Professional Documents
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DeFilippis, James, and Susan Saegert. <i>The Community Development Reader</i>, Routledge, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/psu/detail.action?docID=1143851.
Created from psu on 2019-06-20 15:13:51.
Five Faces of Oppression | 329
the recognition that group differences cut and the value of the capacity to labor which
across individual lives in a multiplicity of the capitalist purchases. Profit is possible
ways that can entail privilege and oppres- only because the owner of capital appropri-
sion for the same person in different ates any realized surplus value.
respects. Only a plural explication of the The injustice of capitalist society consists
concept of oppression can adequately in the fact that some people exercise their
capture these insights. capacities under the control, according to
Accordingly, I offer below an explication the purposes, and for the benefit of other
of five faces of oppression as a useful set of people. Through private ownership of the
categories and distinctions which I believe is means of production, and through markets
comprehensive, in the sense that it covers all that allocate labor and the ability to buy
the groups said by new left social move- goods, capitalism systematically transfers
ments to be oppressed and all the ways they the powers of some persons to others,
are oppressed. thereby augmenting the power of the latter.
DeFilippis, James, and Susan Saegert. <i>The Community Development Reader</i>, Routledge, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/psu/detail.action?docID=1143851.
Created from psu on 2019-06-20 15:13:51.
330 | I. M. Young
Not only are powers transferred from Gender exploitation has two aspects, trans-
workers to capitalists, but also the powers fer of the fruits of material labor to men and
of workers diminish by more than the transfer of nurturing and sexual energies to
amount of transfer, because workers suffer men.
material deprivation and a loss of control, Women provide men and children with
and hence are deprived of important ele- emotional care and provide men with sexual
ments of self-respect. Justice, then, requires satisfaction, and as a group receive relatively
eliminating the institutional forms that little of either from men (Brittan &
enable and enforce this process of transfer- Maynard, 1984, pp. 142–148). The gender
ence and replacing them with institutional socialization of women makes us tend to be
forms that enable all to develop and use more attentive to interactive dynamics than
their capacities in a way that does not men, and makes women good at providing
inhibit, but rather can enhance, similar empathy and support for people’s feelings
development and use in others. and at smoothing over interactive tensions.
The central insight expressed in the Both men and women look to women as
concept of exploitation, then, is that this nurturers of their personal lives, and women
oppression occurs through a steady process frequently complain that when they look to
of the transfer of the results of the labor of men for emotional support they do not
one social group to benefit another. Exploi- receive it (Easton, 1978). The norms of het-
tation enacts a structural relation between erosexuality, moreover, are oriented around
social groups. Social rules about what work male pleasure, and consequently many
is, who does what for whom, how work is women receive little satisfaction from their
compensated, and the social process by sexual interaction with men (Gottlieb,
which the results of work are appropriated 1984).
operate to enact relations of power and In 20th century capitalist economies the
inequality. These relations are produced and workplaces that women have been entering
reproduced through a systematic process in in increasing numbers serve as another
which the energies of the have-nots are con- important site of gender exploitation. Alex-
tinuously expended to maintain and ander (1987) argues that typically feminine
augment the power, status, and wealth of jobs involve gender-based tasks requiring
the haves. sexual labor, nurturing, caring for others’
The Marxist concept of class leaves bodies, or smoothing over workplace ten-
important phenomena of sexual and racial sions. In these ways women’s energies are
oppression unexplained. Does this mean expended in jobs that enhance the status of,
that sexual and racial oppression are non- please, or comfort others, usually men; and
exploitative, and that we should reserve these gender-based labors of waitresses,
wholly distinct categories for these oppres- clerical workers, nurses, and other caretak-
sions? Or can the concept of exploitation be ers often go unnoticed and under-
Copyright © 2012. Routledge. All rights reserved.
DeFilippis, James, and Susan Saegert. <i>The Community Development Reader</i>, Routledge, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/psu/detail.action?docID=1143851.
Created from psu on 2019-06-20 15:13:51.
Five Faces of Oppression | 331
around them, or providing them with sexual are people the system of labor cannot or will
or emotional service. not use. Not only in Third World capitalist
Are there, then, racially specific forms of countries, but also in most Western capital-
exploitation? There is no doubt that racial- ist societies, there is a growing underclass of
ized groups in the United States, especially people permanently confined to lives of
blacks and Latinos, are oppressed through social marginality, most of whom are
capitalist super-exploitation resulting from a racially marked—blacks or Indians in Latin
segmented labor market that tends to America, and blacks, East Indians, Eastern
reserve skilled, high-paying, unionized jobs Europeans, or North Africans in Europe.
for whites. Marginalization is by no means the fate
Is it possible to conceptualize a form of only of racially marked groups, however. In
exploitation that is racially specific on the United States a shamefully large propor-
analogy with the gender-specific forms just tion of the population is marginal: old
discussed? I suggest that the category of people, and increasingly people who are not
menial labor might supply a means for such very old but get laid off from their jobs and
conceptualization. In its derivation “menial” cannot find new work; young people, espe-
designates the labor of servants. Wherever cially black or Latino, who cannot find first
there is racism, there is the assumption, or second jobs; many single mothers and
more or less enforced, that members of the their children; other people involuntarily
oppressed racial groups are or ought to be unemployed; many mentally and physically
servants of those, or some of those, in the disabled people; American Indians, espe-
privileged group. In most white racist soci cially those on reservations.
eties this means that many white people Marginalization is perhaps the most dan-
have dark- or yellow-skinned domestic serv- gerous form of oppression. A whole cat-
ants, and in the United States today there egory of people is expelled from useful
remains significant racial structuring of participation in social life and thus poten-
private household service. But in the United tially subjected to severe material depriva-
States today much service labor has gone tion and even extermination. Advanced
public: anyone who goes to a good hotel or capitalist societies often recognize this depri-
a good restaurant can have servants. In our vation and at least partially address it
society there remains strong cultural pres- through welfare policies. Material depriva-
sure to fill servant jobs—bellhop, porter, tion, which can be addressed by redistribu-
chambermaid, busboy, and so on—with tive social policies, is not, however, the
black and Latino workers. These jobs entail extent of the harm caused by marginaliza-
a transfer of energies whereby the servers tion. Two categories of injustice beyond dis-
enhance the status of the served. tribution are associated with marginality in
Menial labor usually refers not only to advanced capitalist societies. First, the pro-
service, however, but also to any servile, vision of welfare itself produces new injus-
Copyright © 2012. Routledge. All rights reserved.
DeFilippis, James, and Susan Saegert. <i>The Community Development Reader</i>, Routledge, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/psu/detail.action?docID=1143851.
Created from psu on 2019-06-20 15:13:51.
332 | I. M. Young
Thus poor people, women, the mad and the from women’s typical domestic care
feebleminded, and children were explicitly responsibilities and from the kinds of paid
excluded from citizenship, and many of work that many women do, tends to recog-
these were housed in institutions modeled nize dependence as a basic human condition
on the modern prison: poorhouses, insane (Hartsock, 1983). Whereas on the auton-
asylums, schools. omy model a just society would as much as
Today the exclusion of dependent persons possible give people the opportunity to be
from equal citizenship rights is only barely independent, the feminist model envisions
hidden beneath the surface. Because they justice as according respect and participa-
depend on bureaucratic institutions for tion in decision-making to those who are
support or services, the old, the poor, and dependent as well as to those who are inde-
the mentally or physically disabled are pendent (Held, 1987). Dependency should
subject to patronizing, punitive, demeaning, not be a reason to be deprived of choice and
and arbitrary treatment by the policies and respect, and much of the oppression many
people associated with welfare bureaucra- marginals experience would be lessened if a
cies. Being a dependent in our society less individualistic model of rights prevailed.
implies being legitimately subject to the
often arbitrary and invasive authority of
social service providers and other public and POWERLESSNESS
private administrators, who enforce rules
with which the marginal must comply, and As I have indicated, the Marxist idea of
otherwise exercise power over the con- class is important because it helps reveal the
ditions of their lives. In meeting needs of the structure of exploitation: that some people
marginalized, often with the aid of social have their power and wealth because they
scientific disciplines, welfare agencies also profit from the labor of others. For this
construct the needs themselves. Dependency reason I reject the claim some make that a
in our society thus implies, as it has in all traditional class exploitation model fails to
liberal societies, a sufficient warrant to capture the structure of contemporary
suspend basic rights to privacy, respect, and society. It remains the case that the labor of
individual choice. most people in the society augments the
Although dependency produces con- power of relatively few.
ditions of injustice in our society, depend- While it is false to claim that a division
ency in itself need not be oppressive. One between capitalist and working classes no
cannot imagine a society in which some longer describes our society, it is also false to
people would not need to be dependent on say that class relations have remained unal-
others at least some of the time: children, tered since the 19th century. An adequate
sick people, women recovering from child- conception of oppression cannot ignore the
birth, old people who have become frail, experience of social division reflected in the
Copyright © 2012. Routledge. All rights reserved.
DeFilippis, James, and Susan Saegert. <i>The Community Development Reader</i>, Routledge, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/psu/detail.action?docID=1143851.
Created from psu on 2019-06-20 15:13:51.
Five Faces of Oppression | 333
powerlessness brings into question the divi- respect is to be prepared to listen to what
sion of labor basic to all industrial societies: they have to say or to do what they request
the social division between those who plan because they have some authority, expertise,
and those who execute. The status privilege or influence. The norms of respectability in
of professionals has three aspects, the our society are associated specifically with
lack of which produces oppression for professional culture. Professional dress,
nonprofessionals. speech, tastes, demeanor, all connote
First, acquiring and practicing a profes- respectability. The privilege of this profes-
sion has an expansive, progressive character. sional respectability appears starkly in the
Being professional usually requires a college dynamics of racism and sexism. In daily
education and the acquisition of a special- interchange women and men of color must
ized knowledge that entails working with prove their respectability. At first they are
symbols and concepts. Professionals experi- often not treated by strangers with respect-
ence progress first in acquiring the expertise, ful distance or deference. Once people dis-
and then in the course of professional cover that this woman or that Puerto Rican
advancement and rise in status. The life of man is a college teacher or a business execu-
the nonprofessional by comparison is pow- tive, however, they often behave more
erless in the sense that it lacks this orienta- respectfully toward her or him. Working-
tion toward the progressive development of class white men, on the other hand, are
capacities and avenues for recognition. often treated with respect until their
Second, while many professionals have working-class status is revealed.
supervisors and cannot directly influence
many decisions or the actions of many
people, most nevertheless have considerable CULTURAL IMPERIALISM
day-to-day work autonomy. Professionals
usually have some authority over others, Exploitation, marginalization, and power-
moreover—either over workers they super- lessness all refer to relations of power and
vise, or over auxiliaries, or over clients. oppression that occur by virtue of the social
Nonprofessionals, on the other hand, lack division of labor who works for whom, who
autonomy, and in both their working and does not work, and how the content of
their consumer/client lives often stand under work defines one’s institutional position rel-
the authority of professionals. ative to others. These kinds of oppression
Professionals and nonprofessionals are a matter of concrete power in relation to
belong to different cultures in the United others—of who benefits from whom, and
States. The two groups tend to live in segre- who is dispensable.
gated neighborhoods or even different Recent theorists of movements of group
towns, a process itself mediated by planners, liberation, notably feminist and black libera-
zoning officials, and real estate people. The tion theorists, have also given prominence
Copyright © 2012. Routledge. All rights reserved.
groups tend to have different tastes in food, to a rather different form of oppression,
decor, clothes, music, and vacations, and which following Lugones and Spelman
often different health and educational needs. (1983) I shall call cultural imperialism. Cul-
Members of each group socialize for the tural imperialism involves the universaliza-
most part with others in the same status tion of a dominant group’s experience and
group. While there is some inter-group culture, and its establishment as the norm.
mobility between generations, for the most Often without noticing they do so, the dom-
part the children of professionals become inant groups project their own experience as
professionals and the children of nonprofes- representative of humanity as such. Cultural
sionals do not. products also express the dominant group’s
Thus, third, the privileges of the profes- perspective on and interpretation of events
sional extend beyond the workplace to a and elements in the society.
whole way of life. I call this way of life An encounter with other groups,
“respectability.” To treat people with however, can challenge the dominant
DeFilippis, James, and Susan Saegert. <i>The Community Development Reader</i>, Routledge, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/psu/detail.action?docID=1143851.
Created from psu on 2019-06-20 15:13:51.
334 | I. M. Young
group’s claim to universality. The difference specific experiences not shared by the domi-
of women from men, American Indians or nant group, and because culturally oppressed
Africans from Europeans, Jews from Chris- groups also are often socially segregated and
tians, homosexuals from heterosexuals, occupy specific positions in the social division
workers from professionals, becomes recon- of labor. Members of such groups express
structed largely as deviance and inferiority. their specific group experiences and interpre-
Since only the dominant group’s cultural tations of the world to one another, develop-
expressions receive wide dissemination, their ing and perpetuating their own culture.
cultural expressions become the normal, or Double consciousness, then, occurs because
the universal, and thereby the unremark one finds one’s being defined by two cultures:
able, and others stereotyped as deviant. a dominant and a subordinate culture.
As remarkable, deviant beings, the cultur- Because they can affirm and recognize one
ally imperialized are stamped with an another as sharing similar experiences and
essence. The stereotypes confine them to a perspectives on social life, people in cultur-
nature which is often attached in some way ally imperialized groups can often maintain a
to their bodies, and which thus cannot easily sense of positive subjectivity.
be denied. These stereotypes so permeate the This, then, is the injustice of cultural
society that they are not noticed as contesta- imperialism: that the oppressed group’s own
ble. Just as everyone knows that the earth experience and interpretation of social life
goes around the sun, so everyone knows finds little expression that touches the domi-
that gay people are promiscuous, that nant culture, while that same culture
Indians are alcoholics, and that women are imposes on the oppressed group its experi-
good with children. White males, on the ence and interpretation of social life.
other hand, insofar as they escape group
marking, can be individuals.
Those living under cultural imperialism VIOLENCE
find themselves defined from the outside,
positioned, placed, by a network of domi- Finally, many groups suffer the oppression
nant meanings they experience as arising of systematic violence. Members of some
from elsewhere, from those with whom they groups live with the knowledge that they
do not identify and who do not identify must fear random, unprovoked attacks on
with them. Consequently, the dominant cul- their persons or property, which have no
ture’s stereotyped and inferiorized images of motive but to damage, humiliate, or destroy
the group must be internalized by group the person. In American society women,
members at least to the extent that they are blacks, Asians, Arabs, gay men, and lesbians
forced to react to behavior of others influ- live under such threats of violence, and in at
enced by those images. The culturally least some regions Jews, Puerto Ricans, Chi-
oppressed experience what W. E. B. Du Bois canos, and other Spanish-speaking Ameri-
Copyright © 2012. Routledge. All rights reserved.
called “double consciousness” (1969 cans must fear such violence as well.
[1903]). Double consciousness arises when Physical violence against these groups is
the oppressed subject refuses to coincide shockingly frequent. Rape Crisis Center net-
with these devalued, objectified, stereotyped works estimate that more than one-third of
visions of herself or himself: while the all American women experience an
subject desires recognition as human, attempted or successful sexual assault in
capable of activity, full of hope and possibil- their lifetimes. Violence against gay men and
ity, she receives from the dominant culture lesbians is not only common, but has been
only the judgment that she is different, increasing. While the frequency of physical
marked, or inferior. attack on members of these and other
The group defined by the dominant culture racially or sexually marked groups is very
as deviant, as a stereotyped Other, is cultur- disturbing, I also include in this category
ally different from the dominant group, less severe incidents of harassment, intimi-
because the status of Otherness creates dation, or ridicule simply for the purpose of
DeFilippis, James, and Susan Saegert. <i>The Community Development Reader</i>, Routledge, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/psu/detail.action?docID=1143851.
Created from psu on 2019-06-20 15:13:51.
Five Faces of Oppression | 335
such violence more “called for” than others. fears of identity loss. I think such uncon-
The idea of rape will occur to many men scious fears account at least partly for the
who pick up a hitch-hiking woman; the idea oppression I have here called violence. It may
of hounding or teasing a gay man on their also partly account for cultural imperialism.
dorm floor will occur to many straight male Cultural imperialism, moreover, itself
college students. Often several persons inflict intersects with violence. The culturally
the violence together, especially in all-male imperialized may reject the dominant mean-
groupings. Sometimes violators set out ings and attempt to assert their own subject-
looking for people to beat up, rape, or ivity, or the fact of their cultural difference
taunt. This rule-bound, social, and often may put the lie to the dominant culture’s
premeditated character makes violence implicit claim to universality. The disso-
against groups a social practice. nance generated by such a challenge, to the
Group violence approaches legitimacy, hegemonic cultural meanings can also be a
moreover, in the sense that it is tolerated. source of irrational violence.
DeFilippis, James, and Susan Saegert. <i>The Community Development Reader</i>, Routledge, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/psu/detail.action?docID=1143851.
Created from psu on 2019-06-20 15:13:51.
336 | I. M. Young
Violence is a form of injustice that a dis- The presence of any of these five con-
tributive understanding of justice seems ill ditions is sufficient for calling a group
equipped to capture. This may be why con- oppressed. But different group oppressions
temporary discussions of justice rarely exhibit different combinations of these
mention it. I have argued that group- forms, as do different individuals in the
directed violence is institutionalized and sys- groups. Nearly all, if not all, groups said by
temic. To the degree that institutions and contemporary social movements to be
social practices encourage, tolerate, or oppressed suffer cultural imperialism. The
enable the perpetration of violence against other oppressions they experience vary.
members of specific groups, those institu- Working-class people are exploited and
tions and practices are unjust and should be powerless, for example, but if employed and
reformed. Such reform may require the white do not experience marginalization and
redistribution of resources or positions, but violence. Gay men, on the other hand,
in large part can come only through a experience severe cultural imperialism and
change in cultural images, stereotypes, and violence. Similarly, Jews and Arabs as
the mundane reproduction of relations of groups are victims of cultural imperialism
dominance and aversion in the gestures of and violence, though many members of
everyday life. these groups also suffer exploitation or
powerlessness. Old people are oppressed by
marginalization and cultural imperialism,
APPLYING THE CRITERIA and this is also true of disabled people. As a
group women are subject to gender-based
I have arrived at the five faces of oppres- exploitation, powerlessness, cultural imperi-
sion—exploitation, marginalization, power- alism, and violence. Racism in the United
lessness, cultural imperialism, and States condemns many blacks and Latinos
violence—as the best way to avoid exclu- to marginalization, and puts many more at
sions of some oppressed groups and reduc- risk; members of these groups often suffer
tions of one form of oppression to another. all five forms of oppression.
They function as criteria for determining Why are particular groups oppressed in
whether individuals and groups are the way they are? Are there any causal con-
oppressed, rather than as a full theory of nections among the five forms of oppres-
oppression. I believe that these criteria are sion? Causal or explanatory questions such
objective. They provide a means of refuting as these are beyond the scope of this discus-
some people’s belief that their group is sion. While I think general social theory has
oppressed when it is not, as well as a means a place, causal explanation must always be
of persuading others that a group is particular and historical. Thus an explana-
oppressed when they doubt it. Each criterion tory account of why a particular group is
can be operationalized; each can be applied oppressed in the ways that it is must trace
Copyright © 2012. Routledge. All rights reserved.
through the assessment of observable behav- the history and current structure of particu-
ior, status relationships, distributions, texts, lar social relations.
and other cultural artifacts. I have no illu-
sions that such assessments can be value-
neutral. But these criteria can nevertheless
REFERENCES
serve as means—of evaluating claims that a
group is oppressed, or adjudicating disputes Alexander, D. (1987). Gendered job traits and women’s
about whether or how a group is oppressed. occupations. PhD dissertation, Department of Eco-
One can compare the combinations of nomics, University of Massachusetts.
oppressions groups’ experience, or the intens- Bowles, S. & Gintis, H. (1986). Democracy and capit-
alism. New York: Basic Books.
ity of those oppressions. Thus with these cri-
Brittan, A. & Maynard, M. (1984). Sexism, racism and
teria one can plausibly claim that one group oppression. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
is more oppressed than another without Du Bois, W. E. B. (1969 [1903]). The souls of black
reducing all oppressions to a single scale. folk. New York: New American Library.
DeFilippis, James, and Susan Saegert. <i>The Community Development Reader</i>, Routledge, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/psu/detail.action?docID=1143851.
Created from psu on 2019-06-20 15:13:51.
Five Faces of Oppression | 337
Easton, B. (1978). Feminism and the contemporary Hanen & K. Nielsen (Eds.). Science, morality and
family. Socialist Review, 39, May/June, 11–36. feminist theory (pp. 111–137). Calgary, Canada:
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a difference voice. Cambridge, University of Calgary Press.
MA: Harvard University Press. Lugones, M. & Spelman, E. (1983). Have we got a
Gottlieb, R. (1987). History and subjectivity. Philadel- theory for you! Feminist theory, cultural imperialism
phia: Temple University Press. and the demand for “the woman’s voice.” Women’s
Hartsock, N. (1983). Money, sex and power. New Studies International Forum, 6, 573–581.
York: Longman. Pateman, C. (1988). The sexual contract. Stanford, CA:
Held, V. (1987). A non-contractual society. In M. Stanford University Press.
Copyright © 2012. Routledge. All rights reserved.
DeFilippis, James, and Susan Saegert. <i>The Community Development Reader</i>, Routledge, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/psu/detail.action?docID=1143851.
Created from psu on 2019-06-20 15:13:51.