The Prevelence of Gender Oppression in Patriarchal Society

Privilege and oppression are the two sides of the same coin that sometimes acts to supplement each other. What does oppression mean? Can a privileged person truly ever understand the facets and consequences of oppression? Does it ever concern privileged sections when they perceive the oppressive actions taking place in front of them to fellow human beings? What role do empathy, decency and humane behaviour play if people cannot stop abusing and vilifying fellow human beings who may be their neighbours, office coworkers or even friends? These are some of the aspects of oppression that will be explored in the sections of this essay. To begin with, we must define the boundaries of privilege and its consequences. Only then can we understand how the effects of oppression bleed onto other aspects of our lives and create a ripple effect. In modern times, privilege is no longer restricted to white people or straight people. The scales have shifted and now include the wealthy and other members who are society who we coin to be “above the law”. Our constitution has certain provisions and clauses that fail to consider the effect of ill-usage of the same law by a certain unsavory component of society. Even in this digital age of transparency and instant communication which has empowered media and free speech privileges, we are not equal. For example, you can look at the actions of Colin Kaepernick.

The former NFL quarterback’s career was instantly terminated due to the perception of his actions that sparked a protest that took social media by fire. The same actions may not have been taken against certain members of our society who are perceived to have more power. For example, the media blazed his actions when he took a knee instead of standing during the playing of the national anthem. This may have had a different perception if he wasn’t a black man protesting against the oppression of his fellow people by the policemen. Violent policing and selective treatment of black people has been a major factor throughout his life and he took a knee to signify his concerns and ask people to make things better for citizens of the nation who are being treated unequally. However, the message got lost under protests of unpatriotic words. To understand oppression we need to point out the source that creates the opportunity that results in fellow citizens being treated selectively. Power is a huge contributor to oppression. All the cases that we know of such as domestic violence, political manipulation, police violence and other oppressive acts are all sparked through one section of society having more power than the other. For example, statistics say that 6 in 10 women over the world have experienced or are still experiencing domestic violence and other degrading acts of violence in public from the patriarch section of society. This is an alarming number that should alert other people and have them react to counter these numbers but somehow reforms and other actions simply cannot catch up with the acts being perpetrated throughout the world.

The unequal distribution of power that favours patriarchal societies has resulted in these numbers and statistics where millions of women are oppression through a number of ways. Some are not allowed the privilege and benefits of education while others are overlooked in preference of male counterparts who may be less experienced or less competent just because of their gender difference. This is an example of gender bias. Where there exists privilege there certainly exists oppression. No section of the society can exist as a privileged section without having oppression in another section. For example, if there are 100 number of jobs and you get the privilege of a free pass then there exists 1 such member who had similarly applied for the job and didn’t receive it due to the job that you removed from the free pool. That person might be more competent or experienced than you. However, that didn’t matter during the selection process as you were privileged enough to get a free entry. This simple example raises a lot of questions that hold the key to understanding the vicious cycle of oppression and privilege that is now common in society. How can you motivate the privileged section of society to understand the problems and cruelty of oppression when they are the section who benefits from the oppression process. Would anyone refuse the free pass at the job in the situation described above? The answer is a resounding no. The criteria for the privilege selected may be different. It may be offered to white men, black men, straight men or women or someone from the LGBTQ community. However, the question remains the same. In the described situation how to get the privileged person to understand and care about the loss that he/she indirectly created from some other contender.

Indeed, even in the time of 'balance' and “equality”, we are as yet inconsistent: the main distinction is that both the advantaged and persecuted classes are never again homogeneous, never again isolated to their very own social gathering. We switch codes now: we are each separated of many, a wide range of talk networks; reliability is never again one-sided, rather, every individual's loyalties are grafted in a million distinct ways. This is called the estrangement. Expanded estrangement prompts revolt, which is contained by either savagery or publicity or both: rebellion consistently prompts steps taken by the decision class so as to pacify the majority. These are little things, for example, an 8-hour workday, the lowest pay permitted by law, the privilege to cast a ballot: material 'benefit', that have had the impact of jumbling an as of now excessively complex social framework. The genuine issue, in any case, is that material benefits are not genuine benefits: the material is the consequence of mistreatment, so what appears as though 'benefit' is extremely simply access to a little part of what you help make. It leaves one asking: what are we really getting out of it all?

As the main theme of many is to go back, one should consider the basic fact that if a white and heteronormative family of Americans who are starving and suffering due to the fact that they are very poor and struck by poverty. Is it better off than maybe a celebrity who belongs to the LGBTQ community or a person of colour? Our case in point for an example is Caitlin Jenner. Though the white and heteronormative American family do enjoy some social privileges which Caitlin Jenner is barred from, the fact didn't change that the family is suffering. In some cases, the white American family might even feel more alienated than our person in focus, Caitlin Jenner, for a mere simple fact that their problems are not talked about at all but all Caitlin Jenner's problems are broadcasted internationally for everyone to notice. Can anyone ever truly argue that the starving and white American family is benefitting more than Caitlin Jenner through this system of oppression. She also became the person whom the liberal media utilised to bring forth the recent pop-trans movement. The main point is not that her strikes aren't valid but the main point is that her struggles aren't normal to what Trans people generally go through. This is similar to white feminism in some ways.

Quite a bit of Caitlin's persecution happens in her own reality, the universe of VIPs, mostly in light of the fact that she is just not the same as the normal American: she doesn't dress like us or home base with us, she goes to extravagant gatherings with extravagant individuals we don't have the foggiest idea; big names resemble divine beings, to us ordinary individuals. It is additionally simpler, in the realm of big names, to see the mistreatment Caitlin faces: an inclination towards her, remarks about her being tossed around, less broadcast appointment, fewer openings for work, and so on and so on. There is unquestionably an edge of disparity, this to say the least is quite obvious: but since she acknowledges or overlooks the characteristic fanaticism of the framework, she is capable/allowed to remain almost unaltered in her social position. The abuse she faces is from her friends: she stays immaculate by lower classes essentially in light of the fact that she isn't separated from those classes. Be that as it may, Caitlin Jenner, after all, 's said and done, is as yet rich, still has an impact in media: only short of what she did when she was a white male, and not exactly those VIPs who fit into a heteronormative arrangement.

Essentially, Caitlin Jenner as a VIP representative for transgender issues is a programmed error, in light of the fact that the stage from which she talks exists exclusively in light of the severe structures set facing minority gatherings, for example, the individuals who distinguish as transgender. Her activity, economic wellbeing, and beneficial experience are outside the typical trans experience, which means Caitlin is just ready to advise others about trans issues through the viewpoint of her own special experience, and in doing so rejects most of the trans experience.

At the point when individuals from a predominant gathering come to consider themselves to be a piece of a gathering, they discover that they are just one section of humankind and that their encounters are not all-inclusive. A social view urges individuals to see that the states of their lives are associated with and made conceivable by, the states of different people groups lives. In the event that we are to work from a social conceptualization of race, we should explain a portion of its ideas. The most significant of these is that of 'white benefit,' laid out most persuasively by Peggy Mclntosh. A result idea is 'racial domination,' whose helpfulness has been proposed by ringer snares. By adding these ideas to our thought of race, we start to perceive how race, truth be told, involves everybody. White benefit. Mclntosh maligns white benefit as 'an imperceptible bundle of unmerited resources that [she] can rely on trading in for cold hard currency consistently.' These benefits go from the unremarkable ('tissue'- shaded gauzes) to the significant. Individuals from the prevailing gathering use race to separate others from themselves and accordingly, as noted above, to credit race just to those others. Sleeter sees that 'a conundrum of white awareness is the capacity not to perceive what is striking: the unmistakable markers of social classes that benefit individuals of European parentage.' Because of the isolated structure of the material and digressive conditions possessed by most white individuals, the racial benefit is lived however not seen; whites not extraordinarily live a lot of their day by day presence without coming into contact with minorities. These structures give whites socially endorsed open doors for not seeing how race functions, for overlooking that it is there; minorities need such an alternative. Having white skin, as indicated by Barbara Smith, enables individuals to absorb into the prevailing society such that a great many people of shading can't; this absorption can have a padding impact not accessible to minorities. It shields individuals from corrupting, horrendous, and generally offensive encounters. To perceive a white benefit, whites would be required to surrender their 'racial blamelessness'; this procedure would almost certainly build white blame about race and prejudice. In a racial settler country, for example, our own, it is simply the predominant race that saves the advantage of rejecting racial character while the mistreated race is made day by day mindful of their racial personality. It is the predominant race that can cause it to appear that their experience is an agent. Some portion of the benefit of whiteness, at that point, is the capacity to decide to be unmindful of the impacts of race. Racial benefit additionally structures the manner in which whites manage non-white individuals. Frye accepts that racial benefit gives white individuals a decision among 'hearing and not hearing' the voices of nonwhites.