In “Oppression,” Marilyn Frye uses a birdcage as a metaphor to describe the invisible and visible effects that oppression can have on society (151). Frye further argues how an observer failing to see why the cage is a prison to the bird is like someone failing to treat oppression as a “whole” (151). The author’s creative approach spurred me to think of other “bird cages” presently in our society. Specifically, I wonder how the people within the “bird cages” I present become invisible in the cage.
For instance, prisons and psychiatric hospitals are a representation of a “bird cage.” In the United States, currently, millions of African American youth who committed petty crimes are placed with hard-core criminals. Consider, Kalief Browder,
With no doubt, mass incarceration has produced broken people from a broken system. What breaks the heart even more is knowing that there are collateral consequences that follow these ex-prisoners throughout the rest of their life. Those who come out of the incarcerated system struggle to get back on their feet due to discrimination. Marginalization of felons can be found anywhere—specifically in jobs, housing, and even in debt that they cannot afford. Iris Marian Young introduces the birdcage metaphor, where one wire of the cage represents racism. However, there are many wires that create racism, and each of them have different approaches in keeping the bird, or the disadvantaged, trapped in the cage. Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim
Before the second segment begins, where a modern case study is applied to Marilyn Frye’s theory of oppression; it seems necessary to briefly mention a few ways that Frye believes that oppression can be surfaced unknowingly between men and women. The first example touches on the simple actions that men do for women such as opening a door, “The arresting of vision at a microscopic level yields such common confusion as that about the male door-opening ritual. This ritual, which is remarkably widespread across classes and races, puzzles many people, some of whom do and some of whom do not find it offensive. Look at the scene of the two people approaching a door. The male steps slightly ahead and opens the door. The male holds the door open while the female glides through. Then the male goes through. The door closes after them” (12). This particular quote receives a lot of backlash, as many people feel that this act is simply a helpful gesture between a man and a woman. This type of gesture is often times defined as chivalry. Frye argues that these “chivalrous” gestures are condoned oppressive behaviors, “The gallant gestures have no practical meaning. Their meaning is symbolic. The door-opening and similar services provided are services which really are needed by people who are for one reason or another incapacitated – unwell, burdened with parcels, etc. So the message is that women are incapable. The detachment of the acts from the concrete realities of what women need and do
Throughout history, many people have been oppressed because of their race, religion and gender, resulting in the loss of their rights and freedom. Despite the fact that freedom is an inherent rights of any human being, many examples have proven that these rights often require rebellious acts to obtain said rights. Although human rights have evolved over the years, humans still fail to learn from their mistakes, resulting in history repeating itself. Through storytelling and novels, people show depictions of history to honour those who have died and to educate younger generations to prevent unfortunate events from occurring again. In this same vein, Lawrence Hill and Alice Walker display oppression through abuse, structural inequality and gender stereotypes. Although the novels, The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill and The Colour Purple by Alice Walker were written in different time periods and revolved around different cultural influences, each demonstrates the theme of oppression throughout various events.
Overall, the United States prison system and society’s view of African Americans needs to change. People need to make sure that the mistakes society has made in the past do not repeat themselves. In order to fix many of the existing problems it is important to focus on reforming the prison system. Doing so would prevent many future cases of injustice and racial
“As the walls of the ghetto shook and threatened to crumble, the walls of the prison were correspondingly extended, enlarged and fortified. . .” (Wacquant 2002:52). In his account, Wacquant implies that once ghettos began to disperse, American society required a new place for African Americans to reside: prison. Reading this article, one would never know that African Americans existed outside ghettos and prisons. The concept of African Americans in suburbia or anywhere of decent living standards is ignored completely. There is no dispute over the “racially skewed mass imprisonment” (Wacquant 2002:56) of black men and women, but not only African Americans inhabit ghettos and the “inner city.” However, the “centuries-old
Women and men are born equal. However, females are receiving unequal judgement and unfair treatment in the society, and thus Marilyn Frye brings up the notion of “oppression”, claiming that women are oppressed. Throughout the essay, I will first give the definition of Frye’s oppression and then list 5 critical qualifications to be considered oppressed. After that, I will explain my appreciation on Frye’s perspective on elaborating oppression using the “bird cage” analogy. I will support Frye’s “double-bind” argument for sexism followed by flaws in the argument. Furthermore, I will point out some social group are mistakenly placed inside or outside the parameters of oppression, once the theory of oppression extends over other marginal groups.
All societal groups are affected by the issue of imprisonment, but it is a far more likely occurrence among marginalized cultural groups, particularly African Americans. As the United States celebrates the nation's triumph over race with the selection of Barack Obama as the first African American male president, a majority of young black males in major American cities are locked behind bars, or categorized felons for life (Alexander, 2010, p. 1). Bonczar and Beck (1997) report that:
Andrea Dworkin, a prominent radical feminist, tries to explain why women fail to put themselves out from where they are: “Women have been taught that, for us, the earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge.” Women are often conditioned by different factors in their life to stay in their position, especially from societal norms and expectations of them from the men in their lives. However, over time, this could be emotionally and mentally burdensome to a woman’s state of mind, leading them to nowhere. This theme of oppression is prevalent in the feminist short stories titled “A Jury of her Peers”, written by Susan Glaspell, and “Sweat”, written by Zora Neale Hurston. In these works, Glaspell and Hurston elaborate on how powerful female protagonists are able to decide for themselves, but explain their mentally-taxing processes and reasons in accomplishing such a feat. In these short stories, women are able to rise over oppression, but primarily to overcome a grief or insecurity that stems from within and after being pushed to their limits and accustomed to their roles by men.
Women face two key forms of oppression in this world, powerlessness and exploitation. These two forms fall into Iris M. Young’s ideas of oppression in her article “Five Faces of Oppression”. The definition of cultural imperialism and exploitation used in this essay are taken from Young’s essay. Cultural imperialism is where the dominant customs and morals of a society are rendered as the norm and those who are not in the norm are considered others. Exploitation is a form of oppression where a class structure is present and this class structure includes a dominant group of people who are in power of a subordinate group. Two authors, John Stuart Mill and Simone de Beauvoir, talk about how the oppression of women is not due to nature. It is rather, in Mill’s view, due to a premodern law of force which divides men and women between the strong and the weak. Beauvoir sees this oppression of women as a result from socialization, which conformed women to become immanent. Both these authors have reasonable arguments and have a similar understanding that the inferiority of women is not from the simple nature of being women. Other factors come into play when understanding why women are oppressed, and both authors recognize the fact that society and old habits must change for the equality of women and men to become a reality.
What defines power in today’s society? Is it money? Privilege? Status? In Chapter 2 of Justice And The Politics of Difference, entitled “The Five Faces of Oppression,” Iris Marion Young offers a unique perspective on what power really is in modern day society and how oppression plays a role in it. According to Young, power is the result of having a concrete societal position that grants you respect and opportunities from people (A page would be nice right here.). However, Young argues that this “power” is so reliant upon your perceived status and worth from individuals, that if lacking these things, you then become vulnerable to oppression. Oppression
“Five Faces of Oppression” by Iris M. Young tries to create an idea that we can critique the reality and stages of oppression of different groups. She argues that oppression is structural in the sense that injustices arise from systematic everyday activities, and not from policies or how people act. Since oppression is systematically reproduced and thus ingrained into culture, politics and economics, therefore it cannot be simply removed from our society. She separates the condition of oppression into five different forms: exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence. Young states that exploitation is where oppression occurs in the transfer of one social group’s products of labor to benefit the wealthier class. She also argues that women are also exploited to through this from of
Oppression is mental pressure or distress and there is women, men, and racial oppression. At a point in someone’s life, the feeling of being trapped or stuck arise. In The Story of an Hour, a woman gives her own thoughts on marriages and life. She has heart issues and the thought of her husband’s death causes her to trap herself in her room. Now in “Sympathy” , a male figure has his thoughts and similar feelings to a caged bird. In both the story and poem they show oppression in some way. Though these two stories and characters are completely different, they share the same mindset, feeling trapped but one is mentally and the other is physically.
In "Oppression" by Marilyn Frye, Frye discussed how a bird cage symbolizes the systematic oppression of women. Frye explains that if you look at a single wire in a bird cage you cannot understand why the bird, is unable to simply fly around the wire and be free. But, when you step back and look at the cage as a whole system of interlocking wires you realize that the bird has no chance of escaping because of all the barriers put in their way (Frye). This is exactly the same case for women. When somebody tries to see the oppression of women. they look only at one problem women face, refusing to step back and see there is no one cause for their oppression. If instead they looked at all the barriers women face at once, they would finally see that women have no way of escaping oppression without continuous efforts of every person involved in the oppression, including the woman being oppressed and the sexist men doing the oppressing.
The poem “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou tells the story of two birds: one bird has the luxury of freedom and the second bird lives its life caged and maltreated by an unknown tyrant. Maya Angelou wrote this poem during the Civil Rights Era, the period when black activists in the 1950’s and 1960’s fought for desegregation of African Americans. This poem parallels the oppression that African Americans were fighting during this time period. In “Caged Bird”, Angelou builds a strong contrast that shows the historical context of discrimination and segregation through the use of mood, symbolism, and theme.
Many young individuals are leaving their seat empty and getting engaged in activities that ultimately lead towards false outcomes. Jail is becoming a common destination for many black communities and youngsters are failing to associate hatred for a prison