Summary Of Iris Marion Youngs Five Faces Of Oppression

In Iris Marion Young’s article Five Faces of Oppression, Young explicitly explains that there are five specific factors of oppression that affect many people in their day to day lives. Those five faces are exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence. Exploitation is the act towards the usage of labor of a specific social group to benefit another group. Marginalization is commonly the exclusion of people of a third world such as racially marked groups, unemployed, disabled, elderly, etc. Powerlessness is the concept how people of power often profit from the labor of others. Cultural imperialism is the idea of a dominant group becoming a norm of society thus making non-dominant groups behaviors as†¦show more content†¦This is why exploitation is a form of oppression because those who are exploited in the workplace, like sweatshops; are treated less than human. The second face of oppression, marginalization, is the exclusion of people of a third world such as racially marked groups, unemployed, disabled, elderly, etc. This kind of act usually assumes that a particular individual does not have certain traits or characteristics that make them equal within society. Individuals who are marginalized are often discriminated and even excluded from social gatherings and activities because some might think they are not qualified to attend. An example of marginalization is how a person with a disability like those who are paraplegic, often are secluded from any type of physical sports because some might think that they are not capable of being good at a physical sport, such as baseball, while you are paraplegic. Another example of marginalization is how women are not expected to be hired in executive or managerial positions because it is seen that the men are more dominant and powerful in order to obtain and withhold positions of such demand and leadership. Because of this assumption, women who might be more qualified in specific areas are often not considered for certain jobs with a higher standing because they are seen as less dominant than a man. The