PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This book titled How to Deal with
Oppression and Depression emanated from the desire of the author to put
together information about how to deal with oppression and depression.
The
book covers specific contents and issues relating to “Oppression and
Depression”.
I wish to extend my sincere
appreciation to those who serve as propelling forces without whom this
opportunity would not have come to light at all. Most importantly, I give all
glory and honor to the Almighty God who made this effort a big success. May His
name be praised forever (Amen).
Fatai
Olaitan Moshood
April,
2023
OPPRESSION
Oppression is malicious or unjust treatment or exercise of power, often under the guise of governmental authority
or cultural opprobrium. It is related to regimentation, class society and
punishment. Oppression may be overt or covert, depending on how it is
practiced. Oppression refers to discrimination when the injustice does not target and may not directly afflict
everyone in society but instead targets or disproportionately impacts specific
groups of people.
No universally accepted model or terminology has
yet emerged to describe oppression in its entirety, although some scholars cite
evidence of different types of oppression, such as social oppression, cultural, political,
religious/belief, institutional oppression, and economic oppression. The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights offers a
benchmark from which to assess both individual and structural models of
oppression.
The concept, popularized in Marx and Engels' Communist
Manifesto of 1848, is often
used to justify state persecution.
Authoritarian
oppression
The
word oppress comes from the Latin oppressus, past
participle of opprimere, ("to press against", "to
squeeze", "to suffocate"). Thus,
when authoritarian governments use oppression to subjugate
the people, they want their citizenry to feel that "pressing down",
and to live in fear that if they displease the authorities they will, in a
metaphorical sense, be "squeezed" and "suffocated", e.g.,
thrown in a dank, dark, state prison or summarily executed. Such
governments oppress the people using restriction, control, terror, hopelessness,
and despair. The
tyrant's tools of oppression include, for example, extremely harsh punishments
for "unpatriotic" statements; developing a loyal, guileful secret police force;
prohibiting freedom of assembly, freedom of speech,
and freedom of the press; controlling the monetary system and economy; and
imprisoning or killing activists or other leaders who might pose a threat to
their power
Oppression also refers to a more insidious type of manipulation and control, in this instance involving the subjugation and marginalization of specific groups of people within a country or society, such as: girls and women, boys and men, people of color, religious communities, citizens in poverty, LGBT people, youth and children, and many more. This socioeconomic, cultural, political, legal, and institutional oppression (hereinafter, "social oppression") probably occurs in every country, culture, and society, including the most advanced democracies, such as the United States, Japan, Costa Rica, Sweden, and Canada.
A single, widely accepted definition of social
oppression does not yet exist, although there are commonalities. Taylor (2016) defined (social) oppression in this way:
Oppression is a form of injustice that occurs when one social group is subordinated while another is privileged, and oppression is maintained by a variety of different mechanisms including social norms, stereotypes and institutional rules. A key feature of oppression is that it is perpetrated by and affects social groups. [Oppression] occurs when a particular social group is unjustly subordinated, and where that subordination is not necessarily deliberate but instead results from a complex network of social restrictions, ranging from laws and institutions to implicit biases and stereotypes. In such cases, there may be no deliberate attempt to subordinate the relevant group, but the group is nonetheless unjustly subordinated by this network of social constraints.
Harvey (1999) suggested the term "civilized
oppression", which he introduced as follows:
It is harder still to
become aware of what I call 'civilized Oppression,' that involves neither physical
violence nor the use of law. Yet these subtle forms are by far the most
prevalent in Western industrialized societies. This work will focus on issues
that are common to such subtle oppression in several different contexts (such
as racism, classism, and sexism). Analyzing what is involved in civilized
oppression includes analyzing the kinds of mechanisms used, the power relations
at work, the systems controlling perceptions and information, the kinds of
harms inflicted on the victims, and the reasons why this oppression is so hard
to see even by contributing agents.
Research and theory development on social
oppression has advanced apace since the 1980s with the publication of seminal
books and articles, and the cross-pollination of ideas and
discussion among diverse disciplines, such as: feminism, sociology, psychology,
philosophy, and political science. Nonetheless, more fully understanding the
problem remains an extremely complicated challenge for scholars. Improved
understanding will likely involve, for example, comprehending more completely
the historical antecedents of current social oppression; the commonalities (and
lack thereof) among the various social groups damaged by social oppression (and
the individual human beings who make up those groups); and the complex
interplay between and amongst sociocultural, political, economic,
psychological, and legal forces that cause and support oppression.
Social oppression
Two fountains labeled "gay only" and
"straight only" that are segregating people based on their sexuality.
A common conception of social oppression is seen as
when a single group in society unjustly takes advantage of, and exercises power
over, another group using dominance and subordination. This then results in the socially supported
mistreatment and exploitation of a group of individuals by those with relative
power. In a social group setting, oppression may be
based on many ideas, such as poverty, gender, class, race, caste, or other
categories. According to Iris Marion Young, due to this pluralistic nature of oppression, it
is difficult to construct a definition that applies to all forms of oppression.
Therefore, she argues one should focus on the characteristics different forms
of oppression might exhibit or have in common. In order to do so, Iris Young
developed 5 different characteristics or ‘faces’ of oppression. Each form of
oppression possesses at least one of these characteristics which are:
exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence. Interestingly, Young’s conception of
oppression, does not involve an ‘active oppressor’. This means that oppression
can occur, without people actively oppressing others namely, Young argues that
“...oppression is the inhibition of a group through a vast network of everyday
practices, attitudes, assumptions, behaviors, and institutional rules.
Oppression is structural or systemic. The systemic character of oppression
implies that an oppressed group need not have a correlate oppressing group” Structural
or systemic refers to “the rules that constitute and regulate the major sectors
of life such as family relations, property ownership and exchange, political
powers and responsibilities, and so on.” Young's conception of oppression is
therefore in contrast with other common notions of oppression; where an
identifiable oppressing group is assumed. Another example of social oppression
given by Young is when a specific social group is denied access to education
that may hinder their lives in later life. Economic oppression is the divide between two
classes of society. These were once determined by factors such slavery,
property rights, disenfranchisement, and forced displacement of livelihood.
Each divide yielded various treatments and attitudes towards each group.
Social oppression derives from power dynamics and
imbalances related to the social location of a group or individual. Social location, as defined by Lynn Weber, is "an
individual's or a group's social 'place' in the race, class, gender and
sexuality hierarchies, as well as in other critical social hierarchies such as
age, ethnicity, and nation". An individual's social location often determines how they will be
perceived and treated by others in society. Three elements shape whether a
group or individual can exercise power: the power to design or manipulate the
rules and regulations, the capacity to win competitions through the exercise of
political or economic force, and the ability to write and document social and
political history. There are four predominant social
hierarchies, race, class, gender and sexuality that contribute to social
oppression.
Privilege
Lynn Weber among some other political theorists, argues that oppression persists because most individuals fail to recognize it; that is, discrimination is often not visible to those who are not in the midst of it. Privilege refers to a sociopolitical immunity one group has over others derived from particular societal benefits. Many of the groups who have privilege over gender, race, or sexuality, for example, can be unaware of the power their privilege holds. These inequalities further perpetuate themselves because those who are oppressed rarely have access to resources that would allow them to escape their maltreatment. This can lead to internalized oppression, where subordinate groups essentially give up the fight to get access to equality, and accept their fate as a non-dominant group.
Racial oppression
Race or racial oppression is defined as: " burdening
a specific race with unjust or cruel restraints or impositions. Racial
oppression may be social, systematic, institutionalized, or internalized.
Social forms of racial oppression include exploitation and mistreatment that is
socially supported." In his 1972 work, Racial Oppression in
America, sociologist Bob Blauner proposes five primary forms of racial oppression
in United
States history: genocide and geographical displacement, slavery, second-class
citizenship,
non-citizen labor, and diffuse racial
discrimination. Blauner
stated that even after civil rights legislation abolished legally-sanctioned
segregation, racial oppression remained a reality in the United States and
"racial groups and racial oppression are central features of the American
social dynamic".
Class Discrimination
Class oppression, sometimes referred to as
classism, can be defined as prejudice and discrimination based on social
class. Class is a social ranking system which is based on income, wealth,
education, status, and power. A class is a large group of people who share
similar economic or social positions based on their income, wealth, property
ownership, job status, education, skills, and power in the economic and
political sphere. The most commonly used class categories include: upper class,
middle class, working class, and poor class. A majority of people in the United
States self-identify in surveys as middle class, despite vast differences in
income and status. Class is also experienced differently depending on race,
gender, ethnicity, global location, disability, and more. Class oppression of
the poor and working class can lead to deprivation of basic needs and a feeling
of inferiority to higher-class people, as well as shame towards one's
traditional class, race, gender, or ethnic heritage. In the United States,
class has become racialized leaving the greater percentage of people of color
living in poverty. Since class oppression is universal among the majority
class in American society, at times it can seem invisible, however, it is a
relevant issue that causes suffering for many.
Gender oppression
Gender oppression is a form of social oppression,
which occurs due to belonging or seeming to belong to a specific gender. Historically, gender oppression occurred
through actual legal domination and subordination of men over women. Although
the legal and civil position of women has greatly improved over the years
especially in Western countries, this is arguably not enough. Namely, even key
aspects of social life traditionally seen as ‘neutral’ such as language can
sustain gender oppression according to Gertrude Postl (2017). This is due
to sexist language and the lack of terms that relate to experiences specific to
women. As an example, think about the term ‘sexual harassment’ that only got
coined in 1975. Before this, the experience of women who suffered from
sexual harassment arguably lacked the language to explain their experiences.
Therefore, many (feminist) authors argue sexism, gender discrimination and
gender oppression are still prevalent in today's society.
Young argues that women in particular suffer from
gender-based exploitation, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence
(p. 64). To illustrate, gender exploitation relates to how the common
labor division between men and women can be exploitative. She argues that,
“[g]ender exploitation has two aspects, transfer of the fruits of material
labor to men and transfer of nurturing and sexual energies to men.”
(p. 50). Namely, in a heterosexual relationship, women often take
care of unpaid households chores and child care labor, which benefits both the
man as the women. In this sense, women are performing labor from which the man
benefits and thus at least part of the value of this labor is transferred to
the man. Interestingly, this exploitation need not be done consciously or even intentionally.
As Young argues, oppression can occur without an active ‘oppressor’.
This nuanced definition of oppression might address
some concerns, where feminist theories are seen to unjustly blame (all) men for
the oppression of women. Namely, some argue that one can identify groups of men
who do not oppose and even sympathize with feminist theories - but who are
blamed by feminist theories of the oppression of women. If one agrees that gender oppression at least
partly occurs due to social, cultural and institutional factors, which are in
essence not actively caused by certain individuals but by a complex
relationship of social groups and institutional rules - it would arguably be
unjust to subsequently blame all men for the systematic and
cultural oppression of women. Arguably, one can say that men are also subject
to gender norms and stereotypes - the difference being that men overall seem to
benefit from these norms. It is important to note as well that, despite not all
men actively oppressing women - it is good to recognize how, in many parts of
the world, women still objectively have less rights than men and are
subsequently subordinated to the will of men.
Religious persecutio
Different types of religious symbols
Religious
persecution is
the systematic mistreatment of individuals because of their religious
beliefs. According to Iris Young oppression can be divided into different
categories such as powerlessness, exploitation, and violence.
An example of religious powerlessness existed
during the 17th century when the Pilgrims, who wanted to escape the rule of the Church of England came to what is now called the United States. The pilgrims created their own religion which was
another form of Protestantism, and after doing so they eventually passed laws in
order to prevent other religions from prospering in their colony. The Pilgrims
and the leaders of other communities where Protestants were in the majority
used their power over legislatures to oppress followers of other religions in
the United States.
The second category of oppression, exploitation,
has been seen in many different forms around the world when it comes to
religion. The definition of exploitation is the action or fact of treating
someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work. For example, during,
and particularly after, the American
Civil War, white Americans used Chinese immigrants in order to build
the transcontinental
railroads. During this time
it was common for the Chinese immigrants to follow the religions of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism, because of this the Chinese were considered
different and therefore not equal to white Americans. Due to this view Chinese
workers were denied equal pay, and they also suffered many hardships during the
time which they spent working on the railroad.
The third and most extreme category of oppression
is violence. According to the Merriam Webster's dictionary,
violence is "the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or
destroy". Acts of religious
violence which are
committed against people who practice a particular religion are classified
as hate
crimes. Since September
11th, 2001 the number of
hate crimes which have been committed against Muslims
in the United States has
greatly increased. One such incident occurred on August 5, 2017 when three men
bombed a Mosque in Minnesota because they felt that Muslims "'push
their beliefs on everyone else'". Acts of religious violence are also
committed against practitioners of other religions in addition to Islam.
Domination
Addressing social oppression on both a macro and
micro level, feminist Patricia
Hill Collins discusses
her "matrix
of domination". The matrix of domination discusses the
interrelated nature of four domains of power, including the structural,
disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal domains. Each of these spheres
works to sustain current inequalities that are faced by marginalized, excluded
or oppressed groups. The structural, disciplinary and hegemonic domains all
operate on a macro level, creating social oppression through macro structures
such as education, or the criminal justice system, which play out in the
interpersonal sphere of everyday life through micro-oppressions.
Institutionalized oppression
"Institutional Oppression occurs when established laws, customs, and practices systemically 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."
U.S. Capitol - oil painting by Allyn Cox - The
Monroe Doctrine (1823), plus a quote from President Franklin D. Roosevelt
(1940). (Photograph: Architect of the Capitol)
Institutionalized oppression allows for government, religious and business organizations and their employees to systematically favor specific groups of people based upon group identity. Dating back to colonization, the United States implemented the annihilation of Native Americans from lands that Euro-Americans wanted, and condoned the institution of slavery where Africans were brought to the 'New World' to be a source of free labor to expand the cotton and tobacco industry. Implementing these systems by the United States government was justified through religious grounding where "servants [were] bought and established as inheritable property".
Although the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments freed African Americans, gave them citizenship, and provided them the right to vote, institutions such as some police departments continue to use oppressive systems against minorities. They train their officers to profile individuals based upon their racial heritage, and to exert excessive force to restrain them. Racial profiling and police brutality are "employed to control a population thought to be undesirable, undeserving, and under punished by established law". In both situations, police officers "rely on legal authority to exonerate their extralegal use of force; both respond to perceived threats and fears aroused by out-groups, especially— but not exclusively— racial minorities". For example, "blacks are: approximately four times more likely to be targeted for police use of force than their white counterparts; arrested and convicted for drug-related criminal activities at higher rates than their overall representation in the U.S. population; and are more likely to fear unlawful and harsh treatment by law enforcement officials". The International Association of Chiefs of Police collected data from police departments between the years 1995 and 2000 and found that 83% of incidents involving use-of-force against subjects of different races than the officer executing it involved a white officer and a black subject.
Institutionalized oppression is not only experienced by people of racial minorities, but can also affect those in the LGBT community. Oppression of the LGBT community in the United States dates back to President Eisenhower's presidency where he passed Executive Order 10450 in April 1953 which permitted non-binary sexual behaviors to be investigated by federal agencies. As a result of this order, "More than 800 federal employees resigned or were terminated in the two years following because their files linked them in some way with homosexuality."
States such as Arizona and Kansas passed laws in 2014 giving religious-based businesses "the right to refuse service to LGBT customers".
Economic oppression
The term economic oppression changes in meaning and significance over time, depending on its contextual application. In today's context, economic oppression may take several forms, including, but not limited to: serfdom, forced labour, low wages, denial of equal opportunity, bonded labour, practicing employment discrimination, and economic discrimination based on sex, nationality, race, and religion.
Ann Cudd describes the main forces of economic oppression as oppressive economic systems and direct and indirect forces. Even though capitalism and socialism are not inherently oppressive, they "lend themselves to oppression in characteristic ways". She defines direct forces of economic oppression as "restrictions on opportunities that are applied from the outside on the oppressed, including enslavement, segregation, employment discrimination, group-based harassment, opportunity inequality, neocolonialism, and governmental corruption". This allows for a dominant social group to maintain and maximize its wealth through the intentional exploitation of economically inferior subordinates. With indirect forces (also known as oppression by choice), "the oppressed are co-opted into making individual choices that add to their own oppression". The oppressed are faced with having to decide to go against their social good, and even against their own good. If they choose otherwise, they have to choose against their interests, which may lead to resentment by their group.
An example of direct forces of economic oppression is employment discrimination in the form of the gender pay gap. Restrictions on women's access to and participation in the workforce like the wage gap is an "inequality most identified with industrialized nations with nominal equal opportunity laws; legal and cultural restrictions on access to education and jobs, inequities most identified with developing nations; and unequal access to capital, variable but identified as a difficulty in both industrialized and developing nations". In the United States, the median weekly earnings for women were 82 percent of the median weekly earnings for men in 2016. Some argue women are prevented from achieving complete gender equality in the workplace because of the "ideal-worker norm," which "defines the committed worker as someone who works full-time and full force for forty years straight," a situation designed for the male sex.
A mother taking care of her child by feeding them.
Women, in contrast, are still expected to fulfill the caretaker role and take time off for domestic needs such as pregnancy and ill family members, preventing them from conforming to the "ideal-worker norm". With the current norm in place, women are forced to juggle full-time jobs and family care at home. Others believe that this difference in wage earnings is likely due to the supply and demand for women in the market because of family obligations. Eber and Weichselbaumer argue that "over time, raw wage differentials worldwide have fallen substantially. Most of this decrease is due to better labor market endowments of females".
Indirect economic oppression is exemplified when
individuals work abroad to support their families. Outsourced employees, working abroad generally little to
no bargaining power not only with their employers, but with immigration
authorities as well. They could be forced to accept low wages and work in poor
living conditions. And by working abroad, an outsourced employee contributes to
the economy of a foreign country instead of their own. Veltman and Piper
describe the effects of outsourcing on female laborers abroad:
Her work may be oppressive first in respects of being heteronomous: she may enter work under conditions of constraint; her work may bear no part of reflectively held life goals; and she may not even have the: freedom of bodily movement at work. Her work may also fail to permit a meaningful measure of economic independence or to help her support herself or her family, which she identifies as the very purpose of her working.
By deciding to work abroad, laborers are "reinforcing the forces of economic oppression that presented them with such poor options".
Oppression and Intersectionality
A different approach on oppression, called the intersectional approach was introduced by Kimberlé Williams Chrenshaw referring to the various ways in which race and gender interact to shape the multiple dimensions of black women’s employment experiences (Chrensaw, 2008 p. 279). Elena Ruiz defines intersectionality as a form of oppression containing multiple social vectors and overlapping identity categories such as sex, race and class that is not ready visible in single identities but has to be taken into account as an integral, robust human experience (Ruiz, 2017, p. 335).
An intersectional approach to oppression thus includes attending to the differential ways different grounds for oppression such as gender, race, sexuality, class, religion, etc. work together to create a unique situation for certain oppressed people. Take the case of black women as identified by Crenshaw herself. Only looking from a purely feminist perspective at oppression of women in general would undermine the oppressed experiences of black women. This is different from white women, as the latter are not oppressed on the basis of race as well whereas black women are. Crenshaw argues that viewing feminism as categorizing all women as one cohesive category of oppressed people obscures differences of experiences of oppression within such groups (Crenshaw, 1991, p. 244).
Intersectionality is not restricted to black women.
For example, it is also relevant for Latina women and their place within
feminism and anti-racism (Collins, 2011, p. 3). Moreover, think of other examples where
different grounds for oppression might come together for some such as in the
case of people with disabilities, certain sexual orientations or religion.
This intersectional approach has been highly
influential in academic fields studying different forms of social
oppression.[1] However, although Crenshaw (2008, p. 279) argues her
intersectional approach captures important differences within certain oppressed
groups, Patricia Hill Collins (et al., 1995, p. 492) objects that her approach is unable to
capture the macro-level systemic nature of intersectional oppression. In other
words, Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality captures the individual
experiences of oppressed persons which do not solely fall under one header of
sexism, racism or something else. However, it is not suited to capture the way
grounds for oppression such as for example sexism and racism work together at a
(macro) societal level. Both conjoin to influence the unique experience of
oppression as felt by for example black women.
One way to address both the pluralistic and
systemic nature of oppression is done by Iris Marion Young. Namely, Young identifies five key characteristics
or ‘faces’ that can be found in all forms of oppression. Moreover, her
framework is specifically tailored to capture the systemic nature of
oppression. As such, Young’s five faces of oppression might be used to capture
the systemic and structural macro-level nature of intersectional oppression.
In addition, one might wonder as Jennifer Nash (2008, p. 9-10) has done what the limits of intersectionality are. Does this approach only concern certain marginalized and oppressed groups or could everyone in some way identify as intersectional? After all, ‘even’ white men could identify as intersectional in being white, men, speaking a certain language and having a certain nationality. However, for the purpose of this Wikipedia entry, intersectionality should be viewed within the limits of the perspective of oppression. Guiding questions in this regard concern in what way an intersectional approach might bring to the surface certain previously obscured experiences of oppression.
Crenshaw introducing her concept at one of her
lectures
In addition, Jennifer Nash (2008, p. 11-12)
also argues that so far, intersectional approaches have focused either on
intersections between forms or grounds for oppression or privilege whereas the
two can also work together. Indeed, the value of an intersectional approach on
oppression is to see how different forms of oppression such as the ones
mentioned in this entry intersect with each other and with the privileges held
by others. Racial, economic, class-based, religious, gender-based, authoritarian
and social oppression in general can often intersect in many different ways and
co-exist with opposite forms of
privileges to create novel and unique ways oppression might take shape. Taking
notice of these intricate ways of oppression is where intersectionality proves
its value.
Feminism and equal rights
Although a relatively modern form of
resistance, feminism's origins
can be traced back to the course of events which led up to the introduction of
the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in 1923. While the ERA was created in
order to address the need for equal protection under the law for both men and
women in the workplace, it spurred a rise in feminism which has come to
represent women's search for equal opportunity and respect in patriarchal
societies, across all social, cultural, and political spheres. Demonstrations
and marches have been a popular medium of support, with the January 21,
2017, Women's
March's replication in major
cities across the world drawing tens of thousands of supporters.
"Resistance" 
Resistance to oppression has been linked to a moral
obligation, an act deemed necessary for the preservation of self and society. Resistance is sometimes labeled as
"lawlessness, belligerence, envy, or laziness"
