Analysis Of Iris Marion Young's Five Faces Of Oppression

A variety of topics have been discussed in class thus far such as human behavior, gender issues and sexism, social class and classism and race and ethnicity. After going over lectures on oppression and reading, “Five Faces of Oppression” by Iris Marion Young explain oppression starting from the 1960s social movements. First, we learn who are expressed, which tends to be minorities such as “women, Blacks, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans and other Spanish-speaking Americans, American Indians, Jews, lesbians and gay men, Arabs, Asian, old people, working-class people, and the physically and mentally disabled,”(35). Young then explains the complexity of oppression, how each group faces oppression in complex, diverse ways. Oppression is something that occurs

One of the interesting facts I never thought about was presented in “Fear, Shame, and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity,” by Michael S. Kimmel. Kimmel points out that homophobia is taught to us: “As adolescents, we learn that our peers are a kind of gender police, constantly threatening to unmask us a feminine, as sissies,” (331). I can personally remember, as a kid, being called and/or calling someone a “sissy” or a “punk” if they weren’t being what I was taught to be as masculine, tough and strong. This was just a natural aspect of life, and never considered that this behavior is actually taught to us growing up. discussing this in class was really interesting because not everyone had grew up being pressured about these things some are raised different and it 's always nice to hear others stories, i like to compare and see how me and others

I do not enjoy talking about class, because while my family always provided for me and did their best, we definitely struggled. That is not something I want to reflect on if not necessary. Mantsios also point out in his second myth that we believe most of the nation is middle class, and he goes on to explain that it is simply not true. The reason we think like this is because “it is acceptable in the United States to talk about ‘the middle class’,” (25). I naturally assumed that most Americans were well off, or better than circumstances around me, because that is all that is portrayed and talked about. During week 6 , we discussed things about class and being comfortable with talking about our social class which really wasn 't heard discussing because i am comfortable with the