The problem is: the oppressor/oppressed dichotomy is itself radfem rhetoric.
There is not under any circumstances a group of people who meaningfully and consistently directly oppresses another group; oppression is meant to talk about statistics, not people.
So, yes, men oppress women. A man does not oppress a woman because that isn’t how society works. Men (on average) benefit from a set of things that are consciously or unconsciously reserved for men, and women (on average) don’t have as much access to those things. A man is not taking that from a woman by accessing it when she can’t. They’re just part of a bad system.
So when you talk about “our oppressors” that gets really dicey - I don’t have the same “oppressors” as you in the first place, but also, again, it’s not people, it’s systems. Let’s skip intersectionality here, because the fact that some people don’t have full access to their privilege categories is mostly irrelevant.
This is why it’s so easy for people to write off bigotry. Because people say someone is doing sexism, when really they’re just participating in a system that privileges men and disprivileges women. If a man interrupts a woman when she’s speaking, he’s being an asshole. If a woman interrupts a man when he’s speaking, she’s also being an asshole. The sexism is that men make around 90% of the interruptions. Without sexism, that should look more like 50%.
That doesn’t mean that the man is motivated by sexism, or even that any opinions he holds informed whether or not he made an interruption. (Mostly, it’s that the speech patterns taught to boy-assumed children and the speech patterns taught to girl-assumed children are different, and become strongly reinforced by societies’ preferences for homosocial groupings.) Even if one particular man interrupted one particular woman exclusively because she was a woman, if the overall pattern looked 50-50, that wouldn’t be sexism, because it wouldn’t be a systemic problem.
(While it’s not that uncommon in our society, most interruptions don’t happen because someone sees women as inferior. If motivated by sexism, it’s more likely to be a gut reaction that women are less competent or knowledgeable than men, or just that men tend to feel like they have more right to talk than women tend to feel. Most men will not say ‘I feel that women are less competent/knowledgeable than men’, and will often be offended by the suggestion that some people do think that. Rather, they statistically exhibit this subconsciously held belief. Also, most men will espouse the belief that men do not feel like they have more right to speak, even though this opinion is not statistically supported.)
Systemic problem don’t happen all the time. Many men, including very sexist men, listen quietly while women talk (some call it ‘chivalry’). Any given man, including men who are usually very prone to interrupting, will sometimes have conversations where he listens to a woman rather than speaks. Any given woman, even one who gets interrupted substantially more than average, will have conversations where a man listens to her instead of interrupting. Many women have rarely been interrupted by men over the course of their lives, and some women have only been interrupted by men in the same circumstances that a man would statistically be interrupted.
Asserting that problems are universal is a radfem watchword. (Other groups have used this as well, but it’s always an essentialist platform.)
Asserting that “the oppressor” always performs the bad act, and that “the oppressed” always has the bad act performed on them, is a way of ensuring an us-versus-them mentality, and a way of inciting anger and hatred, and a way of turning people’s eyes from abuses perpetrated by those internal to the group. It’s also a way of making it difficult to talk about different facets of identity, such as the ways in which black men and white women have different types of access to hegemonic privilege, and can use that against each other.
Additionally, the classes are not easily identifiable categories, but rather amorphous groups with shifting boundaries. One of the common ways in which men have privilege over women is by being responded to faster in correspondence, or being considered more readily in hiring (by resume). However, the typical way in which this happens - because people aren’t doing it on purpose - is by reaction to the name. This means that women named Ryan, Kyle, and Shaun have access to this type of male privilege, while men named Leslie, Alexis (in the US), and Mackenzie don’t. Another way in which men have privilege over women is by getting quicker and more courteous service. However, this is typically judged by body shape and clothing. A woman wearing a men’s suit who has facial features people read as ‘masculine’, such as a broad jaw and large nose, will often be read as a man, and treated accordingly. A man wearing brightly colored and form-fitting clothing who has an hourglass figure and facial features people read as ‘feminine’, such as wide eyes and full lips, will often be read as a woman, and treated accordingly. Any given way in which some group has privilege over another group has outlier members, as well as situational and intersectional reasons it may not apply.
The oppressor/oppressed dichotomy is really harmful. It encourages the idea that “the oppressor” can never be helpful, which gives people an excuse to attack “the oppressor” over their other marginalized identities, as well as discouraging “the oppressor” from trying to improve themselves or better the situation generally. (This is especially harmful since most people within the privilege category are only willing to listen to other members of the privilege category speak on the issue.) It also encourages the idea that “the oppressed” can never harm anyone, which leads to people using their identity as an excuse when they do harmful things (”I’m x, how could I hurt a y!”), as well as excusing or erasing abuse between members of the oppressed class, and acting as if “the oppressed” could never contribute to the oppressive system. (Most oppressive systems require some support from the oppressed class as well as the hegemonic class to keep running.)
We don’t need to use that dichotomy. It makes learning murkier, which makes it more difficult for people to understand the situation they’re in and what they can do to improve it, regardless of their social position. It makes it more confusing for people to describe their personal experiences, because they have to make it adhere more to the standard narrative, or pose it as a counterpoint, calling the standard narrative false, and either way often get accused of lying. It also means it’s harder to teach people, since the oppressor/oppressed narrative suggests people are willfully committing oppression, rather than just existing within a system that encourages it and hides itself.
We don’t need it.
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