How does education, employment, or medicine create identity categories that may liberate or oppress individuals?
Oppression is a social reality that has been existing for many years. Our history will show that various efforts were made in the past to curb oppression in various institutions and social structures. Although there has been some success, our experiences will tell that oppression is a social evil that continue to exist in the current times even in education, medicine, and most especially in employment.
Miriam Webster defines oppression as unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power. It is also a condition weighing down one’s mind and body (Miriam Webster, Online). In the educational sector, oppression is evident in various forms. It can be specified that oppression has an economic, social, and health causes. Myra H. Strober, a Graduate Studies Professor at Standford University said in her research entitled “6 The Application of Mainstream Economics Constructs to Education: A Feminist Analysis” that economic affect the quality of education. Strober said that good principals who can manage well the educational entities are an important key to a success of a school. A good principal can lower students’ behaviour problem, achieve high passing rates, and minimize dropouts which, according to Strober, are measure of a school’s success. However, insufficient resources can prevent schools from retaining good principals and teachers and can limit the acquisition of facilities for effective teaching (Strober, 2013).
The analysis of Strober explains the current form oppression in America’s educational system. The insufficient funding in the government schools, which is low in comparison to other advance countries as Strober explained (Strober, 2013), drives the learning inequality between the rich and the poor as private schools can provide better learning experience due to more sufficient funding. Such learning inequality affects the future and economic stability of the rich and the poor which may, in turn, result to oppression in social rights and even to the economic well-being. The poor families who managed to finish education but with insufficient competitiveness remained to have limitations in the economic growth through employment. Such can result to a cyclical condition of insufficient competitiveness on the part of the poorer families if the government will continue to neglect the importance of ample funding in the education sector.
Oppression in the education sector is also evident among the teachers by gender and by races. Chavella Pittman of the American Sociological Association concluded in her research journal entitled “Race and Gender Oppression in the Classroom: The Experiences of Women Faculty of Color with White Male Students” that women faculty members experienced lesser career growth than their men counterparts. They also experience more sexual harassment than the male faculty members. Black women experience worse condition in terms of career growth, treatment, and respect. They have slower career growth than any other coloured females. Students also tend to replicate what they see in the faculty members. They tend to oppress and maltreat their black classmates (Pittman, 2013).
The research of Chavella Pittman published in 2010 is a proof that gender and racial oppression and discrimination continued to exist in the society in the current times. It remained a social reality despite numerous efforts from the past to achieve social equality.
The Invisible Man, a published novel in 1950’s is a proof that oppression is a long-time struggle of some groups of people. The novel described the oppression of a black individual in education, employment and medical services. The black individual, who is a protagonist, underwent embarrassment and physical torture just to have a scholarship. After graduating from school, the university President gave him a destructive employment recommendation letter. Hence, he was unable to get a job according to his knowledge and competence. He landed a low paying job in a paint company. The doctors used him for an electric experiment while he was unconscious when he had an accident (Elisson, Online).
The University of Leeds School of Sociology & Social Policy Centre for Disability Studies series of researches in 2013 entitled “Anti-oppressive Education and Disability: Towards an Anti-Ableist Pedagogy? ” unveiled the oppression that exists among the disabled students by the non-disabled ones. The research said that the non-disabled students develop a culture that exudes and retains superiority over the disabled students. The Economic and Social Research Council funded the said research of the University of Leeds which sought ways to resolve oppression among the disabled students (Becket, 2013).
Douglas K. Moll of Boston College, in his research entitled “Reasonable Expectations V. Implied-In-Fact Contracts: Is The Shareholder Oppression Doctrine Needed?” revealed that the shareholders and managers apply oppression by securing agreements in the contract favourable to them (Moll, 2013). Such applies to employees who are forced to sign a contract even if there are disagreeable content in the contract because they need a job. Further, it is also one of the realities that some employers will fail to do or implement some agreements in the contract and exploit the employees in the number of hours work. Such can be done by imposing a volume of work in an unrealistic amount of time.
Dr. Edwin Leap said in his article published in the Journals of Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc that contrary to popular belief, employment is a form of empowerment rather than oppression particularly among the disabled people (Leap, 2009). Employment provides financial help and sense of independence to the disable individuals.
Oppression does occur in the medical institutions as well. A journal article of Dr. Benjamine Gray published at Oxford University Press stated that in a mental hospitals, patients are considered unwell when they voice out what they feel. As a result patients would keep quiet and hide whatever truths about their feelings so they can get out of the hospital. Patients feel alone and isolated. They also experience physical violence if they refuse to take medicines (Gray, 2009).
The personal recount of the Dr. Benjamine Gray is just one of the forms of oppression in medicine. Some other serious oppression includes the non-admission of the near-death patients to a private hospital if no monetary deposits are paid. Some doctors also conceal actual amounts of hospital bills during negotiation and reveal it after medical procedure.
Such forces patients to pay higher than what they expected as they cannot leave hospitals without paying bills.
Oppression in the public medical institutions is evident in the lack of facilities that can properly treat patients until recovery. Such stems on the insufficient funding on such institutions. Disrespect on a human body during operation or when the patient is unconscious is another form of oppression that is practices in some hospitals. Some medical professionals will take advantage of seeing and touching a nude body during medical operation or treatment.
Based on the presented information above, we can conclude that oppression is extensive and comes in various forms and various institutions. Such occurs due to the economic factors, social beliefs, and lack of human compassion. Different socio-civic organizations and some government agencies has been conducting researches to minimize, if not eradicate, oppression. Fortunately, the academe, government, and none government organization has been successful in coming up some ideas that will help prevent and solve the impacts of oppression.
Economic equality will play a key factor in solving oppression in the educational and medical sector. Aside from employing strategic mean to prevent oppression, imbibing values of compassion and respect regardless of differences and situation and strengthening the spiritual life of individuals can be the key success factors in minimizing or eradicating oppression. Institutions should be encouraged to prioritize values and spiritual growth before performing services. As such, they will naturally act with a sense of justice, fairness, and compassion to fellow. Intellectually developed strategies are good and helpful. However, nothing substitutes good heart, character, and spirituality which makes a person naturally do good things to others. If we combine innovative ideas and spiritual and values inculcation through policies that prioritizes good values formation, we will have a much better social condition.
Works Cited Page
Pittman, Chavella. "Race and Gender Oppression in the Classroom: The Experiences of Women Faculty of Color with White." American Sociological Association. 2010. Web. 6 December 2014. http://www.asanet.org/images/journals/docs/pdf/ts/Jul10TSFeature.pdf
Beckett. Angharad. "Anti-oppressive Education and Disability: towards an anti-ableist pedagogy? " University of Leeds. 2013. Web. 6 December 2014. http://www.academia.edu/4617319/Anti-oppressive_Education_and_Disability_towards_an_anti-ableist_pedagogy_Paper_given_at_ESA_Conference_Turin_Italy_2013
Strober, Myra, H. "6 The Application of Mainstream Economics Constructs to Education: A Feminist Analysis." Stanford University. 2013. Web. 6 December 2014. http://web.stanford.edu/~myras/6%20The%20Application%20of%20Mainstream%20Economic%20Constructs%20to%20Education%20A%20Feminist%20Critique.doc
Ellison, Ralph. "Invisible Man." Sparknotes.com. 2014. Web. 6 December 2014. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/invisibleman/section2.rhtml
Moll, Douglas, K. "Reasonable Expectations V. Implied-In-Fact Contracts: Is The Shareholder Oppression Doctrine Needed?" Boston College. Web. 6 December 2014. https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/schools/law/lawreviews/journals/bclawr/42_5/01_TXT.htm
Leap, Edwin MD. "A Modern Lie: Employment is Oppression, Not Empowerment. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc. " November 2009. Web. 6 December 2014. http://journals.lww.com/em-news/Fulltext/2009/11001/A_Modern_Lie__Employment_is_Oppression,_Not.5.aspx
Gray, Benjamine. "Psychiatry and Oppression: A Personal Account of Compulsory Admission and Medical Treatment. " Oxford University Press. National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine. 9 April 2009. Web. 6 December 2014. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2696374/
Oppression. Miriam Webster. 2014. Web. 6 December 2014 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oppression
