A New Vision

Oppression. On dictionary.com it is defined: “it is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel or unjust manner; feeling burdened mentally or physically by troubles.” What might those “troubles” be? Not just woman, but our world as a whole.

The reading led me to think about this situation universally.

I couldn’t agree more that we, as humans tend to judge at first sight.

Judging, prejudice, stereotypes, classifying, are all categorized as something we should avoid, yet we can’t help it. Once it crosses our minds, it’s already done. Hill Collins focused on the need of structural change. She’s right, we need education and awareness.

We need to be reminded of the different perspectives we all have.

Reading the explanation of horizontal hostility, I was reminded of something in Psychology, that for animals, it’s their instinct to catch a prey and fend for themselves; but for us humans, our instinct is competition. It can drive us to an extent that we may not be able to control at times. For example, eating disorders, or drugs.

We want power, subconsciously.

In historical times, Hierarchy was a usual thing, and even now, I feel that it still plays a strong role in the United States. People are still striving to be better than others. Maybe this is the reason why our world is divided up so much. We are not broadening our horizon. We are not recognizing the differences and understand our privileges. Maybe we need to stop thinking about ourselves and start acknowledging others. Maybe, just maybe, I need to start appreciating everyone equally, because we are all under one category, we are all human and we all go through struggles of oppression that we may relate to. I like what Hill Collins stated for us to do, “examine your position.” I hope everyone else wants social change, because I know I do. But to start, I realized, I need to start from where I am standing, I need to overlook at my privileges and prejudice, my challenges.