Domination Subordination Towards a New Psychology for Women Article Paper Attached are the following articles and outline Your 2-3 page, 5 paragraph e

Domination Subordination Towards a New Psychology for Women Article Paper Attached are the following articles and outline

Your 2-3 page, 5 paragraph essay should focus on the readings and class discussions. Your essay should be in 12 point font, double spaced; using appropriate MLA citations in your text (do not use footnotes, just parenthesis with author last name and page number with bibliography attached as page 5). You will need to cite 3 of the readings from class, and at least 1 outside source in your paper. You MUST also use Quantitative Analysis in EACH paragraph to support your arguments.

Prompt:

The first quarter of the semester was dedicated to an introduction of power systems in the United States and how individuals can identify privilege and understand where it comes from. In this essay, your goal is to define oppression and provide three different examples, one for each form (Individual, Institutional, and Societal), of how power and privilege is manifested through race and/or ethnicity in our society today. You may choose to approach this from the perspective of the advantaged or the targeted group.

Format:

Introduction: Explain Power and Privilege in the United States and connect this dynamic to race and oppression.

Paragraph 2: Example #1 (Individual Oppression)

Paragraph 3: Example #2 (Institutional Oppression)

Paragraph 4: Example #3 (Societal Oppression)

*Examples can be in any order.

**For each paragraph, provide definitions of the form of oppression, an example of the form of oppression and explanation of why this is an example of this form of oppression, and provide a possible solution to balance the power to achieve equity (racial justice).

Conclusion: What’s the point? You have explained where racial oppression comes from and what it is; providing examples of its different forms and offering solutions to achieve equity in terms of racial justice in our society. What should those who are reading this essay take away from what you are trying to say? Your ?2-3 page?, ?5 paragraph? essay should focus on the readings and class
discussions. Your essay should be in ?12 point font?, ?double spaced?; using
appropriate ?MLA? citations in your text (do not use footnotes, just parenthesis with
author last name and page number with bibliography attached as page 5). You will
need to ?cite 3 of the readings? from class, and at least ?1 outside source? in your
paper. You MUST also use Quantitative Analysis in EACH paragraph to support your
arguments.
Prompt:
The first quarter of the semester was dedicated to an introduction of power
systems in the United States and how individuals can identify privilege and
understand where it comes from. In this essay, your goal is to ?define oppression
and ?provide three different examples?, ?one for each form (Individual, Institutional,
and Societal)?, of how power and privilege is manifested through race and/or
ethnicity in our society today. You may choose to approach this from the
perspective of the advantaged or the targeted group.
Format:
Introduction?: ?Explain Power and Privilege in the United States and connect this
dynamic to race and oppression.
Paragraph 2: ?Example #1 (?Individual Oppression?)
Paragraph 3: ?Example #2 (?Institutional Oppression?)
Paragraph 4: ?Example #3 (?Societal Oppression?)
*Examples can be in any order.
**For each paragraph, ?provide definitions of the form of oppression?, an example
of the form of oppression and ?explanation of why this is an example of this form of
oppression?, and ?provide a possible solution to balance the power to achieve equity
(racial justice)?.
Conclusion?: ?What’s the point? You have explained where racial oppression comes
from and what it is; providing examples of its different forms and offering solutions to
achieve equity in terms of racial justice in our society. What should those who are
reading this essay take away from what you are trying to say?
UCE / RNIB Open Learning Partnership
Dip HE Rehabilitation Work
Domination Subordination: Towards a New Psychology for Women by Jean Baker-Miller.
Throughout this book we will struggle with the issue of difference: what do people do to people
who are different from them and why? On the individual level, the child grows only via
engagement with people very different from her/himself. Thus, the most significant difference is
between the adult and the child. At the level of humanity in general, we have seen massive
problems around a great variety of differences. But the most basic difference is the one between
women and men.
On both level it is appropriate to pose two questions. When does the engagement of difference
stimulate the development and the enhancement of both parties to the engagement? And,
conversely, when does such a confrontation with difference have negative effects: when does it
lead to great difficulty, deterioration, and distortion and to some of the worst forms of
degradation, terror, and violence – both for individuals and for groups – that human beings can
experience? It is clear that “mankind” in general, especially in our Western tradition but in some
others as well, does not have a very glorious record in this regard.
It is not always clear that in most instances of difference there is also a factor of inequality inequality of many kinds of resources, but fundamentally of status and power. One useful way to
examine the often confusing results of these confrontations with difference is to ask: What
happens in situations of inequality? What forces are set in motion? While we will be using the
terms “dominant” and “subordinate” in the discussion, it is useful to remember that flesh and
blood women and men are involved. Speaking in abstractions sometimes permits us to accept
what we might not admit to on a personal level.
Copyright © University of Central England & Royal National Institute of the Blind
Domination-Subordination Revised 12 May 11
UCE / RNIB Open Learning Partnership
Dip HE Rehabilitation Work
Temporary Inequality
Two types of inequality are pertinent for present purposes. The first might be called temporary
inequality. Here, the lesser party is socially defined as unequal. Major examples are the
relationships between parents and children, teachers and students, and, possibly, therapists
and clients. There are certain assumptions in these relationships which are often not made
explicit, nor, in fact, are they carried through. But they are the social structuring of the
relationship.
The “superior” party presumably has more of some ability or valuable quality, which she/he is
supposed to impart to the “lesser” person. While these abilities vary with the particular
relationship, they include emotional maturity, experience in the world, physical skills, a body of
knowledge, or the techniques for acquiring certain kinds of knowledge. The superior person is
supposed to engage with the lesser in such a way as to bring the lesser member up to full
parity; that is, the child is to be helped to become the adult. Such is the overall task of this
relationship. The lesser, the child, is to be given to, by the person who presumably has more ‘ to
give. Although the lesser party often also gives much to the superior, these relationships are
based in service to the lesser party. That is their raison d’etre.
It is clear, then, that the paramount goal is to end the relationship; that is, to end the relationship
of inequality. The period of disparity is meant to be temporary. People may continue their
association as friends, colleagues, or even competitors, but not as “superior” and “lesser.” At
least this is the goal.
The reality is that we have trouble enough with this sort of relationship. Parents or professional
institutions often tip toward serving the needs of the donor instead of those of the lesser party
(for example, schools can come to serve teachers or administrators, rather than students). Or
the lesser person learns how to be a good “lesser” rather than how to make the journey from
lesser to full stature. Overall, we have not found very good ways to carry out the central task: to
foster the movement from unequal to equal. In childrearing and education we do not have an
adequate theory and practice. Nor do we have concepts that work well in such other unequal so
called “helping” relationships as healing, penology, and rehabilitation. Officially, we say we want
to do these things, but we often fail.
We have a great deal of trouble deciding on how many rights “to allow” to the lesser party. We
agonize about how much power the lesser party shall have. How much can the lesser person
express or act on her or his perceptions when these definitely differ from those of the superior?
Copyright © University of Central England & Royal National Institute of the Blind
Domination-Subordination
Page 2 of 8
UCE / RNIB Open Learning Partnership
Dip HE Rehabilitation Work
Above all, there is great difficulty in maintaining the conception of the
lesser person as a person of as much intrinsic worth as the superior.
A crucial point is that power is a major or factor in all of these relationships. But power alone will
not suffice. Power exists and it has to be taken into account, not denied. The superiors hold all
the real power, but power will not accomplish the task. It will not bring the unequal party up to
equality.
Our troubles with these relationships may stem from the fact that they exist within the context of
a second type of inequality that tends to overwhelm the ways we learn to operate in the first
kind. The second type molds the very ways we perceive and conceptualize what we are doing in
the first, most basic kind of relationships.
The second type of inequality teaches us how to enforce inequality, but not how to make the
journey from unequal to equal. Most importantly, its consequences are kept amazingly obscure in fact they are usually denied. In this book we will concentrate on this second kind of inequality.
However, the underlying notion is that this second type has determined, and still determines, the
only ways we can think and feel in the first type.
Permanent Inequality
In these relationships, some people or groups of people are defined as unequal by means of
what sociologists call ascription; that is, your birth defines you. Criteria may be race, sex, class,
nationality, religion, or other characteristics ascribed at birth. Here, the terms of the relationship
are very different from those of temporary inequality. There is, for example, no notion that
superiors are present primarily to help inferiors, to impart to them their advantages and
“desirable” characteristics. There is no assumption that the goal of the unequal relationship is to
end the inequality; in fact, quite the reverse. A series of other governing tendencies are in force,
and occur with a great regularity. I shall suggest some of these tendencies first on a superficial
level; we will then come back to them, to show how they operate at a much more intense,
subtle, and profound personal level. While some of these elements may appear obvious, in fact
there is a great deal of disagreement and confusion about psychological characteristics brought
about by conditions as obvious as these.
Dominants.
Once a group is defined as inferior, the superiors tend to label it as defective or substandard in
various ways. These labels accrete rapidly. Thus, blacks are described as less intelligent than
whites, women are
Copyright © University of Central England & Royal National Institute of the Blind
Domination-Subordination
Page 3 of 8
UCE / RNIB Open Learning Partnership
Dip HE Rehabilitation Work
supposed to be ruled by emotion, and so on. In addition, the actions and words of the dominant
group tend to be destructive of the subordinates. All historical evidence confirms this tendency.
And, although they are much less obvious, there are destructive effects on the dominants as
well. The latter are of a different order and are much more difficult to recognize; they will be
discussed further in this and in subsequent chapters.
Dominant groups usually define one or more acceptable roles for the subordinate. Acceptable
roles typically involve providing services that no dominant group wants to perform for itself (for
example, cleaning up the dominant’s waste products). Functions that a dominant group prefers
to perform, on the other hand, are carefully guarded and closed to subordinates. Out of the total
range of human possibilities, the activitiesties most highly valued in any particular culture will
tend to beenclosed within the domain of the dominant group; less valued functions are relegated
to the subordinates.
Subordinates are usually said to be unable to perform the preferred roles. Their incapacitates
are ascribed to innate defects or deficiencies of mind or body, therefore immutable and
impossible of change or development. It becomes difficult for dominants even to imagine that
subordinates are capable of performing the preferred activities. More importantly, subordinates
themselves can come to find it difficult to believe in their own ability. The myth of their inability to
fulfil wider or more valued roles is challenged only when a drastic event disrupts the usual
arrangements. Such disruptions usually arise from outside the relationship itself. For instance, in
the emergency situation of World War II, “incompetent” women suddenly “manned” the factories
with great skill.
It follows that subordinates are described in terms of, and encouraged to develop, personal
psychological characteristics that are pleasing to the dominant group. These characteristics
form a certain familiar cluster: submissiveness, passivity, docility, dependency, lack of initiative,
inability to act, to decide, to think, and the like. In general, this cluster includes qualities more
characteristic of children than adults – immaturity, weakness, and helplessness. If subordinates
adopt these characteristics they are considered well-adjusted.
However, when subordinates show the potential for, or even more dangerously have developed
other characteristics -let us say intelligence, initiative, assertiveness- there is usually no room
available within the dominant framework for acknowledgement of these characteristics. Such
people will be defined as at least unusual, if not definitely abnormal. There will be no
opportunities for the direct
Copyright © University of Central England & Royal National Institute of the Blind
Domination-Subordination
Page 4 of 8
UCE / RNIB Open Learning Partnership
Dip HE Rehabilitation Work
application of their abilities within the social arrangements. (How many women have pretended
to be dumb!)
Dominant groups usually impede the development of subordinates and block their freedom of
expression and action. They also tend to militate against stirrings of greater rationality or greater
humanity in their own members. It was not too long ago that “nigger lover” was a common
appellation, and even now men who “allow their women” more than the usual scope are subject
to ridicule in many circles.
A dominant group, inevitably, has the greatest influence in determining a culture’s overall
outlook – its philosophy, morality, social theory, and even its science. The dominant group, thus,
legitimises the unequal relationship and incorporates it into society’s guiding concepts. The
social outlook, then, obscures the true nature of this relationship -that is, the very existence of
inequality. The culture explains the events that take place in terms of other premises premises
that are inevitably false, such as racial or sexual inferiority. While in recent years we have
learned about many such falsities on the larger social level, a full analysis of the psychological
implications still remains to be developed. In the case of women, for example, despite
overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the notion persists that women are meant to be passive,
submissive, docile, secondary. From this premise, the outcome of therapy and encounters with
psychology and other “sciences” are often determined.
Inevitably, the dominant group is the model for “normal human relationships.” It then becomes
“normal” to treat others destructively and to derogate them, to obscure the truth of what you are
doing, by creating false explanations, and to oppose actions toward equality. In short, if one’s
identification is with the dominant group, it is “normal” to continue in this pattern. Even though
most of us do not like to think of ourselves as either believing in, or engaging in, such
domination, it is, in fact, difficult for a member of a dominant group to do otherwise. But to keep
on doing these things, one need only behave “normally.”
It follows from this that dominant groups generally do not like to be told about or even quietly
reminded of the existence of inequality. “Normally” they can avoid awareness because their
explanation of the relationship becomes so well integrated in other terms; they can even believe
that both they and the subordinate group share the same interests and, to some extent, a
common experience. If pressed a bit, the familiar rationalizations are offered: the home is
“women’s natural place,” and we know “what’s best for them anyhow.”
Dominants prefer to avoid conflict – open conflict that might call into question the whole
situation. This is particularly and tragically so, when
Copyright © University of Central England & Royal National Institute of the Blind
Domination-Subordination
Page 5 of 8
UCE / RNIB Open Learning Partnership
Dip HE Rehabilitation Work
many members of the dominant group are not having an easy time of it themselves. Member’s
of a dominant group, or at least some segments of it, such as white working-class men (who are
themselves also subordinates), often feel unsure of their own narrow toehold on the material
and psychological bounties they believe they desperately need. What dominant groups usually
cannot act on, or. even see, is that the situation of inequality in fact deprives them, particularly
on the. psychological level.
Clearly, inequality has created a state of conflict. Yet dominant groups will tend to suppress
conflict. They will see any questioning of the “normal” situation as threatening; activities by
subordinates in this direction will be perceived with alarm. Dominants are usually convinced that
the way things are is right and good, not only for them but especially for the subordinates. All
morality confirms this view, and all social structure sustains it.
It is perhaps unnecessary to add that the dominant group usually holds all of the open power
and authority and determines the ways in which power may be acceptably used.
Subordinates.
What of the subordinates’ part in this? Since dominants determine what is normal for a culture, it
is much more difficult to understand subordinates. Initial expressions of dissatisfaction and early
actions by subordinates always come as a surprise; they are usually rejected as atypical. After
all, dominants knew that all women needed and wanted was a man around whom to organize
their lives. Members of the dominant group do not understand why they”- the first to speak out are so upset and angry.
The characteristics that typify the subordinates are even more complex. A subordinate group
has to concentrate on basic survival. Accordingly, direct, honest reaction to destructive
treatment is avoided. Open, self-initiated action in its own self-interest must also be avoided.
Such actions can, and still do, literally result in death for some subordinate groups. In our own
society, a woman’s direct action can result in a combination of economic hardship, social
ostracism, and psychological isolation – and even the diagnosis of a personality disorder. Any
one of these consequences is bad enough. Some examples of them and how they are used to
control women’s behaviour will be discussed in subsequent chapters.
It is not surprising then that a subordinate group resorts to disguised and indirect ways of acting
and reacting. While these actions are designed to
Copyright © University of Central England & Royal National Institute of the Blind
Domination-Subordination
Page 6 of 8
UCE / RNIB Open Learning Partnership
Dip HE Rehabilitation Work
accommodate and please the dominant group, they often, in fact, contain hidden defiance and
“put ons.” Folk tales, black jokes, and women stories are often based on how the wily peasant
or sharecropper outwitted the rich landowner, boss, or husband. The essence of the story rests
on the fact that the overlord does not even know that he has been made a fool of.
One important result of this indirect mode of operation is that members of the dominant group
are denied an essential part of life – the opportunity to acquire self-understanding through
knowing their impact on others. They are thus deprived of “consensual validation,” feedback,
and a chance to correct their actions and expressions. Put simply, subordinates won’t tell. For
the same reasons, the dominant group is deprived also of valid knowledge about the
subordinates. (It is particularly ironic that the societal “experts” in knowledge about subordinates
are usually members of the dominant group.)
Subordinates, then, know much more about the dominants than vice versa. They have to. They
become highly attuned to the dominants, able to predict their reactions of pleasure and
displeasure. Here, I think, is where the long story of “feminine intuition” and “feminine wiles”
begins. It seems clear that these “mysterious” gifts are in fact skills, developed through long
practice, in reading many small signals, both verbal and non-verbal.
Another important result is that subordinates often know more about the dominants than they
know about themselves. If a large part of your fate depends on accommodating to and pleasing
the dominants, you conc…
Purchase answer to see full
attachment