peculiarity of male hegemony that has been most harming to women and has guaranteed their subordinate status for centuries (Lerner, 1986, p. 223)." Patriarchy nonetheless survived with the participation of women. As per Lerner, "This participation is secured by an assortment of means: sex inculcation; instructive hardship; the disavowal to women of information of their history; the separating of women, one from the other, by characterizing, respectability, and deviance as indicated by women’s sexual exercises; via limitations and altogether compulsion; by segregation in access to financial assets and political force; and by granting class benefits to accommodating women." (Lerner, 1986, p. 217). This argument differs with Young’s interpretation of oppression. While learner argues that oppression is due to the oppressed agreeing to continue being oppressed, young says that it is the power of the oppressors that the oppressed cannot overturn. Young says Even during the most recent century, and additionally today in the majority of the immature nations, women are minimal and subject to the security of the male kinfolk. The little number of free, supporting oneself women in different social orders are typically profoundly helpless against financial catastrophe. Today, our challenge is to "venture outside of patriarchal thought" (Lerner, 1986, p. 228) by trusting and appreciating our female experience and thought despite the fact that it has been underestimated and trivialized for as far back as 2500 years. Womens lack of knowledge our own history of achievement and struggle has been one of the significant methods for keeping us subordinate. Learner claims that the continued oppression on weaker groups is due to lack of unity among them. He relates the sexual oppression of women in the early ages to that of financial challenges experienced by women in modern society. Like those women oppressed in the past, modern women continue being oppressed due to lack of unity. Contrary to this idea, young argues that the groups that people fall into either intentionally or naturally are the source of their oppression. Young says that the culture of silence in the organized groups leads to more oppression. Some groups formed make the members of that group have a perception that they are inferior as compared to members of other groups. Even those of us officially characterizing ourselves as womens activist masterminds and occupied with the methodology of evaluating conventional frameworks of thoughts are still kept down by unacknowledged limitations inserted profoundly inside our minds5. New lady confronts a test to her extremely meaning of self. In what manner would her be able to brave thought – naming the up to this point anonymous, posing the questions characterized by all powers as "non-existent" – by what method can such thought exist together with her life as woman? In venturing out of the constructs of patriarchal thought, she confronts, as McDonald (2012) put it, "existential nothingness." And all the more quickly, she fears the risk of loss of correspondence with, regard by, and love from the man (or the men) throughout her life. Withdrawal of adoration and the assignment of deduction women as "degenerate" have generally been the method for disheartening women savvy work. Before, and now, numerous new women have turned to other women as affection items and reinforcers of self6. Hetero womens activists, as well, have all through the ages drawn quality from their kinships with women, from picked chastity, or from the partition of sex from adoration. No reasoning man has ever been undermined in his definition toward oneself and his affection life as the cost of his reasoning (McWhorter, 2009). We ought not to disparage the centrality of that part of sexual orientation control as a power limiting women from full investment currently making thought frameworks. Luckily, for this era of instructed women, liberation has implied the breaking of this passionate hold and the cognizant fortification of our selves through the backing of other women. Young says that the culture of imperialism ruined the olden societies and it continues to ruin the modern society. In accordance with our historic gender-conditioning, women have intended to please and have looked to dodge disapproval. This is a poor arrangement for making the jump into the unclear needed of the individuals who form new systems. Additionally, every new lady has been educated in patriarchal thought (McDonald, 2012). We every hold no less than one awesome man in our heads. The lack of knowledge of the women’s past has denied us of female champions, a certainty that is just as of late being revised through the improvement of Womens History. In this way, for a long time, thinking women have revamped the thought frameworks made by men, taking part in a dialog with the immense male personalities in their heads. Elizabeth Cady Stanton tackled the Bible, the Church fathers, the originators of the American republic. Kate Millet contended with Norman Mailer, Freud, and the liberal abstract foundation; Simone de Beauvoir with Sartre, Camus and Marx, and; all Marxist-Feminists are in a dialog with Marx and Engels and some likewise with Freud. In this dialog, lady means just to acknowledge whatever she discovers helpful to her in the colossal mans framework. In any case in these frameworks lady as an idea, an aggregate substance, an individual-is minimal or subsumed. In conclusion, Young and Learner have ideas that match one another while others contradict each other. Oppression is reinforced and related to many ideological’-isms’ and phobias that are present in our society. Most people in the society especially the women experience one or more of these forms of oppression. This experience dates back to the Neolithic period. However, in today’s society, most people experience most working class experience powerlessness and exploitation. A good example of this is in my case where I experience powerlessness and exploitation from my husband. Apart from my case, gay men experience cultural violence and dominance. However, it is through these five forms of oppression that we do get a chance to understand the social structures that are responsible for creating oppressive conditions. References Blackwell, J., Smith, M. and Sorenson, J. (2003). Culture of prejudice. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press. Corlett, J. (2010). Heirs of oppression. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Engel, D. and McCann, M. (2009). Fault lines. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Law Books. Kristof, N. and WuDunn, S. (2009). Half the sky. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Lerner, G. (1986). The Creation of Patriarchy New York Oxford University Press. McDonald, K. (2012). Feminism, the left, and postwar literary culture. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. McWhorter, L. (2009). Racism and sexual oppression in Anglo-America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Thyer, B. (2010). Cultural diversity and social work practice. Springfield: Charles C Thomas Publisher. Yip, K. (2012). Pedagogy of power, oppression and empowerment. Hauppauge, N.Y.: Nova Science Publishers. Young, I. M. (2009). Five faces of oppression. Geographic Thought. A Praxis Perspective. Read More