I’ve been reading Caroline New’s 2001 Sociology article about oppression (pdf link).1 New argues against the idea that “oppression” requires a clear-cut division between “oppressor class” and “oppressed class.”
I do not believe we need to identify a clear-cut agent/beneficiary to speak of oppression. Sometimes there is one, sometimes not. I propose the following structural definition, which subsumes zero-sum conceptions when they are applicable, and allows us to recognise the very different, yet related, oppressions of women and of men.
A group X is oppressed if, in certain respects, its members are systematically mistreated in comparison to non-Xs in a given social context, and if this mistreatment is justified or excused in terms of some alleged or real characteristic of the group.
The key phrase, “systematically mistreated,” implies that as a result of institutionalised social practices, Xs’ human needs are not met, they are made to suffer, or their flourishing is not permitted, relative to other groups and to available knowledge and resources.While human needs are culturally mediated, some basic conditions for human well-being can be specified independent of social context. We recognise these as needs because undesirable consequences arise from a failure to meet them, though the severity of the price paid may range from death to discomfort.Unmet needs may result in forms of development that preclude ‘flourishing’, the term used by ecological feminist Cuomo (1998) in her feminist ethics. For Cuomo, knowledge of a thing’s nature can give rise to knowledge of what it is for it to flourish.
‘In comparison to non-members‘ means that Xs are disadvantaged in relation to non-Xs on some particular dimension or in a specific context – non-Xs may themselves be oppressed in other respects, which may sometimes result in similar (or more severe) disadvantages than those suffered by all or some Xs. ‘Justified … etc.’ refers to the tendency to legitimise oppression by treating the oppressed group as different, less than human or actually malign, and therefore not morally requiring the treatment appropriate to one’s own group.
‘Oppression’ is a value-laden term which implies that, ceteris paribus, an oppressive state of affairs should be brought to an end; this definition is clear enough to allow such states of affairs to be investigated and identified. It recognises that oppression is rooted in power relations,without reducing it to formal relations of power. Treating agents’ accounts as evidence rather than essence, it can encompass complicity and denial on the part of the oppressed. It can embrace, as relevant sorts of harm, the ‘hidden injuries’ of class, ‘race’ and so on which fall through the net of purely formal definitions. ‘Systematic mistreatment’ covers not only material inequalities but also the deprivation of ‘recognition’ and other forms of inclusion necessary for groups and communities to flourish (Young 1990). By not making identification of the agents and beneficiaries central to that of oppression, the proposed definition allows us to recognise the oppression of fat people, disabled people, children and other groups where the agents are not always the same and the question of benefits is unclear.
[…]
The proposed definition in no way denies that men are frequently – most frequently – the agents of the oppression of women. In a minimal sense this is inevitably true, since oppression is relational. If Xs are oppressed because on some dimension they are systematically disadvantaged in comparison to Ys, Ys can be seen as oppressing Xs as long as they merely accept the status quo or act in ways which
tend to maintain their relative advantage. In gender terms, such a stance would be part of what Connell calls ‘complicit masculinities,’ which accept gender privileges but keep themselves distanced from direct displays of power (1995:114). Men undoubtedly oppress women in more direct ways than this. The maintenance of the power differentials between the genders requires regular belittlement of women, continual discrimination against them, and a stream of misinformation about their capacities and liabilities. From various motives, men carry out the bulk of this work. They also oppress women by killing, beating, raping, harassing and sexually exploiting them, and by appropriating their unpaid work.Gendered power relations make such behaviour normal, in the sense of expected and intelligible, even though most of it is deplored and some of it is punishable. My contention is that men’s agency in this regard is the result of their positioning within oppressive structures. It is not caused by, and does not express, the intrinsic nature of male humans, nor was the gender order erected by men in their own pre-existing interests. Gendered interests, including those of oppressors, are constructed within gender orders, and cannot pre-exist them. Men’s agency is part of the explanation of women’s oppression only in the context of a sex-gender system which also involves the oppression of men.
I’m curious to know what “Alas” readers think of New’s definition of oppression, and of its consequential inclusion of “men” as a class that can be oppressed. My (possibly self-serving) tendency is to agree with New.
New’s analysis recognizes complicity in gender oppression, without having to argue that bullied boys, men rounded up for imprisonment or murder in war zones, and men killed at workplaces are not being oppressed as men, even though in all these cases their being male is essential for their selection for mistreatment.
Once criticism I anticipate is that the “oppression” of men cannot be oppression because their “oppressors” are male. This seems to me a dubious response, because it only makes sense if oppression is defined based on who the oppressor is, rather than on what the oppressive acts and barriers consist of. Imagine if a group of masked commandos took over the government and began rounding up and imprisoning cartoonists; would we say that whether or not this could be called “oppression of cartoonists” is contingent on unmasking the commandos, since if the commandos are themselves cartoonists no act by them can be oppressive of cartoonists?
* * * PLEASE NOTE * * *
Comments on this post are open only to feminist, pro-feminist, and feminist-friendly writers.
Curtsy: Feminist Critics.
- Caroline New (2001), “Oppressed and Oppressors? The Systematic Mistreatment of Men,” Sociology Vol.35, No.3, pp.729–748. [↩]
Ah, okay, cool, sorry.
Myca – ah, ok, it’s much clearer with the two parts separate. Thanks for spotting where my misinterpretation lay :)
I think it’s sort of a ‘suspicious until proven innocent’ kind of thing when discussing how PHMT, or at least in my mind it should be – by which I mean, I know that some do just jump to ‘guilty,’ which as Amp says is understandable, but not helpful. Since the vast majority of the time feminists hear such arguments coming from men the conclusion or point is anti-feminist, there’s an extra burden on the men who sincerely want to dismantle the patriarchy to make that position clear when such a topic is brought up.
Amp and Myca have reams and reams of posts/comments backing up their good intentions, so at least to me there isn’t a question of motive when they talk about PHingMT. I guess it’s not that the burden isn’t there for them, it’s just that for the purposes of my personal opinion, this nebulous burden has been met. Myca, that’s part of the reasoning behind the bit about knowing when it’s not coming from malice or disrespect in my earlier comment. It might not have been totally clear from what I wrote – and I don’t feel like scrolling up to examine it – but I know that ostensibly Nice Guy™ brand thinking can come from genuinely nice, well-intentioned guys (or women), and such thinking doesn’t by itself change my view of them. It’s just that I’m still going to point out the parallels between their words and the less respectful incarnations of those words.
Amp says,
Thing is, the guys who are most likely to be ok with being ‘suspicious until proven innocent’ in these discussions are also most likely to already be accustomed to the idea of being seen that way and do make an effort to be clear that they’re coming from a pro-feminist position (by, say, running a pro-feminist blog for years or something). I can certainly understand that that would then make it even more frustrating when the response treats them as MRAs. It’s one of those times when having an anti-patriarchy certification board or something would come in handy, so people could just whip out a card ;D
There’s a good bit of you/they switching in this comment, and quite possibly some atrociously unclear grammar, so apologies in advance about any confusion.
That really wasn’t intentional. It’s been a long week :/
*LAUGH*
I didn’t assume it was, goodness knows we could all use some rest.
—Myca
Mandolin, are you trying to argue that men should hit women in order to treat them as moral agents? Because I don’t care how you’d characterize the ethos of ‘not hitting girls’, I think it’s one we should keep anyway.
About the UU-dating issue… I’d say that in general, feminist women who prefer traditionally masculine men are the flipside of the liberal misogynist male. Both are completely full of shit. These are faults in personality more than symptoms of any sort of oppression, though.
We all know many chip-in-shoulder ‘nice guys’ who blame women for their own lack of confidence, but careful with the generalizations concerning ‘nice guys’ in general. It’s a gross oversimplification to suggest that the average ‘nice guy’ – air-quoted or no – is as misogynistic as your average non-nice fucko.
I see this as important because dating and relationships is that most personal area where you must really put your money where your mouth is. To segue into an unrelated area I care more about, anyone who says all the right things, expresses all the right sympathies, and writes all the right essays in high school humanities classes but nonetheless cannot see themselves dating anyone of a particular race, is a racist. (Assuming, of course, that the issue is not parental approval or reputation but rather those all-encompassing ‘personal preferences’.) The subjugation of any race always begins with sexualization, whether de-, over-, or both.
“Mandolin, are you trying to argue that men should hit women in order to treat them as moral agents? Because I don’t care how you’d characterize the ethos of ‘not hitting girls’, I think it’s one we should keep anyway.”
I never saw this question back in April, sorry.
I think the idea that one (masculine) hits one’s peers, but not one’s inferiors, is one we should do away with — however, the fact that it marks out women as inferiors is an important thing to recognize. (Just as a male-only draft marks out women as inferiors.)
I prefer the idea that “one (masculine or feminine) should hit no one.”
A bit off-topic from what Mandolin just posted: In terms not of real life but of popular media, I think that it’s important that action shows and movies be able to show female protagonists who can take a punch and its no big deal, just like the male protagonists do. This is one reason Buffy is better than the original Bionic Woman or the old Wonder Woman show, in my view. (One reason of hundreds, to be sure).
Yes, agreed completely with Amp & Mandolin . . . and I’d like to add that the other thing I enjoyed about Buffy was that neither of the male main characters on the show (Xander & Giles) were generally able to take a punch. It was a nice change.
—Myca
“I think the idea that one (masculine) hits one’s peers, but not one’s inferiors, is one we should do away with — however, the fact that it marks out women as inferiors is an important thing to recognize. (Just as a male-only draft marks out women as inferiors.)”
It has nothing to do with superiority or inferiority. As far as I know, there is no code against hitting subordinates or employees or friends on the lower end of the social scale – at least, no more so than there is against hitting any other random person.
There is an idea that hitting people at an obvious physical disadvantage against you is wrong. For young to middle aged men, this includes women, children, the elderly, and the disabled. Sure, there are potentially sexist elements mixed in with this – it is more wrong to hit a six foot four female track athlete than it is to hit a skinny guy with a caved in chest who can’t lift a ten pound dumbbell without flopping like a fish – but worse injustices, I can think of many. I think this code, as it were, does more good to society than bad.
I agree with Slyph. The code’s not ‘don’t hit women’ the code is ‘pick on someone your own size.’
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