The Five Forms Of Oppression

Madelyn Castillo
Prof. Judith A. Duncker
Pol 266-D301
Midterm

When a person thinks about the word “oppression” they automatically time travel to another time and place where a group of people were controlled by a dictator. People do not like to think of oppression as a thing of the present because they are in an illusion that oppression doesn’t exist in a liberal, democratic society. Oppressive conditions exist and it’s embedded deep into our major institutions. We also have this impression that oppressed groups have to be suffering in order to fall under the category. Oppression is the position of disadvantage and the injustice some people suffer because of the everyday practices of our society which are systematically reproduced through

Exploitation is the act of using people’s labor to produce profit while not compensating them fairly. Marginalization is the act of relegating or confining a group to a lower social standing or outer limit or edge of society. Powerlessness is the strongest form of oppression which is when some people have power while other doesn’t. Cultural Imperialism involves taking the culture of the ruling class and establishing it as the social norm. Violence is described as the fear of random attacks that are meant to humiliate and/or destroy them simply because they belong to a certain social group. (Iris

Undocumented immigrant workers are vulnerable to the abuse and the exploitation because of their immigration status. They often accept the unfair treatment and wages of their employer all because of their fear of being deported. Immigrant worker are not the only exploited group in the United States, the poor are too. The poor are not getting paid pennies an hours like in other third and fourth world countries but the level of wages depends on what it takes to keep workers and families alive, it not calculated on the actual value produced by our labor process. In other words the poor are still stuck in low paying jobs where there’s no room for economic improvement. When an individual feels as if they can’t not climb the social ladder or navigate their life towards their desired goal this emotion of powerlessness can arise. In poor communities many people do not participate in voting because they feel that their participation won’t mean anything. Powerlessness is the strongest form of oppression because it blinds the person and it allows the person to oppress themselves and