Exploitation and Cultural Imperialism - Essay Example

EXPLOITATION AND CULTURAL IMPERIALISM Affiliation The notion and aspect of cultural imperialism require incisive and thorough in look to gauge and understand in its entirety and totality. The process demands an in-depth analysis of the centrality of race in shaping the history of the country. It would also follow that the history of slavery, imperialism and the tolerance of ideas which touch on the notion of cultural dominance. However, there is the need to explore the long tradition of class exploitation and the frequently hidden injuries associated with the class in the society. In order to do so, a comparison between two primary 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 abuse that include; exploitation, violence marginalization, cultural imperialism, and powerlessness (Lerner, 1993).1 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. However, for the purposes of this essay and argument, this paper will discuss and focus on the aspect and issues of cultural imperialism and exploitation as put forth by Gerda Young comparatively against Iris Young opinions. In the natural and conventional wisdom, it refers to the fact that section or part of the society would feel superior and domineering or overbearing over and above the others. This happens in the instances where a part of the world would feel that their lifestyle and the way in which they live is the best, and the cultures of other people are inferior. Thus, in the tail end, it follows that the people who feel that their culture or in principle their way of life is the superior start to impose on the others. In so doing, they would start to coerce and intimidate others whom they consider culturally inferior to change and embrace their lifestyle and method of lifestyle. The same also extends to the gender roles where the males domineer or pose an overbearing approach to the lives of women. This happens since the men in most cases seek to define and control what ought to constitute the gender performance and role of the women (Lerner, 2005).2 For instance the men may seek to define the roles or women relative to domestic and office duties. This is where the men may seek to dominate or use their conventional masculine ability to control and impose their wishes and roles on women. Iris claims that the people who have the power are the ones that oppress other people. Young’s definition of the term oppression reveals that the people in power keep down and oppress the majority who are powerless (Young, 1997, p. 149).3 Notably, the people who have the power gain it through ascribed status (Lerner, 1998).4 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 advise 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. 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 women. 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 (Lerner, 2004).5 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 various types of injustices that are present in the society such as exploitation and cultural imperialism. He argues that exploitation does not only refer to the distribution but also to institutional conditions that necessitate individual development and communication. (Young, 2009, p. 31). The ideas of Young concerning exploitation and cultural imperialism are similar to those of Gerda in principle. 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 says that all exploited individuals may not have been exploited or abused to the same degree. It is unrealistic to characterize a solitary set of criteria that applies to all. In the most general sense, all exploited individuals endure some hindrance of their capacity to create and activity their abilities and express their needs, considerations, and emotions (Young, 2009, p. 38). 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. This stems from the fact that the notion and aspect of cultural imperialism impose some power and degree of control over the exploited person. The males have over the years invested and relied on the system of patriarchal belief and oppressive regimes where the males and females are exposed to a system of historical disposition. In principle, the women are expected to give birth and serve as tools of sexual gratification to the males. The females are also expected to give birth and please the men and the society by extension. In case the woman gives birth, in the natural sense and conventional knowledge it might have been expected that the society and the males would appreciate that. However, the males do not accord the females the due attention and recognition that it due to them. In the simplest and the most basic sense refers to the exploitation because the women are not appreciated for the role that they play in the bringing. It then remains that the women are exploited and used for their sexuality. In societies, the status of men and women was in view of altogether different things as a result of the actually subordinate part of women. 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 generation. 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 mainly declassed. 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 spouse. 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. According to 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).6 This argument differs with Young’s interpretation of exploitation. While learner argues that exploitation is due to the exploited being party to exploitation. Young, on the other hand, says that it is the power of the exploiters that the exploited 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). This could be done 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 exploitation of 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 exploited in the past, modern women continue being exploited 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 exploitation. Young says that the culture of silence in the organized groups leads to more exploitation. For instance, 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 minds. New lady confronts a test to her extremely meaning of self (Young et al 1996, p. 369).7 In principle, it calls in rhetoric the manner which would a woman to brave herself and improve confidence. In venturing out of the constructs of patriarchal thought, she confronts as clinically put "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 reinforces of self. 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. We ought not to disparage the centrality of that part of sexual orientation control as a power limiting women from the full investment currently making thought frameworks (Young, 2011).8 Luckily, for this era of instructed women, liberation has implied the breaking of this passionate hold and the cognizant fortification of ourselves through the backing of other women. Young says that the culture of imperialism ruined the older 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 and cultures (Young, 1989, p. 253).9 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 (Lerner, 1974).10 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. Exploitation 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 exploitation since they are at the behest and societal mercy of the dominant men. This experience dates back to the Neolithic period. However, in today’s society, most people experience most working class experience cultural imperialism and exploitation. This happens when women are subjected to the societal definition and description of men, which in most cases refer to them as weak. This is also aided by the fact that the society has been predisposed to a societal structure and system of obscured feminity and elevated masculinity. The above essay has articulated and highlighted the place of males, which in the simplest approach refers to cultural imperialism. In the long end, the position and status of women are exploited since they are not assigned the respect and recognition that ought to be due to them (Young, 1985, p. 383).11 The essay has also explained how the society as a whole is nurtured into believing the stereotypes about the position of the women and men relative to cultural imperialism. References Lerner, G. (1993). The creation of feminist consciousness: From the middle-ages to eighteen-seventy (Vol. 2). Oxford University Press. Lerner, G. (2005). The majority finds its past: Placing women in history. UNC Press Books. Lerner, G. (1998). Why history matters: Life and thought. Oxford University Press. Lerner, G. (2004). The Grimke sisters from South Carolina: Pioneers for Womens rights and abolition. Univ of North Carolina Press. Lerner, G. (1964). Early community work of Black club women. Journal of Negro History, 158-167. Young, I. R., Hajnal, J. V., Roberts, I. G., Ling, J. X., Hill‐Cottingham, R. J., Oatridge, A., & Wilson, J. A. (1996). An evaluation of the effects of susceptibility changes on the water chemical shift method of temperature measurement in human peripheral muscle. Magnetic resonance in medicine, 36(3), 366-374.12 Young, I. M. (2011). Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton University Press. Young, I. M. (2009). Five faces of oppression. Geographic Thought. A Praxis Perspective. Young, I. M. (1989). Polity and group difference: a critique of the ideal of universal citizenship. Ethics, 250-274. Young, I. M. (1997). Unruly categories: a critique of Nancy Fraser’s dual systems theory. New Left Review, 147-160. Young, I. M. (1986). The ideal of community and the politics of difference. Social theory and practice, 1-26. Young, I. M. (1985). Impartiality and the civic public: Some implications of feminist critiques of moral and political theory. Praxis International, (4), 381-401. Read More