Oppression olympics

The Oppression Olympics are a one-upmanship dynamic that can arise within debates about the ideological values of identity politics, intersectionality and social privilege.[1][2] They have been described as "verbal banter between marginalized groups who are trying to determine the weight of their many intersectionalities of oppression (race, gender, socioeconomic status, disability) to determine who has it the worst.[3]

Dynamics

“ "What I received this past conference was new and as surprising as loan forgiveness. I saw people who looked like me, spoke like me, who I shared oppression with, excluding me from shared space. I felt my sisters separating me as a "cis"-ter and naming me and the rest of our black and brown family as oppressors and conspirators. The Oppression Olympics had started". — Stoyan Francis, "Sexual assault, domestic assault and LGBT of color advocate".[3] ”

The Oppression olympics have been described as a contest within a group, to "assert who is more authentic, more oppressed, and thus more correct".[1][2] This may be on the basis of one's race, gender, sexuality, among other stated identities.[1][2]

People's stated identity "become fetishised" within the group, with the person's stated identity being judged in preconceived essentialist terms.[1] There is a dynamic "of agreeing with the most marginalized in the room".[1]

Stoyan Francis described "The gold medal of the Oppression Olympics is seen as the commanding spot for demanding change, for visibility and allocation of resources".[3]

Criticism

The dynamics of the Oppression Olympics have been criticised as being "intellectually lazy, lacking political depth", and "leads towards tokenization".[1] These dynamics surrounding identity politics have been criticised within anarchist thought for their social hierarchy building, with anarchists fundamentally being against notions of hierarchy.[1]

Academic Ange-Marie Hancock has criticised the energy spent upon the Oppression Olympics within progressive circles as being an impediment to wider collective action in furthering social change.[4] She opines that "Thanks to the Oppression Olympics and the political complexity facing the twenty-first century, standing in solidarity for wide social transformation is increasingly difficult to begin and challenging to pursue".[4]

Usage

The origins of the phrase are unclear. It was the title of an Everyday Feminism article[5] in 2012, and in an article by Holly Combe in UK Webzine The F Word in 2010,[6] but it was cited before that on "social media".

Scholarly Work on Oppression Olympics

In her work Dialogical Epistemology - An Intersectional Resistance To The "Oppression Olympics",[7] Nira Yuval-Davis addresses the issue of Oppression Olympics and argues that categorical intersectionality provides a solution to this problem.

In her work Solidarity Politics for Millenials: A Guide to Ending the Oppression Olympics,[8] Ange-Marie Hancock argues that the core causes for Oppression Olympics are the desire to one-up other professional victims, and blindness to the plights and disadvantages of other groups.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Queering Anarchism: Addressing and Undressing Power and Desire", edited by C. B. Daring, J. Rogue, Deric Shannon, Abbey Volcano, Oakland, California, AK press, 2012, page 3.
  2. 1 2 3 "Considerations on mainstream intersectionality", Dhamoon, Rita Kaur, Political Research Quarterly, 64(1), March 2011, pages 230-243.
  3. 1 2 3 "Oppression Olympics: The Dark Side of the Rainbow", Stoyan Francis, Pride Source, 1/28/2016.
  4. 1 2 Ange-Marie Hancock, "Solidarity Politics for Millennials: A Guide to Ending the Oppression Olympics (The Politics of Intersectionality)", Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, p. 82.
  5. ↑ "Oppression Olympics: The Games We Shouldn't Be Playing". Everyday Feminism. Retrieved 2016-04-14.
  6. ↑ "Oppression olympics: the privilege paradox? - The F-Word". www.thefword.org.uk. Retrieved 2016-04-14.
  7. ↑ Yuval-Davis, Nira (2012-02-01). "Dialogical Epistemology—An Intersectional Resistance to the "Oppression Olympics"". Gender & Society. 26 (1): 46–54. doi:10.1177/0891243211427701. ISSN 0891-2432.
  8. ↑ Hancock, A. (2011-08-29). Solidarity Politics for Millennials: A Guide to Ending the Oppression Olympics. Springer. ISBN 9780230120136.
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