Political Oppression and Nature Bound Depression - Essay Example

REFLECTIVE PROFESSIONAL ENQUIRY PROJECT Considering the views on certain social discriminations based on sex, race, physical conditions and other oppressive situations this paper investigates the issues that guidance practitioners face when dealing with equal opportunities and upholding ethics, equality and professional practice in their work with clients. As Anti-oppressive practice of different legal and societal orientations, involve practitioners in actively seeking opportunities to challenge and undermine sexism, racism, ageism, disabilism and other forms of oppression and discrimination. This study suggests the practitioner to adopt a critical views of the institutions within which they work. Order#: 200146 Deadline: 2008-01-06 21:22 Style: Gen Language Style: English UK Pages: 14 Sources: 20 Writer ID: 6746 INTRODUCTION: POLITICAL OPPRESSION AND NATURE BOUND DEPPRESSION When a dictionary would say oppression is the act of using power to empower or privilege a group at the expense of disempowering, marginalizing, silencing, and subordinating another, it is legally and morally an injustice. It is particularly closely associated with nationalism and derived social systems, wherein identity is built by antagonism to the other. In the other hand oppression comes naturally to every individual due to the natural system of life cycle in the reaction to the environment such as old age, physically challenges and alike. We need strong bond of understanding and adequate facilities to cope up with such negative situations. Oppression is most commonly felt and expressed by a widespread, if unconscious, assumption that a certain group of people is inferior. Oppression is rarely limited solely to government action. Individuals can be victims of oppression, and in this case have no group membership to share their burden of being ostracized. In psychology, racism, sexism and other prejudices are often studied as individual beliefs, which, although not necessarily oppressive in themselves, can lead to oppression if they are acted on, or codified into law or other systems. In sociology, the tools of oppression include a progression of denigration, dehumanization and demonization, which often generate scapegoat, which is used to justify aggression against targeted groups and individuals. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the concept of Human Rights in general were designed to challenge oppression by giving a clear articulation of what limits should be placed on the power of any entity to unfairly control an individual or group of people. Transnational systems of oppression include colonialism, imperialism, and totalitarianism and can generate a resistance movement to challenge the oppressive status quo. Oppression is noted by living with constant fear. OPPRESSION ON THE HIERARCHIAL SCALE AND INTERNALIZED CONDITIONS A hierarchy of oppression is a ranking of relative oppressions according to arbitrariness and cruelty, or according to the perceived negative effects on oppressed communities. Human rights advocates as problematic, though hierarchies of oppression are often widespread even when unstated or unconscious may see hierarchies of oppression. A black lesbian woman may be assumed to be more oppressed than a straight white woman is. However, political and social activists and theorists find such hierarchies of oppression counterproductive because they prevent coalitions from being formed between oppressed groups and individuals A hierarchy of oppression may constitute a hierarchy of victimization and also a hierarchy of guilt. Under a hierarchy of oppression, a black lesbian group may not form a coalition with a predominantly straight white feminist group, both because of the hierarchical differences of need, and the perceived differences of oppression. Hierarchies of oppression may create a competition between oppressed groups, with the most oppressed as the winners. In sociology and psychology, internalized oppression is the manner in which an oppressed group comes to use against itself the methods of the oppressor. For instance, sometimes members of marginalized groups hold an oppressive view toward their own group, or start to believe in negative stereotypes of themselves. Internalized racism is when blacks believe the stereotypes of blacks are true. Some blacks believe that they are less intelligent, better dancers, or academically inferior to whites. SEXISM AND SOCIAL DISCRIMINATION Individuals can be understood or judged based solely on the characteristics of the group to which they belong-in this case, their sexual group, as males or females. This assumes that all individuals fit into the category of male or female and does not take into account intersexual people who are born with a mixture of male and female sexual characteristics. Certain forms of sexual discrimination are illegal in many countries, but nearly all countries have laws that give special rights, privileges, or responsibilities to one sex or two sexes. Historically, in many patriarchal societies, females have been and are viewed as the "weaker sex". The feminist movement promotes women's rights to end sexism against females by addressing issues such as equality under the law, political representation of females, access to education and employment, female victims of domestic violence, self-ownership of the female body, and the impact of pornography on women. While feminists broadly agree on the aims and goals of feminism, they may disagree on specific issues for instance abortion tactics, or priorities. Some critics, such as libertarian Christina Hoff Sommers have charged that of the modern feminist movement have deviated from the original goals of feminism and have instead focused on the advancement of female power and dominance through suppressing and spreading misconception views about men. Dr. Michael Flood, a sociologist at La Trobe University's Australian Research Centre in Sex writes, "The men in men's rights groups are typically in their forties and fifties, often divorced or separated, and nearly always heterosexual. In both general men's rights groups and fathers' rights groups, participants often are very angry, bitter and hurting (with good reason, they would say), and they often have gone through deeply painful marriage breakups and custody battles The most typical forms of sexism against transsexuals are how many "women-only" and "men-only" events and organizations have been criticized for rejecting transfemales, and transmales respectively. Trans-sexed people are also often the target of hate crimes, as the traditional notion of masculinity and femininity is often perceived to be threatened by those who adopt a different sex later in life. RACISM: A CURSE OF CIVILIZATION Historical economic or social disparity is alleged to be a form of discrimination which is caused by past racism and historical reasons, affecting the present generation through deficits in the formal education and kinds of preparation in the parents' generation, and, through primarily unconscious racist attitudes and actions on members of the general population. The common hypothesis embraced by classical economists is that competition in a capitalist economy decreases the impact of discrimination. The thinking behind the hypothesis is that discrimination imposes a cost on the employer, and thus a profit-driven employer will avoid racist hiring policies. There has been a long running racial tension between African Americans and Mexican Americans. There have been several significant riots in California prisons where Mexican American inmates and African Americans have targeted each other particularly, based on racial reasons. There have been reports of racially motivated attacks against African Americans who have moved into neighborhoods occupied mostly by Mexican Americans, and vice versa. There had also been cases in the late 1920's California in which Filipino immigrants have been victimized for moving into a predominantly white neighborhood, or for working in an overwhelmingly white workplace. Recently there has also been an increase in racial violence between whites and Hispanic immigrants and between African immigrants and American blacks. According to gang experts and law enforcement agents, a longstanding race war between the Mexican Mafia and the Black Guerilla family, a rival African American prison gang, has generated such intense racial hatred among Mexican Mafia leaders, or shot callers, that they have issued a "green light" on all blacks. A sort of gang-life fatwah, this amounts to a standing authorization for Latino gang members to prove their mettle by terrorizing or even murdering any blacks sighted in a neighborhood claimed by a gang loyal to the Mexican Mafia. In Britain, tensions between minority groups can be just as strong as any minority group suffers with the majority population. In Birmingham, there have been long-term divisions between the Black and South Asian communities, which were illustrated in the Handsworth riots and in the smaller 2005 Birmingham riots. Tensions between Muslims and Sikhs - two groups who have a history of bad relations - have flared in Slough and at some colleges to the west of London. In Dewsbury, a Yorkshire town with a relatively high Muslim population, there has been tensions and minor civil disturbances between Kurds and South Asians. AGEING: SUFFERING TAKES THE PLACE OF HERITAGE OF LOVE AND RESPECT THAT THEY DESERVE No one would like to grow old to experience the trauma of old age. Children and grand children neglect them. They all forget the sacrifices they made in their working age and send them to old age home. This problem in more acute in the west where family values have less priority than the present mode of happy living unlike the oriental nations. However, many current and historical intergenerational and youth programs have been created to address the issue of ageism. Among the advocacy organizations created in the United Kingdom to challenge age discrimination are Age Concern, the British Youth Council and Help the Aged. On the other hand young people to suffer due to lack of experience in the work field. Further, the instance of child labor depriving the right of childhood encompasses the difficulty of minor age in a developing country. A study by Bowling (2005) suggests that when elderly people are asked to name the single most important factor that contributes to their quality of life, the two most frequently voiced answers are social relationships (which, in Bowling's view, can imply relationships with pets as well as with other human beings), and health. There are also articles suggesting the importance of locus of control to coping with aging (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Windsor et al, 2007). A considerable literature in psychology has examined coping in the elderly. Various factors, such as social support religion and spirituality, active engagement with life and having an internal locus of control have been proposed as being beneficial in helping people to cope with stressful life events in later life. Indeed, social support and personal control have been described as being "perhaps the two most important predictors of morbidity, mortality and well-being in adulthood" (Smith, Kohm, Savage, Stevens, Finch Ingate & Lim, 2000; p458). One specific measure of locus of control that has been found to be associated with coping in the elderly is social control, perceptions of how much influence one has over one's social relationships, and evidence suggests that this may act as a moderator variable for the relationship between social support and perceived health in the elderly (Bisconti & Bergeman, 1999). Aldwin and Gilmer (2004) propose that there are five types of coping that elderly may use: - Problem-focussed coping; - Emotion-focused coping; - Social support; - Making meaning; - Religious coping. Considerable literature contests the view that the outcomes of retirement are all negative for people. As Hayslip and Panek (1989) note, evidence suggests that retirement may have both positive and negative consequences. CHALLENGES WITH THE PHYSICALLY CHALLENGED ONES Estimates of worldwide and country-wide numbers of individuals with disabilities are problematic. The varying approaches taken to defining disability notwithstanding, demographers agree that the world population of individuals with disabilities is very large. The World Health Organization, for example, estimates that there are as many as 600 million persons with disabilities. The United Nations estimate is 650 million. In the United States, for example, Americans with disabilities constitute the third-largest minority (after persons of Hispanic origin and African Americans); all three of those minority groups number in the 30-some millions in America. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, as of 2004, there were some 32 million adults (aged 18 or over) in the United States, plus another 5 million children and youth (under age 18). If one were to add impairments -- or limitations that fall short of being disabilities, Census estimates put the figure at 51 million. There is also widespread agreement among experts in the field that disability is more common in developing than in developed nations. The American Psychological Association style guide states that, when identifying a person with impairment, the person's name or pronoun should come first, and descriptions of the impairment should be used so that the impairment is identified, but is not modifying the person. Improper examples would be "A Borderline, a "Blind Person." For instance: people with Down syndrome, a man who has schizophrenia (instead of a Schizophrenic man), and a girl with paraplegia who is paraplegic. It also states that a person's adaptive equipment should be described functionally as something that assists a person, not as something that limits a person. However, in the UK, the term 'disabled people' is generally preferred to 'people with disabilities'. It is argued under the social model that while someone's impairment is part of them, 'disability' is something created by external societal factors such as a lack of wheelchair access to their workplace. Many books on disability and disability rights point out that 'disabled' is an identity that one is not necessarily born with, as disabilities are more often acquired than congenital. Disability is not an attribute of an individual, but rather a complex collection of conditions, many of which are created by the social environment. Hence, in this model, the management of the problem requires social action, and thus, it is the collective responsibility of society to make the environmental modifications necessary for the full participation of people with disabilities in all areas of social life. The issue is both cultural and ideological, requiring individual, community, and large-scale social change. Viewed from this perspective equal access for people with impairment/disability is a human rights issue of major concern. The medical model views disability as a problem of the person, directly caused by disease, trauma, or other health condition, which therefore requires sustained medical care, provided in the form of individual treatment by professionals. In the medical model, management of the disability is aimed at "cure", or the individual's adjustment and behavioral change that would lead to an "almost-cure" or effective cure. In the medical model, medical care is viewed as the main issue, and at the political level, the principal response is that of modifying or reforming healthcare policy. United Nations formally agreed on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the first human rights treaty of the 21st century, to protect and enhance the rights and opportunities of the world's estimated 650 million disabled people in December, 2006. Countries that sign up to the convention will be required to adopt national laws, and remove old ones, so that persons with disabilities would, for example, have equal rights to education, employment, and cultural life; the right to own and inherit property; not be discriminated against in marriage, children, etc; not be unwilling subjects in medical experiments. Moreover, in 1976, the United Nations launched its International Year for Disabled Persons (1981), later re-named the International Year of Disabled Persons. The UN Decade of Disabled Persons (1983-1993) featured a World Programme of Action Concerning Disabled Persons. Today, many countries have named representatives who are themselves individuals with disabilities. In 1984, UNESCO accepted sign language for use in education of deaf children and youth. CONCLUSION: THE GENERAL PRESCRIPTIONS ON SOCIETAL PRINCIPLES During the sexual revolution, there was a change in the cultural perception of sexual morality and sexual behavior. It is primarily known by liberation by feminists since some saw this new development in the West as a leveling ground for females to have as many choices concerning their sexuality as males--hoping to eliminate the problematic dichotomy of traditional Western society. There are many types of sexual discrimination depending on the environment. For instance in the employment settings one can claim that an employer had asked discriminatory questions during his or her interview process, an employer did not hire, promote or wrongfully terminated an employee based on his or her gender, plus employers can pay unequally based on gender and sexually harass an employee. In the Education setting there could be claims that a student was excluded from an educational program or opportunity due to his or her gender and a student can be sexually harassed. In case of racism, it is an influence of the megalomaniac attitude of the upper class society. Inter-minority racism is sometimes considered controversial because of theories of power in society. Prejudiced thinking among and between minority groups does occur, for example conflicts between blacks and Korean Americans, between blacks and Jews, new immigrant groups or towards whites. Likewise, Ageism commonly and most likely refers towards negative discriminatory practices, regardless of the age towards which it is applied. Education and moral values must be brought in our living institutions to render a teaching where we must learn that elders deserve respect and younger command an equal right to live a common life with education, health and entertainment whoever is the case. Thus, we don't need to have sympathy on the physically challenged ones. They are by no means behind in their spiritual, moral and even physical capacities when equal opportunities become their legal right. Current issues and debates surrounding 'disability' include social and political rights, social inclusion and citizenship. A great deal of work -- from basic physical accessibility through education to self-empowerment and self-supporting employment -- is needed. Either in private or public initiation we need to be part of those oppressed class with empathy. Disability insurance plays a vital role in providing incomes to disabled people, but the nationalized programs are the safety net that catches most claimants. REFERENCES 1. Guillaumin, Colette. 1995. Racism, Sexism, Power and Ideology. London: Routledge. 2. Hobgood, Mary Elizabeth. 2000. Dismantling Privilege: An Ethics of Accountability. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press. 3. Young-Bruehl, Elisabeth. 1996. The Anatomy of Prejudices. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 4. Nol, Lise. 1994. Intolerance, A General Survey. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. 5. Beck, Aaron, M.D. 1999 Prisoners Of Hate. New York: HarperCollins Publishers 6. Solzhenitsyn, Alexandr, "The Gulag Archipelago," Harper and Row, 1973 7. Kiernan, Ben, "The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79," Yale University Press, 1996 8. Cudd, Ann E. 2006. Analyzing Oppression. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 9. 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