Understanding the concept of Oppression

Understanding the concept of Oppression

Many Scholars in their work have various explanations of the philosophy of Oppression. A comparative analysis and comparisons of different arguments on this topic seem to agree. Iris Marion Young is one of the philosophers who have worked on this Philosophy. Does Iris Marion Young’s offer an adequate account of Oppression? Why? Why not?

After reading through Marion’s work on Oppression by “Iris Youngs Five Faces of Oppression Applied to Nursing.” ,(Dubrosky and Rebekah), I admit that Young has made tremendous efforts to explain the concept of Oppression adequately. However, I do not agree that she has sufficiently given an account of Oppression. Young’s account of Oppression does not convince me to agree with her arguments and explanation on this topic. I do not imply that her discussions are not exciting or convincing. But, it is because there are few areas that I noticed she might have failed to explain adequately to bring home the meaning of Oppression.

According to Heldke and OConnor, Oppression traditionally implies “the act to exercise tyranny by a dominant or ruling group, thereby bringing about injustice/unfairness” (181). Otherwise, Oppression is when certain people reduce the potential for others to feel like human-like when people make other people less human. It could mean treating them in a dehumanizing manner. But, it could also mean denying people language, education, and other opportunities that might make them become fully human in both mind and body. People should be free to pursue life plans in their way. Oppressive forces seek to diminish those plans and thus, those people as well as victims.

Oppression usually causes injustice to victims. Often it is brought about by dominant people or groups’ choices or policies. These choices lead to bad habits or norms that become a symbol. Perpetrators of Oppression are usually cruel tyrants with bad intentions and system based constraints by liberal societies to limit freedom.

According to Dubrosky, “Iris Young’s five faces of Oppression” include the following: Violence, exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, and cultural imperialism (205).

Faces of Oppression

Firstly, violence is when members of some groups live knowing that they must fear random, unprovoked attacks on them and their property. These attacks have an intention to damage, humiliate, or destroy the person. For instance, In American society, women, Blacks, Asians, Arabs, gay men, and lesbians live under such threats of violence. Examples of violent oppressions include all forms of sexual violence and hate crimes are typical examples of Fviolent Oppression. Most, if not all, violent Oppression is the direct result of a xenophobia-an intense and irrational fear of people, ideas, or customs that seem strange or foreign.

Marginalization refers to a process of exclusion whereby a group of people gets relegated or confined to a lower social standing or outer limit or edge of society. Marginalization is worse than exploitation because society has decided that it cannot or will not use these relegated people even for labour. Most commonly, people are marginalized based upon race. For example, the Aboriginal communities of Australia were excluded from society and pushed farther away from their homelands as cities grew.

According to (Carl Marx) in his theory of socialism, he argues that socialism and powerlessness are connected. That “some people have power while others have-not” [DC5] The ruling class dominates powerless people. They tend to take orders but rarely have the right to give them. Injustices associated with powerlessness include; inability to develop one’s capacities, lack of power to make decisions, and exposure to disrespectful treatment due to lowered status. For instance, In the U.S., the powerless do not participate in basic democratic processes because they feel that they can’t or that their participation won’t mean anything.

Cultural Imperialism is the establishment of norms through the culture of the ruling class. Dominant groups in society control how people in that society communicate and interpret and things. Usually, the beliefs of that society are widely spread out and express the experience, values, goals, and achievements of these groups. For instance, in America, American culture is founded on Judeo-Christian belief systems coupled with an Anglo culture derived from Britain. Because of this, America’s fundamental beliefs and values are similar to Christian beliefs and values and Anglicized/White beliefs and values.

Exploitation is using people’s human resources to produce profit without compensating them fairly. For instance, in Africa, miners are exploited since they have to rent their mining tools every day. In case they find nothing of value on any given day, then they owe for the supplied rental and are not paid for their efforts. Exploitation uses capitalism to oppress. The economic theory of capitalism states that people are free to exchange goods freely. Yet, whenever this has happened throughout history, it has created different classes of people: wealthy and poor

According to Karl Marx, said that capitalism creates “haves” those that have wealth and “have-nots” those that do not have wealth. In a capitalistic society, the “haves” exploit the “have-nots” for their hard work, thereby creating a system that perpetuates class differences while keeping the rich richer and the poor more impoverished.

Reasons against Young’s Argument

Although Young has done great work in explaining the philosophy of Oppression, I beg to differ that she did not adequately exhaust explaining on the topic. My stand is supported by succeeding arguments which are also still subject to contest by other scholars.

Young made significant strides while elaborately explaining the different faces of Oppression. However, she didn’t identify the specific group of oppressed people on a day to day basis, and the forms of Oppression they experience in their day to day lives. Types of Oppression are as follows; retributive injustices are behaviours and attitudes of people in authority in response to moral rule-breaking. Procedural injustice means fairness of procedures that determine an outcome, and distributive injustices imply perceived unfairness on one’s outcomes. Cultural imperialism which is the universalization of a dominant group’s culture and experience, thereby making it a norm, and moral exclusion, implying who and who isn’t entitled to fair treatment). All these ought to be examined thoroughly while looking at Oppression.

I am greatly indebted to the author for elaborately explaining how Oppression manifests itself in distinct ways. However, after an in-depth analysis of her work, I have noticed a slight failure to contextualize Oppression daily. Borrowing from Berger and Luckman’s work on the social construction theory, Lock & Strong argue that; “different people present themselves in various forms or shape” (85).

Who we are today determined by our past experiences, relations, and social interactions. Today, Oppression is due to policies, practices, norms, and traditions which differentiate and separates groups.

I have noted Young’s failure to incorporate three aspects of each face or, a form of Oppression which includes; stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination. It means for each type of Oppression is defined by the kind of stereotype, prejudice, and be discrimination it imposes on the victim. Stereotypes generalize the behaviours and characteristics of people in various forms of Oppression. These people usually have a negative preconceived notion on certain groups based on their social, physical, and cultural aspects.

Usually, individuals experience discrimination when prejudice continuously happens to individuals. It means unequal treatment of people or groups based upon their behavior or characteristics. Discrimination is brought about by an individual’s race, national, or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex age, or mental or physical disability. I bring another component-the lens of the prism “Isms”. According to (Jones, et al.) they argue that “stereotype prejudice and the discrimination to each Ism of various forms of Oppression include: ableism, class-ism heterosexism racism sexism and size-ism.”

Example of an “Ism” Sexism is as follows; sexism refers to attitudes or behaviours based upon the belief that one sex is superior to the other, leading to the discrimination of that sex and the roles related to it. Stereotype: For example, all women belong in the kitchen and their husbands, own women. Prejudice: Example; Assuming that gender is a choice and those who change are being selfish. Discrimination: Paying women less because they are assumed to be doing less work than men or women not being able to get birth control without their husbands’ consent.

I also fail to agree with Young’s suggestion that violence as a form of Oppression is due to xenophobia. Xenophobia means irrational and intense fear of people’s ideas or customs that are strange to a region. Xenophobia is a form of violence but has several causes. Also, violence alone cannot bring xenophobia and vice versa. For instance, uncommon cultural practices in a particular region can cause violence on a specific group, otherwise also known as xenophobia. On the other hand, xenophobia can bring about violence as victims of xenophobic acts retaliate in self-defence. Violence takes different shapes, and the most common forms of violence are; Political and institutional Violence, Economic Violence, Sexual Violence, information violence, religious Violence, cultural Violence, and cyberbullying.

I can admit that my reasoning is not perfect, but as I see that Young’s argument is incomplete, which is why I remain dissatisfied with Young throughout her work. Mainly I take issue with Young’s facts that narrow the scope of Oppression to five forms without considering other critical components of each type including; stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination. Young also does not put into consideration the basis upon which discrimination comes to play in each form of Oppression.

Work Cited

Dubrosky, Rebekah. “Iris Youngs Five Faces of Oppression Applied to Nursing.” Nursing Forum, vol. 48, no. 3, 2013, pp. 205–210., doi:10.1111/nuf.12027.

Lock, Andrew, and Tom Strong. Social Constructionism Sources and Stirrings in Theory and Practice. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2011.1Q

Heldke, Lisa Maree, and Peg OConnor. Oppression, Privilege, and Resistance: Theoretical Perspectives on Racism, Sexism, and Heterosexism. McGraw-Hill, 2004.

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