Ann E. Cudd and Oppression by Choice

Cudd completely changed my ideas about what it means to be oppressed and how oppression is enforced/reinforced. She argues that oppression must fulfill four criteria: 1) oppression must involve some sort of physical or psychological harm; 2) oppression applies to groups that are identifiable independently of their oppressed status; 3) oppression implies that some persons benefit from the oppression; 4) oppression must involve some sort of coercion or force. I already knew about the first criterion, as well the third. I didn’t realize that to be considered oppressed, you must belong to an identifiable group. This makes sense to me, and is a logical criterion, because it allows oppression to be quantifiable. It echoes one of the conditions that is required for evolution (another quantifiable phenomenon): only populations, not individuals, can evolve. Of course, communities (groups of populations) can evolve as well, just like multiple identifiable groups can be oppressed. This is why women of minority groups experience double the oppression that white women or black men do. The fourth criterion seems fairly obvious, but Cudd brings up a really interesting point: oppression can be achieved via rational choices (that are forced to be made). She give the example of a woman who is in a relationship with a man who must decide whether she should to go to work or stay at home when they decide to have children. Both the man and the woman believe in gender equality, but they feel strongly about not putting their children in daycare. The woman ends up choosing to stay home because she knows that she will not earn as much money working as her partner would. She associates wealth with happiness (which is another story) and therefore makes the rational decision to care for her children at home so that the family will have a higher income and a better life. She is in what is called a double bind in which all of her options lead to some sort of oppression.