Running Head: OPRESSION 1 OPRESSION 2 Five Faces of Oppression Summary Defining oppression Oppression refers to the unjust exercise of power or discretionary authority by the ruling or dominant group ill motive or unfair intentions. Oppression may result in harm or injuries to the victims. Oppressions may also result in injustices to the victims. Tyranny does not only arise from cruel leadership or majority groups but also civilized societies. The choice for regulations and policies may impose restrictive structures that inhibit specific group or groups of people from exercising their freedom freely. Five Faces of Oppression According to Iris Marion, there are five faces of oppression. The five faces include exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence. Each of the five faces is outlined and summarized in this section. Exploitation According to Iris Marion exploitation involves exploitation of other individual’s labor to generate business profits while not rewarding the individuals fairly. In this case, individuals are paid for the work done but the payment given is not commensurate with the services provided or job done. Individuals perpetrating oppression on others commonly exploit the loopholes with the industry laws and regulations at their advantage. Other oppressors rely on the economic theory of capitalism that advocates individuals are ordinarily free to exchange their goods and services at will The economic approach of capitalism use in different society has led to the classification of people into groups such as the poor and the wealthy. Capitalist society has always promoted the oppression of the poor by the wealthy group. The capitalist system always ensures that the economic conditions favor the rich while the poor find it hard to survive. As a result, the poor become vulnerable to exploitation by the rich. Marginalization Marginalization involves the process of confining a particular group of people into the lowest social level of society. In other words, marginalization refers to the act of excluding some people from most of society development agendas. Marginalization frequently occurs among different races. For instance, a whole group of Amazon may find themselves being alienated from most of the Southern Americas society and be forced out of their old rainforest of Amazon. By not being involved in public social and economic activities leaves the marginalized groups less empowered. The groups find themselves with no material possessions. As a result, the majority of individuals from the marginalized groups usually are left to wade in abject poverty. At times catering for.

1. Running Head: OPRESSION
1
OPRESSION
2
Five Faces of Oppression Summary
Defining oppression
Oppression refers to the unjust exercise of power or
discretionary authority by the ruling or dominant group ill
motive or unfair intentions. Oppression may result in harm or
injuries to the victims. Oppressions may also result in injustices
to the victims. Tyranny does not only arise from cruel

2. leadership or majority groups but also civilized societies. The
choice for regulations and policies may impose restrictive
structures that inhibit specific group or groups of people from
exercising their freedom freely.
Five Faces of Oppression
According to Iris Marion, there are five faces of oppression.
The five faces include exploitation, marginalization,
powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence. Each of the
five faces is outlined and summarized in this section.
Exploitation
According to Iris Marion exploitation involves exploitation of
other individual’s labor to generate business profits while not
rewarding the individuals fairly. In this case, individuals are
paid for the work done but the payment given is not
commensurate with the services provided or job done.
Individuals perpetrating oppression on others commonly exploit
the loopholes with the industry laws and regulations at their
advantage. Other oppressors rely on the economic theory of
capitalism that advocates individuals are ordinarily free to
exchange their goods and services at will
The economic approach of capitalism use in different society
has led to the classification of people into groups such as the
poor and the wealthy. Capitalist society has always promoted
the oppression of the poor by the wealthy group. The capitalist
system always ensures that the economic conditions favor the
rich while the poor find it hard to survive. As a result, the poor
become vulnerable to exploitation by the rich.
Marginalization
Marginalization involves the process of confining a particular
group of people into the lowest social level of society. In other
words, marginalization refers to the act of excluding some
people from most of society development agendas.
Marginalization frequently occurs among different races. For
instance, a whole group of Amazon may find themselves being
alienated from most of the Southern Americas society and be
forced out of their old rainforest of Amazon.

3. By not being involved in public social and economic activities
leaves the marginalized groups less empowered. The groups
find themselves with no material possessions. As a result, the
majority of individuals from the marginalized groups usually
are left to wade in abject poverty. At times catering for the
basic needs such as food and shelter becomes a hard task. The
majority are left with no options but forced to engage in
criminal activities such as robbery or prostitution.
Powerlessness
Powerlessness is a situation that arises out of the fact that some
people within our societies have powers while others have no
powers at all. The case is also supported by Karl Marx theory
of socialization that advocated on the same idea too. The
powerless are dominated by those with powers. In other words,
the powerless group ends up becoming the subjects of those
with power and find themselves taking orders from those in
power and rarely do they have the right to give them.
Powerless groups become vulnerable to disrespectful treatment
since they are considered lowest within the societies. Other
times powerless groups are denied fundamental rights such as
decision making regarding some of the things that affect them
in a community. The situation forces the powerless groups to
almost believe that there is no need to participate in any of the
significant decision events such as voting. The feeling arises
from the assumption that their presence or participation means
nothing.
The powerlessness becomes continued oppression when
individuals end up believing that they are powerless and they
have no place in society. The situation forces individuals to
oppress themselves more than other people would do.
Powerlessness feeling makes one think little of their affairs and
only focus on their master's interests. The feeling forces
individuals to forget that they are being oppressed or exploited.
Powerlessness when perpetrated to victims over a long period
cause then to end up believing that is the way of life. At this
stage, powerlessness groups embrace the culture of silence. The

4. culture of silence helps promote evil in society. Group members
are left to suffer in silence since they are not bold enough to
share out their experience or encounters. Education and
activism awareness has seen the powerlessness feeling within
society reduce. Increased literacy gained through education
continues to help powerless individuals and groups to self-
evaluate themselves to fight for their rights.
Cultural Imperialism
Cultural imperialism refers to the process of taking the culture
of the rulers or the ruling class and imposing it as the norm to
all other groups within any given society. The ruling class is so
powerful such that they control almost every aspect of all other
groups. The group’s influence on how all other groups
communicate or interpret things in society. For instance,
American culture is founded on Christian beliefs and values.
Every other group is supposed to behave or act per generally
accepted American culture. Other groups such as Muslims and
Hindu are left to observe a lifestyle that goes against their
religious orientation.
Violence
Violence involves inflicting injury or damage to people or their
properties or both of them at the same time. Violence is the
most visible and feared form of oppression that makes groups or
individuals live in fear of random and unprovoked attack on
their properties or lives. Violence is advanced to individuals
with malice intentions of humiliating, damaging or destroying
the person or persons. Violence at times is focused on
individuals or groups with the purpose of cutting new or
unknown customs from society. For instance, homosexuals may
experience violence to discourage their sexual orientation
within American society.

5. Five faces of oppression grid
Face of oppression
Targeted groups
Injustices Done
Exploitations
Syrian Refugees, African Immigrants, Bosnians Crimean,
Tatars, Women
· Unfair remuneration since they are termed unskilled and
employed in menial jobs that are not captured in labor laws.
· Not recognized by the institutions or lack legal representation
in Turkey
Marginalization
Syrian refugees, African Immigrants, Non-Sunni groups and
Non-Muslims such as Kurds groups. Elderly, Disabled people,
Single mothers, and their children
· The groups are not allowed to participate in useful social
activities.
· The groups are not well empowered to meet for their basic
needs such as food and shelter
· Older adults may be left out to suffer in boredom as well as
low self-esteem due to lack of social participation
Powerlessness
Non-Muslims and Non-Sunni groups, Armenians, Arabs,
Albanians, African Immigrants, Syrian Refugees, Afghans
· The groups are not involved in major decision making that
influences their lives. They are forced to follows a decision

6. made by the majority or the dominant groups.
· Denied empowerment that would help actualize their personal
development.
· Disrespectful treatment
· Sexual exploitation by other powerful groups or their masters
Cultural imperialism
Kurds, Armenians, Greeks,
· Turkish values are founded on Sunni-Muslim beliefs. Other
groups are forced to embrace these values to fit in Turkish
society against their will.
· Turkish is embraced as the dominant and official language
leaving all other languages looked down upon. Learning
institutions have no place for individuals in different groups
and offer curriculums in Turkish.
Violence
Non-Muslims or Non-Sunni groups, Women, Gays, Lesbians,
Immigrants such as Syrians, Disabled people,
· The groups live in fear of being physically abused or being
killed.
· The groups also live in fear of being sexually abused
especially women.
· They lack legal or institution recognition such as police
departments and legal representations.
INTERSECTIONALITY, UNCATEGORIZED
Intersectionality – a Definition, History,
and Guide
Posted on July 27, 2016 by Claire
Intersectionality has been a common theme in feminist theory,
writing, and

7. activism for the last few years. It has even become something of
a buzzword. And
yet there remains a great deal of misunderstanding over what
intersectionality
actually means and, subsequently, how it is supposed to
manifest within the
feminist movement. This confusion has resulted in a degree of
backlash, claims
that intersectionality distracts women’s energy from the key
aims of the feminist
movement – dismantling patriarchy, ending male dominance and
violence against
women – when in fact it is only through a truly intersectional
approach that these
goals become possible for all women, not simply the white and
middle-class. And
feminism is about uplifting all women, a goal which becomes
impossible when
only those aspects of women’s experiences relating to the
hierarchy of gender are
considered. This is where intersectionality becomes essential.
What is intersectionality?
Intersectionality is a framework designed to explore the
dynamic between co-

8. existing identities (e.g. woman, Black) and connected systems
of oppression (e.g.
patriarchy, white supremacy). The term was created by
Kimberlé Crenshaw and
challenges an assumption continuing to undermine the feminist
movement – that
women are a homogeneous group, equally positioned by
structures of power. In a
feminist context, it allows for a fully developed understanding
of how factors such
as race and class shape women’s lived experiences, how they
interact with gender.
Intersectionality is actually a pretty straightforward idea: if
forms of prejudice have
the same root, growing from the dominant power structure of
“white supremacist
capitalist patriarchy” (hooks), then challenging one aspect of
structural power
alone is almost entirely ineffectual. Opposing one facet of
systematic oppression
also requires a degree of selectivism, treating one form of
structural power as a
bigger threat than the others, e.g. when white middle-class
feminists argue that

9. gender is the primary means of oppression in all women’s lives,
disregarding the
realities of working class women and/or women of colour. For
an effective
feminist movement that tackles the very root of persisting
inequalities, in the words
of Audre Lorde, “there can be no hierarchies of oppression.”
https://sisteroutrider.wordpress.com/category/intersectionality/
https://sisteroutrider.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/
https://sisteroutrider.wordpress.com/2016/07/27/intersectionalit
y-a-definition-history-and-guide/
https://sisteroutrider.wordpress.com/author/claireshrugged92/
http://kathydavis.info/articles/Intersectionality_as_buzzword.pd
f
http://socialdifference.columbia.edu/files/socialdiff/projects/Art
icle__Mapping_the_Margins_by_Kimblere_Crenshaw.pdf
http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~jc3962/COR/Hierarchy.pdf
The lens of intersectionality allows for the overlap between
identities of race, sex,
class, sexuality, etc. to be fully incorporated in structural
analysis, thus providing
feminist analysis with the perspective to encompass the true
range of all women’s
lives, the scope to understand all women’s experiences.

10. Intersectional praxis
prevents marginalized women from being further side-lined
within the feminist
movement. It also defies the expectation that feminists of colour
ought to prioritize
sex in our analysis:
Although racism and sexism readily intersect in the lives of real
people, they seldom do in feminist and antiracist practices. And
so, when the practices expound identity as woman or person of
color as an either/or proposition, they relegate the identity of
women of colour to a location that resists telling. (Crenshaw)
Where did intersectionality come from?
Despite the concept of intersectionality being relatively new,
that mode of
connecting forms of oppression together in structural analysis
can be traced back
throughout the activism and liberation theory within modern
history. For example,
when the abolitionist Frederick Douglass championed women’s
suffrage during the
mid-19th century, he did so in the belief that women (both of
colour and white)

11. were every bit as entitled to participate in democracy as Black
men – unlike
numerous suffragettes, Douglass resisted prioritizing the
struggle of the group to
which he belonged above the struggles of others, a commitment
to universal
equality that ultimately strengthened the position of both
women and Black men
pursuing suffrage.
Intersectionality also manifests in Black feminist writing from
the 1960s onwards.
Michele Wallace was a pioneering thinker in this respect, her
criticism of
misogyny within the Black Power movement highlighting the
dynamic between
misogyny and racism and, subsequently, the nature of
oppression faced by Black
women. The writing of Angela Davis was pivotal in unveiling
the racism and
classism of the women’s liberation movement, analyzing the
history of Black
women being further marginalized within feminism. Her work
gave a clear
demonstration of the relationship typically existing between

12. race and class, and
explored the role played by both in the oppression of women.
bell hooks too
asserted that racism and sexism are inherently connected forms
of structural
oppression, that Black women are positioned in such a way that
makes that link
undeniable.
Kay Lindsay postulated that as Black woman are relegated to
the sidelines by both
the misogyny within Black liberation politics and the racism of
feminism, we find
ourselves as outsiders in both movements despite being the
object of the
oppressions they seek to address. This position of
marginalization twice over is
what Frances Beale first termed a “double jeopardy“.
It was this context from which Crenshaw drew on in providing a
comprehensive
description of the relationships between identities and
oppressions. Patricia Hill
Collins built upon her theory, arguing that multiple forms of

13. oppression connect to
form a “matrix of domination” – just as identities overlap, so
too do the hierarchies
by which structural power imbalance is maintained.
Part of the ongoing feminist resistance of intersectionality
stems from the
marginalization of Black women’s scholarship, where the theory
has
predominantly been developed – dismissing it as jargon is easy
as it requires no
critical self-reflection from white feminist women, whereas
engaging with an idea
with the power to radically alter praxis and deepen
understanding of structural
power demands a significant level of honesty both in dealing
with yourself and
others.
How does intersectionality work?
Intersectionality proposes that the greater a deviation from the
Cartesian subject –
the standardized ‘norm’ of a white, wealthy, heterosexual male
– the more layers
of prejudice the individual in question must face, those

14. prejudices combining to
form a matrix of domination. Looking through the lens of
intersectional feminist
theory demonstrates that there is not one fixed reality to be
lived by all those
sharing a single umbrella identity (such as woman), but rather a
multitude of
realities, the experience of which is determined by co-existing
identities (hooks). In
other words, a Black woman and a white woman will both
experience womanhood
differently owing to the vector of race. One is not “more”
woman than the other.
Treating white womanhood as a definitive standard, particularly
during structural
analysis, erases Black womanhood and propagates racism within
the feminist
movement.
http://intellhisblackamerica.voices.wooster.edu/files/2012/03/Fr
ances-Beale_Double-Jeopardy-To-Be-Black-and-Female1.pdf
Separating identities, and indeed the experiences that arise as a
consequence of
those identities, is highly implausible. As Audre Lorde said,

15. “there is no thing as a
single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”
An intersectional approach to feminism considers social
inequality beyond that
which is part of your individual experience. The discomfort of
acknowledging that
you, in some hierarchies, belong to the dominant class is
essential to the
redistribution of structural power. An intersectional approach
also requires a
thorough consideration of power – how it operates as a dynamic
on both an
individual and collective basis. Intersectional thought rejects
the binary assumption
that a person must belong to either one group or the other (e.g.
woman OR person
of colour). The relationship between multiple identities is
acknowledged and
considered in feminist praxis. An intersectional approach to
feminism is also
mindful of context, conscious of how comparative privilege can
shape and even
limit perspective. (Hill Collins & Bilge)

16. Intersectionality extends the reach and relevance of the feminist
movement. This is
because intersectional praxis has the power to dispel the
misconception that
feminism is simply “a white thing”, by and for white women.
Intersectional praxis
is crucial if feminist sisterhood is to exist. It has the power to
foster solidarity
between women – all women – and make our movement
stronger.
Bibliography
ed. Cade Bambara, Toni. (1970). The Black Woman: An
Anthology.
Davis, Angela. (1981). Women, Race & Class.
Hill Collins, Patricia (2000). Black Feminist Thought.
Hill Collins, Patricia. Bilge, Sirma. (2016). Intersectionality.

17. hooks, bell. (1981). Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and
Feminism.
hooks, bell. (1982). Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center.
eds. Moraga, Cherríe & Anzaldúa, Gloria. (1981). This Bridge
Called My Back.
Wallace, Michele. (1978). Black Macho and the Myth of
Superwoman.
Instructions:
1. Thoroughly summarize the article on Intersectionality
1. List each of your identities separately
1. Then discuss your own intersectionality
2. For your identities that are considered a
subordinate/marginalized group(s) discuss how each particular
group is treated in your own county (use the article Five Faces
of
Oppression from last week to guide you).
1. Exploitation
2. Marginalization
3. Powerlessness
4. Violence

18. 5. Cultural Imperialism
3. What is being done in the attempts to protect/support the
group(s)?
1. Identify if the movements/activities/organizing is done by
the government, the media, the group members
themselves or/and by the average people who see the
injustice(s) and support the group(s).
i.e. h�ps://nypost.com/2018/06/30/thousands-protest-trumps-
immigra�on-policies-in-nyc/
javascript:return false;
https://mycc.cambridgecollege.edu/ICS/Academics/EED/EED__
617/2019_04-EED__617-
DL01/Coursework.jnz?portlet=Coursework&screen=StudentAssi
gnmentDetailView&screenType=change&id=a6f4001d-d63c-
4633-bd11-97901f3077bb
https://nypost.com/2018/06/30/thousands-protest-trumps-
immigration-policies-in-nyc/
https://mycc.cambridgecollege.edu/ICS/icsfs/Intersectionality_
%e2%80%93_a_Definition%2c_History%2c_and_Gui.pdf?target
=5174c3f0-79e8-4f20-9b9e-1f049463dded
https://mycc.cambridgecollege.edu/ICS/icsfs/criteria_for_paper.
pdf?target=e6b86f39-1c91-4278-83b0-6d94c716bf78