Viewing oppression
through the lens of Intersectionality is empowering as it gives us a different
manner of examining oppression and exploring ways to fight it.
Intersectionality,
helps us to understand that oppression is not the either/or ideal that Collins
wrote about in her article, but rather that experiencing being both the
oppressor and the oppressed is in fact possible and more so the case when
identifying people. There are these unsaid, and in some cases said by rather
ignorant people, social hierarchy’s when it comes to the human race. Keeping
this in mind, there is so much more to a person that just their outer
appearance that we first see when looking at a total stranger and assuming what
their privilege may or may not be. Looking at a white male, he has two obvious
privileges; he is male and he is white. But what if he opens his mouth and you
realize he is gay? Does that take away his male/white privilege? Now, let’s
think about if he speaks and we have no idea that he is gay, so we can assume
that he is privileged and has never had to deal with any kind of discrimination. Does that mean that he is the oppressor and
the oppressed? He has to be; there’s simply no way someone can be one or the
other, there are layers to people and this is one of the reasons Intersectionality
is so relevant and important to society becoming more conscious on the grand
scheme of race, gender, and sexual orientation. This is not to say that privilege
and oppression cancel each other out but rather to acknowledge a situation many
find themselves in.
And
just for fun, what would you assume about myself?
I think this is a really good explanation of intersectionality, one that a lot of people sharing facebook memes probably need to hear. Your example of a white man is a good one, and I think it's worth pointing out that if it were a woman you could probably also include her looks when considering what kind of oppression she may have experienced. What I mean is when we look at men we say "white gay male" as his key identifyers, but if we were to look at a woman we might be likely to say "attractive white woman". Her looks become part of her identity more easily than a man's might.
ReplyDeleteMy one push-back to your entry would be that you could argue that people experience oppression as the person others perceive them to be, not as who they really are. For example, if a white man is gay but not obviously so--in other words, if you wouldn't know unless he told you--he probably hasn't experienced much oppression because of his sexuality.
Oppression is a word that is usually seen as very black or white. The concept of the word is usually viewed as only two sided and an individual can only fit into two molds: the oppressed or the oppressor. However, as Abby points out, this is not the case in any situation. We can never see every layer to a person, but we usually make assumptions and put them into a box of either the oppressed or the oppressor. I loved Abby’s point of how we may see a white male that may be gay and we might have no idea. The question raised was how do we decide which mold he fits into? But in reality it is impossible to force him into one of these categories. This man is privileged in the sense that he is a white male but would definitely be seen as the oppressed in the sense that he is gay. There are other examples of this intersectionality and the unrealistic concept of trying to fit human beings into one category or the other. Almost every single individual will have one some privilege and some oppression in their own personal identity. Because of this we have to eliminate the categories that we hold in our mind that help us rate people in order of how oppressed or not oppressed one is. The rating of oppression doesn’t really mean anything. It just justifies oppression.
ReplyDeleteLove the way Abby break down intersectionality and also how you discuss about the oppressor vs the oppressed and one of your good examples is that with a gay man, people might not be able to see hes gay because us humans cant see every layer to a person. I love the Pulp Fiction picture too, it just gets to the point. Not stated in your blog post but you could argue that people make false assumptions about someone, say if they were gay and really not, or that person never goes to church so they are atheist. Humans are crazy and they are gonna assume, so its interesting to look at privilege vs oppression
ReplyDeleteThis post defintiely gives me a different perspective on intersectionality. Typically, I think of intersectionality as multiple oppressions not the oppressor vs the oppressed. I guess being an African American woman, my outlook is different, in the example of the white man yes, his being gay could cause him to be "oppressed" but selfishly I would think the privileges he has as being white and a man will lessen the blow. Of course, that's not right to think but as an African- American woman, we are literally at the bottom of the totem pole so what may seem "oppressive" to other demographics can in fact be liberating for us because in the scenarios those people are still afforded some form of privilege we are robbed of.
ReplyDelete