SO. I have a beef with women who like to tell me how oppressed I am. That because some women don't get paid as much for the same positions as men, or because most of the art featured in museums was done by men, that means we all have to join an eternally offended and overly vocal crusade against our heterogeneous chromosomed counterparts. I have one thing to tell all of them.
I am not oppressed.
Now, I would never deny that there are women in the world, and even in the counterminious United States, that ARE oppressed. Women who have been trafficked, abused, oppressed, and underprivileged for years. I, however, am not one of them. Neither are most of us who belong to the middle class of this country. Sorry to burst your bubble, but we're not.
You know what else?
When you claim to be oppressed, you are mocking the real pain of those women who actually suffer.
So STOP IT. Count your freaking blessings people. I don't want to hear it. Neither do most of the men that surround you. Neither do most of the educated women.
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| Oppressed |
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| NOT oppressed. |
Don't you think that there are degrees of oppression?
ReplyDeleteDeepest oppression: Human trafficking and slavery
One level up: Abuse
One level up: Blatant Sexual Harassment
One level up: More subtle discrimination
One level up: Discrimination that doesn't know it's discrimination.
The last one exists. There are plenty of data to support it (try me--I'll give you anecdotes but also a boatload of stats and studies). Maybe you don't call that oppression--it certainly is in a different league than trafficking--but it's something.
I can agree with that. I guess what I am venting about is the women who think they have a right to be personally offended because other women in other countries are oppressed. And cover that rage with random and mostly untrue statistics.
ReplyDeleteBut I can agree with that. I would just say deal with the more serious oppression before complaining about the lesser offenses.