The Oppression Of Women

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Over the years, oppression has changed its meaning. It was not until the end of historical colonization did the world stopped using the word oppression as an actual noun for injustice because to many, it was a word that depicts territorial conquest, and territorial conquest does not happen today as much as it did before. It is an ambiguous term that embodies a range of inequality ranging from its olden form – territorial occupation – to contemporary social injustice, the never-ending cycle of silent racial and gender discrimination, and like oppression, feminism undergoes the same misconception due to unwelcome arguably negative notions related to it. It has become a challenge to many authorities and scholars to pinpoint the exact definition …show more content…
The problem here is that most people believe that if one is a feminist, that feminist is a woman, and that fighting for equality between the two genders is politically identified and represented as “Feminism”. In line with this, another problem comes in. Most of the world has gained freedom in many aspects including the freedom to be what one wants to be, and that includes the post-colonial philosophies on who among us is a man or a woman, and that being a woman, “rather than a stable signifier that commands the assent of those whom it purports to describe and represent, woman, even in the plural, has become a troublesome term, a site of contest, a cause for anxiety” (Butler). In other words, aside from having trouble in understanding Feminism itself, along with oppression, political representation, and the concept of race, a woman, being a subject of and for various political structures, is arguably just another idea to justify, because women, feminists or not, are still subjects being regulated by any existing political structure, …show more content…
Feminism is a political theory to combat oppression, but this is probably where the debate on what makes Feminism legitimate. Feminism created a sub-culture, another division of political subjects, which did not place women on the same stage as the opposite sex, rather it separated one gender from the other. Consequently, it is safe to question Feminism, particularly, if Feminism is just a newer version of exclusion, which is, historically speaking, a form oppression. On a more pertinent note, the political identification of women became narrower as the feminist theory set another boundary on identity itself – should feminists be women only? Oddly, “women”, as an identity, “is produced and restrained by the very structures of power through which emancipation is sought” (Butler). The representation of women is not bad at all as it may sound, but it is possible that naming this political representation emphasized the gender divide, making harder to separate the concept of “gender” from cultural and political freedom. It can be difficult to digest but the system of gender division, when dissolved, makes the concept of gender of no social value at all, resulting to
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