Young And Hooks: A Summary

1. Iris Marion Young systematizes the meaning of the concept of oppression and builds a conceptual analysis of this term. She attempts to provide a normative argument pertaining the crippling effects of oppression. Marginalization falls under the classification of oppression. Clearly, she provides a normative argument for marginalization, by qualifying marginalization as being one of the worst of the five categories of oppression. She does not state a clear definition of marginalization, but more of a descriptive explication of the ways that marginalization is manifested in society, who suffers from it and what are its effects on people. Furthermore, marginalization, claims Young, is the result of the exclusion of active participation in the capitalist system. …show more content…
Young and hooks construe oppression differently by asserting divergent bases on which they further clarify their respective conception of this social phenomenon. On one hand, Young systematizes the concept of oppression into five categories. These five faces of oppression derive from the following basis, “In the most general sense, all oppressed people suffer from inhibition of their ability to develop and exercise their capacities and express their needs, thoughts and feelings.” (Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference, p.40). Whereas hooks’ definition of oppression is grounded on the complete absence of choices. Furthermore, hooks adds that people in a society who have alternatives and options to change their current situation, even if they are very limited, do not suffer from oppression, they are discriminated or exploited, but not oppressed. However, Young assesses exploitation as being one of the five expressions of oppression, which is opposed to hooks’ exclusion of exploitation and discrimination as bestowing people with oppression and claims that they all face common conditions, which is contrasting with hooks’ view that there can be no commonality in experiencing