Oppression

Oppression derives from the concept of being weighted down, and is often depicted as such. Here, a political cartoon shows a Jew laboring under the metaphorical oppression of the Russian Tsar

Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner.^[1] It can also be defined as an act or instance of oppressing, the state of being oppressed, and the feeling of being heavily burdened, mentally or physically, by troubles, adverse conditions or people, and anxiety.

Social oppression

Social oppression is the socially supported mistreatment and exploitation of a group, category, or team of people or individual.

Institutionalized oppression

"Institutional Oppression occurs when established laws, customs, and practices systematically reflect and produce inequities based on one’s membership in targeted social identity groups. If oppressive consequences accrue to institutional laws, customs, or Practices, the institution is oppressive whether or not the individuals maintaining those practices have oppressive intentions."^[2]

Systemic oppression

Police and law themselves are often examples of systemic oppression. The term oppression in such instances to refer to the subordination of a given group or social category by unjust use of force, authority, or societal norms in order to achieve indoctrination. Through institutionalization, formally or informally, it achieves the dimension of systemic oppression. Oppression is customarily experienced as a consequence of, and expressed in, the form of a prevailing, if unconscious, assumption that the given target is in some way inferior. Oppression is rarely limited solely to formal government action: an individual may be the particular focus of oppression or persecution and in such circumstances have no group membership in which to share, and thus maybe mitigate, the burden of ostracism.

In psychology, racism, sexism and other prejudices are often studied as individual beliefs which, although not necessarily oppressive in themselves, can lead to oppression if they are codified in law or become parts of a culture. By comparison, in sociology, these prejudices are often studied as being institutionalized systems of oppression in some societies. In sociology, the tools of oppression include a progression of denigration, dehumanization, and demonization; which often generate scapegoating, which is used to justify aggression against targeted groups and individuals.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the concept of the "human rights" in general were designed to limit oppression by giving a clear articulation of what fundamental freedoms any system should allow to all of the people over whom it has power.

When oppression is systematized through coercion, threats of violence, or violence by government agencies or non-government paramilitaries with a political motive, it is often called political repression. More subtle forms of political repression can be produced by blacklisting or individualized investigations.

Transnational systems of governance that can often be oppressive include colonialism, dictatorship, imperialism, absolute monarchy and totalitarianism, and can generate a resistance movement to challenge the oppressive status quo.

Resistance

Several movements have arisen that specifically aim to oppose, analyze and counter oppression in general; examples include Liberation Theology in the Christian world, and Re-evaluation Counselling in the psychotherapeutic arena.

See also

References

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Oppression.

• Guillaumin, Colette. 1995. Racism, Sexism, Power and Ideology. London: Routledge.
• Hobgood, Mary Elizabeth. 2000. Dismantling Privilege: An Ethics of Accountability. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press.
• Young-Bruehl, Elisabeth. 1996. The Anatomy of Prejudices. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Noël, Lise. 1994. Intolerance, A General Survey. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.bany, NY: State University of New York Press.
• Smith, Morgan. 2008. Why I stick it to the man, and why you should too. New York: HarperCollins Publishers
• Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. 1994. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. New York: Routledge.
• Feagin, Joe R. and Hernan Vera. 1995. White Racism: The Basics. New York: Routledge.
• Pincus, Fred L. 1999 and Howard J. Ehrlich, eds. 1999. Race and Ethnic Conflict: Contending Views on Prejudice, Discrimination, and Ethnoviolence. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.
• Beck, Aaron, M.D. 1999 Prisoners Of Hate. New York: HarperCollins Publishers
• Solzhenitsyn, Alexandr, "The Gulag Archipelago," Harper and Row, 1973
• Kiernan, Ben, "The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79," Yale University Press, 1996
• Cudd, Ann E. 2006. Analyzing Oppression. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Deutsch, Morton. 2006. A Framework for Thinking about Oppression and Its Change. "Social Justice Research", Vol. 19, No.1, March 2006, pp. 7–41.
• muvirimi learnmore.the oppressor behaviour .2013 university of Zimbabwe press.