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THE NATURE OF WOMEN'S OPPRESSION

By Chan Lean Heng, University of Penang

 

Although women share a specific type of op­pression simply by being women, they also share other defining characteristics and are subjected to other different forms of oppres­sion. Different women suffer from different forms of oppression. Ruling class women, while they are oppressed by men of the same class, they are much less oppressed than working class women and in many cases, are instru­mental in the oppression of working class women.

- working class women are at greater risks that upper class women

- working class women have minimal access to options open to them

 

Marginalization and oppression of women are legitimized by traditional norms, values, insti­tutions and scriptures that provide the broad ideological foundation of patriarchy and other forms of domination-casteism, racism, and clas­sicism.

 

What causes the oppression of women?

 

THEORIES OF GENDER DIFFERENCES: The central concern in this theory is that the inner psychic life of women is different from that of men. They differ in basic values and interests, achievement, motives, literacy creativity, sexual fantasies, personal identity. These differences are explained in terms of BIOLOGICAL, INSTI­TUTIONAL or SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL fac­tors.

 

THEORIES OF GENDER INEQUALITY: They view that women do not just occupy a different location in society but they have unequal ac­cess to wealth, status and power in relation to men. This inequality does not result from bio­logical, institutional or social-psychological dif­ferences between men and women but from the NATURE OF SOCIETY.

 

THEORIES OF GENDER OPPRESSION: Wom­en's location in society is a result of a power relationship between men and women in which men CONTROL, SUBJUGATE and OPPRESS women. The basic structure of domination is PATRIARCHY.

 

"While all women are oppressed, not all women are oppressed equally."