Oppression In Women

In A Thousand Splendid Suns, men do not hate women, in fact, the author shows women’s oppression and physical abuse are rooted in the society. For instance, wearing burqa symbolized the beginning of women’s oppression in the Islamic culture. In the novel, Rasheed says, ‘“I’m a different breed of man, Mariam. Where I come from, one wrong look, one proper word, and blood is spilled. Where I come from, a woman’s face is her husband’s business only. I want you to remember that. Do you understand?”’ (70). When Rasheed says these words to Mariam, it shows that Rasheed is traditionalist, has a conservative mind and is oppressing Mariam in every movements and words of her and one wrong mistake, she will be punish by him. In other words, his words means that Mariam is now a married woman, her body belongs only to him and it also shows she has no power and no equal rights as him. In Islamic culture, there’s a belief that men own women once they are married and that her everything belong only to them. Upon reading the novel, the readers can see that there are physical abuses which occurred to women and show that women are not allow to self-defend themselves from the abuse. In Chapter 8 Part 1, it foreshadows that physical abuse is a most common occurrence in the Islamic culture. For instance, the narrator says, “Mariam’s hands shook when she tried to slip the band onto his finger, and Rasheed had to help her. Her own band was a little tight, but Rasheed had no trouble forcing it over

From the beginning of time and around the world, women have been subjected to patriarchal oppression in various forms. From economic hardships such as wage gaps or an inability to own property, to social mores such as submission in marriage and sexual objectification, women are systematically treated as second- class citizens without a voice. African American women have faced these gendered challenges in addition to racial discrimination in the forms of slavery, unfair taxation, red-lining, unequal access to education and derogatory media representation to name a few. “Passing” by Nella Larsen portrays two African American women as main characters who experience racial and gender oppression in various ways. Webster’s Dictionary defines oppression as: the state of being subject to unjust treatment or control, prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control; mental pressure or distress. Larsen’s story delves into social and feminist issues of oppression such as loss of identity, oppressiveness of marriage, women’s independence relating to women’s lack of independence, the importance of marriage in society, how race and class function in society, and how relationships are dictated by race, class, and gender.

For a very long time in the U.S. society, women of color have suffered too much oppression and discrimination from in many forms including on racial, class, and gender grounds. They have been subordinated, experience restricted participation in existing social institutions, and structurally placed in roles that have limited opportunities. Their congregation includes African Americans, the Asian Americans, the Latinas and others. There case has been made even worse by the fact that being a weaker sex that is subject to oppression from their male colored partners, they are also of color and therefore placing them at the extreme end of oppression. These aspects are more evident in the workplaces, school settings, prisons, families, and others

For my Final project in WS, I have chosen to talk about the oppression of women, and women of color. To narrow more in on the topic, I have chosen to discuss the oppression of women in the work force and all the different forms of oppression women face. Oppression is defined as, “A situation in which people are governed in an unfair and cruel way and prevented from having opportunities and freedom,” (dictionary.cambridge.org). Oppression can be caused by many different things. People can feel oppressed because they are being compared to the opposite gender. People can be oppressed being compared to other age groups. And people can feel oppressed when being compared to different races. Women of color feel oppressed because they are constantly being compared to white women, and some may say they do not always have the same privileges as others. I have enjoyed reading and researching about this topic, but at the same time have had a hard time truly understanding it. To be completely transparent I am a privileged white girl and throughout my whole life I have never felt that I faced oppression. I have witnessed it, but never experienced it. The oppression I have witnessed has only been in the work force; which I will discuss later on.

The life of African American Woman in America is not an easy one, for years the Black Woman has had to face adversity. We were brought into this world not with one minority but with two minorities put against us, the first is the fact that we are a woman and the second is that are African American. Because of that for years we have been subject to not only sexism but racism. The Black Feminist Theory revolves around the exact injustices of African-American women, “A black woman is oppressed by patriarchy, black feminists observe, not just because she’s a woman but because she’s a black woman, a category that has been defined historically in America as less valuable than the category of white woman. (Tyson,123)” The life of an African

    A Raisin In the Sun, The House On Mango Street, and A Yellow Raft In Blue Water all contain strong, defined images of women. These women control and are controlled. They are oppressed and liberated. Standing tall, they are confident and independent. Hunched low, they are vulnerable and insecure. They are grandmothers, aunts, mothers, wives, lovers, friends, sisters and children. Although they span a wide range of years and roles, a common thread is woven through all of their lives, a thread which confronts them day in and day out. This thread is the challenge they face as minority women in America to find liberation and freedom

Reflecting upon your inquiries on the first paragraph, the male dominated perspective does not seem to serve men either. You mentioned sexual assault and violence in your post. Associating victims with female gender as well as perceiving female victims as weak does not seems to help understanding how to support male victims of assault and/or violence.

Women have always been oppressed for many different reasons for many years. In American society today women of color may also feel the same way as to being oppressed by others. However, I have never seen women of colored be oppressed, but I do believe that women do get oppressed because they are women.

A famous quote from Malcolm X states “the most disrespected person in America is the black woman…the most neglected person in America is the black women” (1962). In Audre Lorde’s Essay, ‘The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism’, she focuses on the issues that include black women and the inaccurate categorization of immediately deemed hysterical when discussing their reality of oppression. In her essay, she explains the

From the beginning of time and around the world, women have been subjected to patriarchal oppression in various forms. From economic hardships such as wage gaps or an inability to own property, to social mores such as submission in marriage and sexual objectification, women are systematically treated as second- class citizens without a voice. African American women have faced these gendered challenges in addition to racial discrimination in the forms of slavery, unfair taxation, red-lining, unequal access to education and derogatory media representation to name a few. “Passing” by Nella Larsen portrays two African American women as main characters who experience racial and gender oppression in various ways. Webster’s Dictionary defines oppression as: the state of being subject to unjust treatment or control, prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control; mental pressure or distress. Larsen’s story delves into social and feminist issues of oppression such as loss of identity, oppressiveness of marriage, women’s independence relating to women’s lack of independence, the importance of marriage in society, how race and class function in society, and how relationships are dictated by race, class, and gender.

Although we live in the 21-century women of color across the United States, have been victims of one or more forms of discrimination. The fight to bridge the gender equality gap is a war that has been going on for generations. Women of color never had the gratification of being just a woman, for they are intertwined with issues of sexualization and sexual exploitation. The representations of the past and present frames WOC as sexualized objects. It’s part of a system of social disempowerment and victimization. It’s part of the larger picture of institutionalized racism that has great personal and

"The Women's Rights Movement, 1848–1920 | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives." The Women's Rights Movement, 1848-1920. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2014. <http://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/WIC/Historical-Essays/No-Lady/Womens-Rights/>.

As African-American women address social issues that are important to their life experiences, such as class and race, instead to acknowledge “common oppression” of gender inequality, they are often criticized by “white bourgeois feminists” (hooks, 2000). Their ability to gain any form of equality within society is tarnished by such groups as they develop a “fear of encountering racism” from simply joining this movement (hooks, 2000). As white men, black men, and white women oppress them, their issues are often ignored due to reoccurring stereotypes and myths that claim black women are strong, independent, and “superhuman” (hooks, 2000). It becomes extremely difficult to seek liberation and equity within a “racist, sexist, and classist” society, as their gender and race causes them to be at the “bottom of the occupational ladder” and “social status” (hooks, 2000, pg. 16). As black women are perceived to demonstrate strength and dynamic qualities as white women perpetrate the image of being

The definition of gender roles is a set of societal norms dictating what types of behavior is generally considered acceptable based on the gender of a person. Additionally, if you don’t seem to accept this standard, there can be huge consequences. For example, in India, women are viewed as a burden and a “extra mouth to feed.” Her status promotes the idea that men can treat them in a subdued manner. If they don’t comply to these requirements, then a woman is murdered by her husband or his family by being set alight by a flammable liquid, which is usually known as bride burning. Herland, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, also uncovers the harsh inequality of women. Gender roles shouldn’t be real and they were forced on us by society.

Feminist perspective developed with the ideology that women face large amounts of inequalities in a patriarchal society. They aimed to address and rid the social world of this oppression of women by men. According to Bishop, (2015) “oppression occurs when one group of people use different forms of power to keep another group down in order to exploit them. The oppressor uses the power; the oppressed are exploited” (p. 133-134). Oppression must be by individual experience and not grouped into being the same for all. This includes understanding the original ideology of feminist theory being critiqued as only considering the experiences of middle class, white women. That black women, of lower class experienced oppression much different from the other women. Women are oppressed, thus has to be understood in a different construct that women are similar in some sources, experience of oppression but also experience oppression very differently from one individual to another. Feminist theories have further been expanded do its continuation throughout society and decades to encompass many more issues and arenas than just men and women relationships. Now it seeks to understand and address oppression based on culture, race, class, etc and not only for women but for all. Therefore, Bishop (2014) outlines five components that seem common to all forms of oppression and serve to maintain its presence in society.