Analyzing oppression PDF
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Analyzing Oppression ANN E. CUDD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Analyzing Oppression StudiesinFeministPhilosophyisdesignedtoshowcasecutting-edgemonographsand collectionsthatdisplaythefullrangeoffeministapproachestophilosophy,thatpush feminist thought in important new directions, and that display the outstanding qualityoffeministphilosophicalthought. STUDIESINFEMINISTPHILOSOPHY CheshireCalhoun,SeriesEditor AdvisoryBoard HarryBrod,TempleUniversity ClaudiaCard,UniversityofWisconsin LorraineCode,YorkUniversity,Toronto KimberleCrenshaw,ColumbiaLawSchool/UCLASchoolofLaw JaneFlax,HowardUniversity AnnGarry,CaliforniaStateUniversity,LosAngeles SallyHaslanger,MassachusettsInstituteofTechnology AlisonJaggar,UniversityofColorado,Boulder HelenLongino,UniversityofMinnesota MariaLugones,SUNYBinghamton UmaNarayan,VassarCollege JamesSterba,UniversityofNotreDame RosemarieTong,UniversityofNorthCarolina,Charlotte NancyTuana,PennStateUniversity KarenWarren,MacalesterCollege IrisMarionYoung,UniversityofChicago Publishedintheseries: AbortionandSocialResponsibility:DepolarizingtheDebate LauriShrage GenderintheMirror:ConfoundingImagery DianaTietjensMeyers Autonomy,Gender,Politics MarilynFriedman SettingtheMoralCompass:EssaysbyWomenPhilosophers EditedbyCheshireCalhoun BurdenedVirtues:VirtueEthicsforLiberatoryStruggles LisaTessman OnFemaleBodyExperience:‘‘ThrowingLikeaGirl’’andOtherEssays IrisMarionYoung VisibleIdentities:Race,Gender,andtheSelf LindaMart´ınAlcoff WomenandCitizenship EditedbyMarilynFriedman AnalyzingOppression AnnE.Cudd Analyzing Oppression ANN E. CUDD 1 2006 1 OxfordUniversityPress,Inc.,publishesworksthatfurther OxfordUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellence inresearch,scholarship,andeducation. Oxford NewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto Withofficesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright(cid:1)2006byOxfordUniversityPress,Inc. PublishedbyOxfordUniversityPress,Inc. 198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NewYork10016 www.oup.com OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording,orotherwise, withoutthepriorpermissionofOxfordUniversityPress. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Cudd,AnnE.,1959– Analyzingoppression/AnnE.Cudd. p. cm.—(Studiesinfeministphilosophy) Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN-13978-0-19-518743-4;978-0-19-518744-1(pbk.) ISBN0-19-518743-1;0-19-518744-X(pbk.) 1. Oppression(Psychology) 2. Socialpsychology. I. Title. II. Series. HM1256.C832005 303.3'3—dc22 2005049873 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica onacid-freepaper For Neal, with love and gratitude This page intentionally left blank Preface Humanbeingssuffermyriadkindsofharms.Likeallotheranimals,wewitherand die of disease and injury, in pregnancy and childbirth, and from old age. Like someotheranimals,wesometimesinflictinjuryanddeathuponeachother.Inthis, asinmanyotherrespects,ourabilitiesarevastlysuperiortotheotheranimals.Not onlycanweharmeachotheronebyone,wehavesystematicwaysofunitingtoharm whole collections of other humans. We wage war, we annihilate, we execute, we enslave,weretaliate,wepunish,wedominate,weterrorize,wetyrannize,weexploit, we coerce, andwe oppress. Unlike the other animals,we morally judge our actions thatharmeachother,justifyingsome,denouncingothers.Thisbookisaboutoneof thesekinds of harms that we systematically inflict on persons: oppression. Although ‘‘oppression’’ is a widely used concept, political philosophers, espe- ciallyintheliberalandanalyticphilosophicaltraditions,haveprovidedlittleinthe way of careful conceptual analysis of the term. Aside from short articles and books on specific instances of oppression, there exist no book-length comprehensive, generalanalysesofoppressionbyanalyticphilosophers,thoughtherearesuchbooks on related concepts of coercion and exploitation.1 This is not to say that there is a dearth of literature on oppression. Quite the opposite: Oppression is a common theme in literature, in memoirs, and in books detailing the history of most of the human past. The books that have been written about oppression would fill a very largelibrary,anditwouldbeimpossibleforonepersontoreadthemallinalifetime. Oppression is both widespread and deeply felt. Books are difficult to write, but oppression sufficiently motivates many to take on the task, whether to inform, to indict the oppressors, or to bear witness to suffering. So how could philosophers avoid theorizing oppression? I would offer a few reasonsbywayofspeculationonthisquestion.First,philosopherstendnottocome fromoppressedgroups.Philosophizingisanactivityforwhichonehastohavetime and space in which one is not pressed by mere physical survival tasks. Oppressed personstypicallyaresopressed.Whileoneneednotsufferoppressioninordertosee itortobemotivated towriteaboutit,clearlyithelps.Considerthosephilosophers viii Preface who have written about oppression; the majority are Jews, women, members of colonized nations, or members of racial minorities. Yet these groups, even when takentogether, formaminorityoftheprofessional philosophersontheplanet,and especiallyamonganalyticphilosophers.Ifthereisaconnectionbetweenbeingfrom aminorityorbeingawomanandwritingaboutoppression,asIthinkthereis,then thiscouldinpartexplainthedearthofworkonit.Second,oppressionraisesstrong emotions, which philosophers tend to shy away from. No one can write about oppression without becoming angry, deeply saddened, or perhaps even defensive. Yettodophilosophyistoapplyone’sreasontothematterathand,inwhatHume called‘‘acoolhour’’ofthoughtandreflection.Ihavefoundthewritingofthisbook tobeadeeplyemotionalexperienceattimes,andIhavehadtoputthebookaside attimestoregainmycomposure.WhileIwouldnotwanttoarguethatphilosophy cannot orshould not bedonepassionately, itismoredifficult toreason objectively whenonefeelsgreatemotion.Furthermore,philosopherstendtothinkofpassionas unseemly for professional work. Since there are a great many fascinating philo- sophical issues that do not raise this difficulty, many philosophers simply avoid the issues that do. A third reason for the neglect of oppression is that analytic philos- ophy has gravitated to the most abstract analyses of human experience, regarding abstraction itself the hallmark of philosophical thought. Since understanding op- pression involves considerable empirical exploration, at least much of that work is considered‘‘notphilosophy.’’Butthisisamistakenprejudice,perhapsevenaratio- nalizationforlazyarmchairtheorizing.Analyticphilosophersofscienceseemtohave outgrown their prejudice for empirical work, and it is time that analytic political philosophersandethicistsdosoaswell. Amoretheoreticalreasonforthelackofattentionbyanalyticphilosophersisthat justice has long been the primary concern of political philosophers. Although most considerinjusticealsoimportant,ithasbeenanabidingprejudiceofpoliticalphilos- ophers(especiallyintheliberal,Anglo-Americantradition)thatinjusticeissimplythe negation of justice. John Rawls’s twentieth-century classic Theory of Justice, for in- stance,leavesinjusticevirtuallyuntheorized.2Thisprejudiceismistaken;justicecan failinmanydifferentandnuancedways,asthisbookpointsout. Oneoftherecurringthemesofthisbookconcerns thedifficultyofrecognizing someformsofinjustice.Considersomehistoricalexamples.Ithasnotalwaysbeeneasy torecognizethattheconfinementofwomentosocialrolesthatentaillessaccessto socialresourcesorgreaterburdensintheprovisionofsocialbenefitisunjust.Ithasnot alwaysbeenrecognizedthatpersonsforcedtoworkfortheirpayatratesdeterminedby marketforcesnotoftheirownmakingareenslavedunjustly.Itisnoteasytorecognize thedifferencebetweenjustandunjustwars.Itisnoteasytodeterminewhencom- pensation is owed for past injustice, or to whom. Without a proper theory of op- pression,wewillnotbeabletorecognizeinjusticeinallitsforms,however. I have come to study oppression for reasons that are both personal and theo- retical.Ihavealwaysseenmyselfasafeministandhavewitnessedandexperienced the sting of injustice suffered by my sex. But I was a philosopher before I was a feminist philosopher. My early work was on game theory and philosophy of social science, but I soon saw how those theories might be applied to questions of femi- nism and oppression. Preface ix Feminists have long recognized the oppression of women but have had a hard timeconvincingothersthatwomenareoppressed.Oneofthemainmotivationsfor my work has been to construct a general theory of oppression to demonstrate that womenareharmedunjustlyinwaysthataresimilartotheunjusttreatmentofother groupswhoaregenerallyrecognizedasoppressed.Likewise,forthosewhocanreadily recognizetheoppressionofwomen,butnotothergroups,byshowingthatthereare deepsimilaritiesinthecasestheycanbeconvincedthatthereisseriousunjustharm goingonintheseothercasesaswell. Injustice,sinceitnecessarilycomesatthehandsofotherpersons,issurelyone ofthemostpainfulformsofharmthatapersoncansuffer.Andsoweshould want urgentlyto eradicate it.Ishall argue in this book that thefundamental injustice of social institutions is oppression, and oppression can best be recognized, explained, andultimatelyeradicatedbythetheories,principles,andmethodsthatunderliethe liberal and analytic traditions.
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