Privilege and Oppression

We live in an oppressive society. In the article “Oppression” by Marilyn Frye, she explains that the main difference between being sad or miserable and actually being oppressed is that oppressed people have to live their lives trapped in a cage. This invisible cage of forces and barriers is what oppression is. If someone is a part of a privileged group, they will never be oppressed for having that quality. For example, if a heterosexual white man doesn’t get a job he wanted or the apartment he applied for, it will never be because he was white or heterosexual or a man. If a white person isn’t allowed to go into a “ghetto”, this is not a form of oppression, because it does not benefit the inhabitants of that ghetto. That ghetto was created and maintained by white people for the benefit of white people. Frye compares oppression to a birdcage. If one only looks at each individual bar, or instance of oppression, then that is all they can see. If they look to left or the right of the bar, they cannot see any reason why the bird doesn’t just fly around the bar. This is called microscopic vision. If one can use macroscopic vision and look at all of the bars as a whole, they can understand why the bird is trapped with no way out.

In the article “White Privilege”, Peggy McIntosh writes about how the vast majority of privileged people are completely oblivious to their own privileges. White people never experience racial oppression. Men never experience gender oppression. White people are taught to think of themselves as neutral and normal, defined only by the person that they choose to be. These kinds of attitudes can be extremely detrimental. Oppression isn’t just about the small acts of racism or sexism from each individual person. Oppression is about the whole invisible system that benefits the dominant group and oppresses the subordinate group. And furthermore, just disapproving of this system is not enough to genuinely change anything. People have to acknowledge their privilege and the oppression that exists in our society. If we don’t talk about it, no one will do anything to end it.

In Audre Lorde’s article “Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference”, she discusses how our society is trained to see the difference of others in a painfully simple, opposite way. People are either good or bad, superior or inferior. In this particular kind of society, there will always be a group of people who are made to feel inferior because of a deeply rooted system of oppression. Lorde states that in our society, the forms of oppression that exist are racism, sexism, ageism, heterosexism, elitism and classism. I think that list should also include ableism and transphobia. The majority of Lorde’s article addresses the issue of white feminists who focus solely on their own oppression as females. They fail to acknowledge women from other oppressed groups and consider those women’s disadvantages.

I personally identify as an intersectional feminist. Intersectional feminism is a sect of feminism that acknowledges, represents and supports all women of every age, class, race, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity. All feminists should be intersectional feminists, because the whole point of feminism is to stand together to bring women to full equality. When we let our differences separate us, we cannot be a united force, and we miss out on so much of the real world that exists around us. If we don’t speak up for each other, then we’re doing our part to perpetuate the vicious cycle of oppression. The only way we can end oppression is by acknowledging our privilege and speaking up about it when it happens. The more we talk about it, the more we can do to make a change in our society.