My thoughts on (vegan) oppression, pt 1

Ultimately, I am aiming to write about veganism and oppression, but here is a primer to what I mean and believe by oppression.

First of all, let me say that I view oppression as being a systemic group-based phenomenon. That is to say, while individual men and women are discriminated against for all sorts of reasons all the time, sexism is a form of oppression targeting women as a group. This is not to minimize the experiences of men who have been discriminated, but to recognize that the causes, context, and frequency with which men are discriminated against are very different than the causes, context, and frequency with which women are.

Secondly, my shorthand definition of oppression is the combination of discrimination and state-sanctioned power. Due to the history of oppression within the U.S., the U.S. state is racist, patriarchal, classist, anthropocentric, etc, etc. It favors white, middle and upper-class, cis-gendered, heterosexual, Christian, able-bodied middle-aged men who speak English as their native language, were born in the U.S. and are U.S. citizens, are from nuclear families, and have at least an undergraduate education. I'm sure there are more categories I'm missing--sorry! You get the point, though, I hope. This helps explain what I mean about the context of discrimination that I mentioned above. An individual woman discriminating against an individual man does so from a very different place of power than an individual man discriminating against an individual woman. Some women may even discriminate against men as a survival tactic developed from years and years of facing sexism every day.

I also view oppression as being linked to certain identity categories. These include "race," ethnicity, class, gender, "biological" sex, sexual orientation, ability/"disability," native language, religion, citizenship status, place of origin, current geographic location, age group, etc. Now, while some of these may change, such as class or citizenship status, most change far less than people would like us to believe--particularly class, which is pretty firmly entrenched on a statistical level. (See www.realchangenews.org/index.php/site/archives/3561/ for a discussion of inequality in the U.S.). Others, such as age, do change over the course of every lifespan, but people frequently do not acknowledge the extent, effects, or even the existence of ageism. Because of ageism, everyone at some point or another has been a member of an oppressed category. Yet almost everyone has also at some point been a member of a privileged category as well, and these different categories intersect, interact and affect one another in a way known as intersectionality. For example, being a white, middle-class heterosexual cis-gender woman is different than being a black, middle-class heterosexual cis-gender woman, and also different from women who are working-class, bisexual, transgender, etc. In many struggles against one type of oppression, this is not always recognized, which can lead to problems.

This is already very long-winded, so I will stop here for this post. Here are some more resources to learn more, both on- and off-line.

Finally, a Feminism 101 Blog http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/

bell hooks, "Ain't I a Woman Too?" (book)--this looks primarily at mainstream feminism. Pretty much anything hooks writes deals with some form(s) of oppression

ColorLines (www.colorlines.com) and their blog RaceWire (www.racewire.org)
A good post on "reverse racism": http://www.racewire.org/archives/2009/07/reverse_racism_word_distracts.html

Pretty much anything by Time Wise (book, and focuses on race)

INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence http://incite-national.org/
They published some great books called
"The Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology"
"The Revolution will not be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex"

Anything by Dr. Andrea Smith