Social Inequality In Society

If not met to the status quo, our sex,gender, ethnicity, able-sim, and class can cause us to be seen as less in society, thus effecting our multiple identities, the amount of power we have, and empowerment we feel or give; which ultimately excludes or includes our privileges. In conclusion, intersectionality is a growing problem in our society today; it continues to enforce oppression and enable people to truly define

Intersectionality is defined as “a way to describe and recognize the ways in which race, class, gender, and sexuality work together to shape our life chances, experiences, and positions within society” (Lecture, Barnes). It is the impact that one’s characteristics, including but not limited to race, gender, economic status, age, health and sexuality, has on their experiences and positions within life. The intersection of one’s characteristics impacts the life chances given to an individual. If one’s characteristics fall into a minority group within society, they tend to be marginalized and face more discrimination, than say a white, heterosexual, upper class, man in present day American society. This can also be seen within the Social Construct

I am applying intersectionality and the sociological imagination to my intersecting identities: class, gender, and ethnicity. By employing intersectionality and the sociological imagination, I am analyzing how my positionality affected my personal experiences while connecting those events with society. I also included five peer-reviewed articles as supporting evidence.

Privilege and oppression provides a framework for understanding how institutional structures and ideologies shapes individual experiences. Privilege and oppression also explains “how power operates in society” which led to the formation of “a dominant group and a marginalized group” (Launius and Hassel, Threshold Concepts, 72-73). “Oppression can be defined as prejudice and discrimination directed toward a group and perpetuated by the ideologies and practices of multiple social institutions” (Launius and Hassel, Threshold Concepts, 73). While, privilege refers to the “benefits, advantages, and power that accrue to members of a dominant group as a result of the oppression of marginalized group”,

To be a person, requires intersectionality. Intersectionality is the idea that people do not function on only one aspect of their being, but instead, function on every aspect. Aspects that include race, gender, ability, etc. With this intersectionality comes innumerable categories that lie on the scale of privileged, oppressed, or somewhere in between. To be privileged is to have advantages that are not necessarily earned, and instead come with a specific, usually uncontrollable feature, such as race, gender, class, and ability. To be oppressed is to have disadvantages that are not earned, but instead come with the same uncontrollable categories as privilege. Even cis-gendered, heterosexual, white, men have aspects of their intersectionality that might not place them at the top of the privilege hierarchy. And it is in these complications where people start to place doubts on their own privileges. It is important to realize that it is nearly impossible to have privilege in every single way or oppression in every single way, yet, this is not an excuse to deny privileges. Even with some oppressions, some are still granted more advantages than others. To delve into this deeper, analyzing writings from established writers, such as Peggy McIntosh and Devon Carbado become necessary.

Intersectionality expands beyond multiple locations of oppression, to explore how people both occupy positions of oppression and privilege simultaneously, and that these identities are also mutually constructive.The term “social location” refers not just to the way that these multiple idenitiies interact with the larger

Lorde, writer of “Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference,” gives a firsthand insight on what it means to be a 49-year old, African American, middle class, lesbian woman. She describes how these identities, which she is absolutely proud of, work together as forces of “oppression” in order to create a systematic set of experiences that disempower her and empowers others. In fact, she focuses a lot on those who are empowered by the oppressions others experience. Lorde describes that “[i]n america, this norm is usually defined as white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and financial¬ly secure” (Lorde 285). Even though this approach is definitely related to intersectionality, the author does not explicitly state the term.

Social inequality exists in the United States through the Elite’s power to maintain their dominance in the United States capitalist system. The Elite Ruling class is made of the upper class and this class of individuals share similar ideology and are the members of the United State’s Superstructure. The Elite Ruling Class members of society are the decision and policy makers in the United States. Research and history has proven that many policies and decisions made by the Elite Ruling Class serve their own interest and promote their ideas. These decisions are the source of the inequality in the United States and it contributes to their ability to maintain their dominant status. The inequality is trickled down to the other classes through social policy and social institutions that affect our lives everyday citizens. A major example of this social inequality can be seen in the United States housing market or home ownership. A significant amount of studies, statics and data supports the evidence of social inequality within the US housing market or home ownership. The following passages will discuss social inequality in the United States as it is connected to Karl Marx’s theory of capitalism’s power and influence of the Elite Dominant i.e. the Ruling Class view as it relates to homeownership within the United States. Karl Marx’s theory however focuses mostly on economic s and the difference between upper and lower class not race. It is also important to point out that the Elite

Accepting the reality for intersecting oppressions calls for political struggles and innovations. We acknowledge that intersectionality is applied in systems within policy and laws that create these structural oppressions. We have also failed to compensate for intersectionality because it complicates the singular axis’ in which we have been able to declare people advantaged or disadvantaged and privileged or oppressed.

The perception of race and gender as binary opposites rather than intersecting social iden-tities, underestimates the complexity of social status (Nash, 2008) as does the perception of sex-ual identity and race as binaries. For both theoretical and political purposes, intersectionality promotes a means of analyzing and understanding the complexity of social identities beyond bi-naries (Nash, 2008) and devoid of competitive notions. The majority of us are socialized to ad-here to “competitive either/or thinking” instead of in terms of compatibility (hooks, 2000) when we discuss, analyze or advocate for social reforms. People’s social identities do not hold hierar-chical importance, but are interconnect in how they shape and affect a person’s

Enrolling in this class, I was extremely aware of the majority of the social stratification classifications

The central idea of this article focuses on intersectionality and how it affects different people's point of view. In the article, intersectionality is described as different kinds of identities people have. These identities are race, gender, sex,disability, and sexual orientation. Intersectionality also impacts how oppression and privilege connect and influence each other. Oppression is when someone faces unfair treatment because of their identity. This article gave us the story of Nicole who is in ninth grade who faces oppression from her teacher because she constantly misses her first period class and rarely turns in her homework, and as a result her grades are suffering. The teachers do not take the time to peel back the layers of Nicole's

Ferree (2009) argues that while intersectionality “can do justice to the actual complexity of political power and social inequality” (p. 87) it also has the potential to result in identity politics, or what Martinez (1993) refers to as the “oppression Olympics”. Ferree (2009) and Prins (2006) also advocate for a “constructionist rather than structural understanding of intersectionality” (Ferree, 2009, p. 87). This is the main criticism that I have throughout the course of preparing for this exam is the apparent contradiction that exists within intersectionality. As I have shown, intersectionality theorists posit that we have various identities, which differentiate us from those without the same identities. If the ultimate goal is the abolition of inequalities on the basis of gender, race, or class (class itself would be eliminated), I argue that the focus should be on the reeducation of identity politics, not the proliferation of them.

The video for my project1: Video/DVD analysis is about the social/individual inequality of our society, and it will be focused on Durkheim’s view. It is from the youtube.com, originally from Khan academy for health and medicine contents. The video is about the social/individual inequality in our society.

In briefly evaluating the classical and modern explanations of social inequality, it is essential that we step outside the realm of our own lives, class position, and discard any assumptions we might have about the nature of inequality. This process of critical pedagogy allows us to view our world, not from our perspective, but from a wider, more critical analysis of inequality's nature. Also, it should be considered within this wider perspective that all theories of inequality have a class perspective, where the theorist, based on the position their theory takes, is making claims from (or for) a particular class (whether they want to or not). With this in mind, it seems that most of these theories come