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Social oppression edit
Social oppression is when a single group in society unjustly takes advantage of, and exercises power over, another group using dominance and subordination.[1] This results in the socially supported mistreatment and exploitation of a group of individuals by those with relative power.[2] In a social group setting, oppression may be based on many ideas, such as poverty, gender, class, race, caste, or other categories. Oppression by institution, or systematic oppression, is when the laws of a place create unequal treatment of a specific social identity group or groups. Another example of social oppression is when a specific social group is denied access to education that may hinder their lives in later life.[3] Economic oppression is the divide between two classes of society. These were once determined by factors such slavery, property rights, disenfranchisement, and forced displacement of livelihood. Each divide yielded various treatments and attitudes towards each group.
Social oppression derives from power dynamics and imbalances related to the social location of a group or individual. Social location, as defined by Lynn Weber, is "an individual's or a group's social 'place' in the race, class, gender and sexuality hierarchies, as well as in other critical social hierarchies such as age, ethnicity, and nation".[4][page needed] An individual's social location often determines how they will be perceived and treated by others in society. Three elements shape whether a group or individual can exercise power: the power to design or manipulate the rules and regulations, the capacity to win competitions through the exercise of political or economic force, and the ability to write and document social and political history.[5] There are four predominant social hierarchies, race, class, gender and sexuality, that contribute to social oppression.
Economic oppression edit
The term economic oppression changes in meaning and significance over time, depending on its contextual application. In today's context, economic oppression may take several forms, including, but not limited to: serfdom, forced labour, low wages, denial of equal opportunity, bonded labour, practicing employment discrimination, and economic discrimination based on sex, nationality, race, and religion.[6]
Ann Cudd describes the main forces of economic oppression as oppressive economic systems and direct and indirect forces. Even though capitalism and socialism are not inherently oppressive, they "lend themselves to oppression in characteristic ways".[7] She defines direct forces of economic oppression as "restrictions on opportunities that are applied from the outside on the oppressed, including enslavement, segregation, employment discrimination, group-based harassment, opportunity inequality, neocolonialism, and governmental corruption". This allows for a dominant social group to maintain and maximize its wealth through the intentional exploitation of economically inferior subordinates. With indirect forces (also known as oppression by choice), "the oppressed are co-opted into making individual choices that add to their own oppression". The oppressed are faced with having to decide to go against their social good, and even against their own good. If they choose otherwise, they have to choose against their interests, which may lead to resentment by their group.[7]
An example of direct forces of economic oppression is employment discrimination in the form of the gender pay gap. Restrictions on women's access to and participation in the workforce like the wage gap is an "inequality most identified with industrialized nations with nominal equal opportunity laws; legal and cultural restrictions on access to education and jobs, inequities most identified with developing nations; and unequal access to capital, variable but identified as a difficulty in both industrialized and developing nations".[8] In the United States, the median weekly earnings for women were 82 percent of the median weekly earnings for men in 2016.[9] Some argue women are prevented from achieving complete gender equality in the workplace because of the "ideal-worker norm," which "defines the committed worker as someone who works full-time and full force for forty years straight," a situation designed for the male sex.[8]
Women, in contrast, are still expected to fulfill the caretaker role and take time off for domestic needs such as pregnancy and ill family members, preventing them from conforming to the "ideal-worker norm". With the current norm in place, women are forced to juggle full-time jobs and family care at home.[10] Others believe that this difference in wage earnings is likely due to the supply and demand for women in the market because of family obligations.[11] Eber and Weichselbaumer argue that "over time, raw wage differentials worldwide have fallen substantially. Most of this decrease is due to better labor market endowments of females".[12]
Indirect economic oppression is exemplified when individuals work abroad to support their families. Outsourced employees, working abroad generally little to no bargaining power not only with their employers, but with immigration authorities as well. They could be forced to accept low wages and work in poor living conditions. And by working abroad, an outsourced employee contributes to the economy of a foreign country instead of their own. Veltman and Piper describe the effects of outsourcing on female laborers abroad:
Her work may be oppressive first in respects of being heteronomous: she may enter work under conditions of constraint; her work may bear no part of reflectively held life goals; and she may not even have the: freedom of bodily movement at work. Her work may also fail to permit a meaningful measure of economic independence or to help her support herself or her family, which she identifies as the very purpose of her working.[13]
By deciding to work abroad, laborers are "reinforcing the forces of economic oppression that presented them with such poor options".[7]
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References edit
- ^ Glasberg, Shannon, Davita, Deric (2011). Political Sociology: Oppression, Resistance, and the State. United States of America: Sage Publication Inc. p. 1. ISBN 9781452238081.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Van Wormer, K., & Besthorn, F. H. (2010). Human behavior and the social environment, macro level: Groups, communities, and organizations. Oxford University Press.
- ^ Young, Iris (1990). Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton University Press. p. 1.
- ^ Weber, Lynn (2010). Understanding Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality: A Conceptual Framework (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-538024-8. OCLC 699188746.
- ^ Ferguson, S. J. (Ed.). (2015). Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Social Class: Dimensions of Inequality and Identity. SAGE Publications.
- ^ Kirst-Ashman, K. K., & Hull, G. H. (2012). Understanding Generalist Practice. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning.
- ^ a b c Cudd, Ann E. (2006). Analyzing Oppression. Oxford University Press US. ISBN 0-19-518744-X.
- ^ a b Mupepi, Mambo (Ed.). (2016). Effective Talent Management Strategies for Organizational Success. Hershey: Business Science Reference. ISBN 1522519610.
- ^ Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, "Women's median earnings 82 percent of men's in 2016. https://www.bls.gov Archived 2017-11-23 at the Wayback Machine (visited April 21, 2017)
- ^ Kinnear, Karen L. (2011). Women in Developing Countries: a Reference Handbook. ABC-Clio. ISBN 9781598844252.
- ^ Magnusson, Charlotta. (2010). "Why Is There A Gender Wage Gap According To Occupational Prestige?" Acta Sociologica (Sage Publications, Ltd.) 53.2: 99-117. Academic Search Complete.
- ^ Weichselbaumer, D. and Winter-Ebmer, R. (2005). A Meta-Analysis of the International Gender Wage Gap. Journal of Economic Surveys, 19: 479–511. Doi: 10.1111/j.0950-0804.2005.00256.x
- ^ Veltman, A., & Piper, M. (Eds.). (2014). Autonomy, Oppression, and Gender. Oxford University Press.