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The author Frye talks about “oppression” is greater than a word itself. All sex, male and female have face oppression in their lives. Oppression is hateful or unfair treatment of power. While the word “frustration” is an emotion that people experience when they cannot achieve their goals. In Lorde’s essay, she tells us that oppression can escalate from one to the other. According to the essay she states, ” Within the lesbian community I am Black, and within the Black community I am a lesbian. Any attack against Black people is a lesbian and gay issue because I and thousands of other Black women are part of the lesbian community. Any attack against lesbians and gays is a Black issue because thousands of lesbians and gay men are Black.” This quote shows how the word oppression can attack multiple groups at once. I agree with Lord because she talks about how different groups can relate to each other.

Patriarchy is a social system where males are the central authority figures. Up until today United States shows a male dominate society. This also helps us understand that sometimes males feel protective but they don’t want to show weakness in giving up their title of mal privilege. As it even stated in the passage, “Some of the time, men feel defensive because they identify with patriarchy and its values and don’t want to face the consequence there produce or the prospect of giving up male privilege.”

Ijeoma A. and Pascoe write about expectations that are placed on girls and boys, respectively. Man is empowered and expects women to tag along. Back in my country, I have witnessed how they treated females because men were overpowered back then. My mom wasn’t allowed to do anything without asking for permission from the boss which was my father. That was shocking to me, and that’s something I will never miss use just because I am in the hold of it.

In “Oppression” by Marilyn Frye, the author analogizes women’s oppression as a bird trapped in a cage. As a woman, this feels resonant because we as a whole are often limited by our perceived gender in a patriarchal society.

Oppression itself differs from simply being miserable or frustrated in that those who suffer from it are bound into situations often out of their control. Solutions are limited, and typically detrimental or involve penalty. Those who are oppressed are also expected to be silent, to give way and hold space for their oppressors – leaving them occupying no space for themselves.

On this week’s reading “Because you’re a girl” by Ijeoma A she tells us about her personal experiences on the expectations and norms that are placed upon us girls in society. Things like cooking, cleaning and serving the men in the house. These tasks that we are raised to be accustomed to end up impacting us in horrible ways.  She states “My family’s approval was all that I lived for, and I wanted my parents to be proud of me. But, whenever I was alone, I’d catch myself wishing that I were born a boy.” 

This particular sentence really caught my attention because this is something that I personally have experienced myself. When growing up in a Hispanic household you are expected to do it all and to perfection. I was the only girl with two older brothers so if not most then all of the house chores were left to me and my mother, I never found it fair as I wish to stay as laidback as my brothers were. It’s so sad to me that this is a mentality that is still around, us women are still expected to do these particular things. Now that I am older and have a mind of my own, so I definingly don’t let things like this slide.

What has happened to the meaning of “Oppression”? How has it affected women, and how can we now steer the narrative to where the message is “sharp and sure”? Frye explains that the term “Oppression” has now been stretched to meaninglessness. Unfortunately, leading to the thought that most if not all are being “oppressed” in various ways. However, this is not necessarily the case. As Frye points out, being oppressed is much different than varying degrees of societal stress and frustrations. The way I see it, women and men are both held at mainstream standards; however, if a woman breaks those standards, she runs the risk of losing her career, “ruining” her reputation, being labeled as difficult or hysterical, etc.

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I believe that Lorde’s essay leads with the thought that people who fight with the notion that “Oppression” is a competition ultimately can create a further divide, which holds us further from “liberation and a workable future.” Progress towards change can only be achieved when all who are oppressed work together to fight as one.

When I read Lorde’s following statement-

“Within the lesbian community I am Black, and within the Black community I am a lesbian. Any attack against Black people is a lesbian and gay issue, because I and thousands of other Black women are part of the lesbian community. Any attack against lesbians and gays is a Black issue, because thousands of lesbians and gay men are Black. There is no hierarchy of oppression.”

I immediately thought of MLK’s inspirational words, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” And after reflecting over Lorde’s essay, I found myself thinking of the times in my life I have heard “allies” say they “do not see color” I consider how this statement actually does more harm than good. If you don’t see color when you attempt to think outside of your own life experience, how can you see me and the experiences I have faced from being a brown woman in America? If we cannot see diffrences in others, such as race, gender, sexuality, etc. Then how will we effectively manage to change the narrative so that it promotes understanding and acceptance?

When I was reading Ijeoma story she says there are four commandments incorporating what a womans responsibilities are to her family which include: “her office is a kitchen, she is responsible for ALL the chores in the home, she is accountable for the children and their actions, and she must pledge total allegiance to the man”. I legit had to read this twice to make sure I was seeing that correctly. Now I understand that the culture in Nigeria is different than here in America, but I think those rules are another form of enslavement. (don’t take this the wrong way) In addition the whole idea that a woman marry and have children. Saying things like that puts a lot of pressure on women. And this just continues the vicious cycle of women conforming to the needs of men.

When I was reading Pascoes excerpt, makes so many point but these hit a nerve. he writes “boys lay to claim to masculine identities by lobbing homophobia epithets at one another….they also assert masculine selves by engaging in heterosexist discussion of girls bodies and their own sexual experiences”. Hearing this is so funny/ ironic because men do all of this to “prove” their manlyness/ masculinity TO OTHER MEN!!! Men feel like the only way to assert their dominance is by calling other males homophobic slurs and degrading women, like who said that please let me know. Or homophobia, don’t even get me started.. because the suffix phobia is defined as a fear. So technically speaking men who are homophobic have a fear of homosexual men but then the wouldn’t make sense cause why would you as a big and strong, super manly man be scared of another man right? anyways… yea *chuckles*

Honestly growing up it wasn’t like Ijeoma story having to clean up after males in my family or make sure they are taken care or but it was more in the aspect of trying to explore the way my brothers did. Like if i would ask my mom to go to a party or go out she is telling how something happened to a girl like kidnapped or something… never to my brothers though. Its like males are invincible right? I guess indirectly I was subject to norms like acting a certain way, and speaking a certain way as well. Girls are supposed to wear this… girls are supposed to talk like this. Is that fair? no.

Ijeoma A. and Pascoe wrote about expectations that are placed on girls and boys. Some of the norms that were written were called the “Four Commandments”. It was said that they were created to define a woman’s responsibility to her family. Throughout her childhood Ijeoma grew up in a society where she was suppressed, she couldn’t be herself so she hid her true identity. For her it was mandatory to take care of her brothers and cook the meals for her family, while attending school at the same time. Her job were household duties just because she was a girl, which meant it was an obligation for her.

In my personal experience I have been through a similar situation. Although I don’t have any brothers, my dad has a mentality where he thinks that my mother and I should do everything at the house. His excuse is always that he works and once he gets home he wants everything ready but we don’t let him treat us like that. My mom always tells him that she works too and is also tired so if he wants something he can do it himself. Obviously there are time where we actually do it but not because we feel obligated to do so.

DB Question: What is the system of patriarchy? How do we participate in this system? What does this approach help us to see that an individualistic model does not? Give specific examples.

Response: As Allen G Johnson describes in his essay Patriarchy, the System: An It, Not a He, A Them, or an Us; Patriarchy is more than any individual, their beliefs or actions. Patriarchy is a word used to describe a system, one that we all participate in, in one way or another. It is the default operating system at large in the world, and the path of least resistance in life is to blindly go with the flow of the forces of these all-encompassing systems, even if they hurt us, and especially if they don’t.

According to Johnson, “Patriarchal culture includes ideas about the nature of things, including men, women and humanity, with manhood and masculinity being closely associated with being human and womanhood and femininity relegated to the marginal position of “other”. This manifests in ways large and small, so small at times that it can be laughed off and disregarded as a joke, or just the way things are, or individual to the situation at hand instead of being part of a greater problem, but, as Johnson describes, “Patriarchal culture, for example, places a high value on control and maleness, by themselves, these are just abstractions. But when men and women actually talk and men interrupt women more than women interrupt men or men ignore topics introduced by women in favor of their own or in other ways control conversation, or men use their poser to sexually harass women in the workplace, then the reality of patriarchy as a kind of society and people’s sense of themselves as female and male within it actually happen in a concrete way”.

When a behavior is accepted as the norm over and over, you might begin to accept it, even when it hurts you. When you are told what you like and who you are is wrong, you start to believe it. When society gives you a role, and to reject it is to look into the face of uncertainty with no cushion to fall on, it’s much easier to accept the role you are told to play, especially if it’s a comfortable role that you fit into easily. Despite where your feelings fall on the spectrum of thoughts of the patriarchy, from total ignorance to anger and desire for radical change, you unfortunately have, and likely still will act as a player in the patriarchy game.

Johnson describes the ways in which humans respond to playing the game Monopoly as an example of how our own behaviors can be altered by the rules of the games we play and the roles we are given in them. When you are in the position of bankrupting someone in the game, Johnson describes his experience, “the game encourages me to feel good about this, not necessarily because I’m greedy and merciless but because the game is about winning, and this is what winning consists of in monopoly”. This is so much like the system we operate in currently. Landlords increase the rent on a property because of imagined values, eventually displacing tenants. The landlord had to, they owe the banks and utility companies. The bank is filled with people working in low-level positions who hold no real individual power to stop the powers that be. The displaced person becomes a fraction of a percent of the bank’s real estate holdings, cushioning the people at the top who claim enough detachment from the individual person because they are at that point part of a number reflected in a graph depicting their quarterly profit margins. They are obligated to keep the numbers climbing because they have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. The shareholders certainly don’t have any thought to consider the people displaced, after all, running the company isn’t their responsibility, they are just there to capitalize on their investment.

 There is no personal accountability in this system, no opportunity to stop the buck. As Johnson describes, this leaves a nasty situation where the only people left to fight against those powers are those that have nothing to lose, so those with nothing, or those with everything. Those with nothing face every hurdle possible, with no privileges to help them access the spaces that would impart real change, no easy access to the tools that would help them navigate these nasty systems or the world in general.  Those with everything are bound to have many blind spots even with the best intentions and will not know the lived experiences and the best ways to assist those that they are attempting to help. They can throw money at a problem, but it’s money wasted if it’s a few individuals against a monolith.

Because of this, and for other reasons that Johnson describes, it is unwise to assume the solution to dismantling patriarchal systems lies with individuals, but rather with examining these systems as a whole. We all participate in these systems whether we like it or not at the end of the day, and these systems change and evolve with us. Departing from them would take conscious thought and effort, a deviance from the norm, to swim against the current, and to push through a resistant path.

This would take a cultural climate of open-mindedness, we would have to dare to dream up new solutions to current problems, which would be exciting and painful all at once. Dreaming about what could be will shine a light on the reality that is, and that can be tough to look at, and the biggest problem, if individuals can’t change the system by themselves, what will it take?

Ijeoma A. and Pascoe write about expectations that are placed on girls and boys, respectively. What are some of the norms that they write about? What are some of the norms that you grew up with, either in your own experience or that you witnessed? How did you relate to these norms?

Patriarchy is the system in which our society runs. it is a system where men hold power over women and can be seen in every area of everyday life. we participate in this system by allowing boys to think at an early age that girls must be in certain “box”. These stereotype that we create everyday around the idea of living in this patriarchal society.

In the reading “Because You’re a girl”, Ijeoma mentions some of the responsibilities that girl are to do. The main things were like cleaning and having to cook/serve for your man. I live in a hispanic household, so I can relate. my mother would say things like “you need to learn how to cook, clean because how are you gonna serve your man”. when non of my sisters or I will clean, things like this would be said “its like I’m living with boys”. we were expected to be cleaner than the boys. when I was younger I had to wash my brothers dishes because they are boys and they didn’t have to do it. recently my brother said to my mother that I should wash his dishes because that’s what we do. when it comes to “what women are to do” I can say that the way our parents/grandparents think is way different than our mindset now, we are from different generations so what my mom was taught from my grandmother , she kinda was raising us how she was raised. we women are to put our feelings aside for men, just to satisfied their needs. we are to put man man first when it comes to us.