Oppression

 Mullaly, Bob. The “Web”: The Multiplicity, Intersectionality, and Heterogeneity of Oppression

Generally, we observe that in a society, there is less Oppression where we have more multiple identities (Like skin colour and gender).

In a society, people have multiple identities, and they intersect and overlap each other. That’s why the same Oppression doesn’t work with all people similarly. Bullying doesn’t work in the same way for all students. A black child gets bullied in a different way than a white kid. Generally, people aren’t aware of any oppression unless they become victims of it, like labour issues.

Oppression starts when a person or a group of people with a shared identity want to live better; they don’t care to put pressure on others who have another common. For example, White Christians decided to take over land and enslave other humans to benefit their country.

Models of Multiple Oppression

Sociologists agree that most oppressions are multi-faced.

                Single Stand Model: This oppression is formed for one single reason. Like Marxists believe in one single Oppression, the “Worker group oppression.” It doesn’t matter whether the person is a man or woman, black or white.

                Parallel Model: This oppression is formed for multiple reasons, which run parallel. And this kind of Oppression attacks a particular group, like sexism, mainly against women. However, this model also has some limitations.

                Intersectional Model: When people of different identities come together, their identities intersect, and that forms the Intersectional Model of Oppression. Class, gender, race, and age can cross at the same time. This model of Oppression doesn’t discuss the hierarchy of Oppression. It assumes all oppressions are equal.

The web of Oppression: This means a person is at the center of different Oppressions, like gender, race, etc. Here, people cannot choose this position like a father’s position. This position on the web is our identity. It can change, too.

For Analysis, sociologists need to be careful about all intersections of Oppression, how they react in the intersections, which Oppression dominates, and why. Multy Oppression is very complex. For example, someone gets raped. She was a woman, black, a worker, unmarried, poor, etc. Here, lots of oppression intersects with each other. Here, the hierarchy of Oppression can not be measured by only numbers.

Heterogeneity with Oppressed group: There are various kinds of Oppression. Like Classism (This Oppression has a significant impact in society, where people are classified by their wealth), Racism (Here people believe that human ability is determined by race), Sexism (Set of the community assumes that Oppressed women), Heterosexism (Commonly after birth society identify human as a male or female, but there are other versions too like gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender. This Oppression goes against them), Ageism (When age divided the society in power, ability, respect, etc.), and Ableism (Oppression against the disabled person)

 

Source: Mullaly, Bob. The “Web”: The Multiplicity, Intersectionality, and Heterogeneity of Oppression, Chapter 7, P 105-136.