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= Triple oppression =
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Introduction
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Triple oppression is a theory developed by black socialists in the
United States, such as Claudia Jones. The theory states that a
connection exists between various types of oppression, specifically
classism, racism, and sexism. It hypothesizes that all three types of
oppression need to be overcome at once. It is also referred to as
"double jeopardy", Jane Crow, or triple exploitation.
History
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Before triple oppression was termed, black female scholars of the 19th
century discussed the unique oppressions of black women. As an
abolitionist, Sojourner Truth affirmed the struggles she faced as a
result of both her race and gender. Truth voiced opposition to the
Fifteenth Amendment with the reasoning that more male power would lead
to the greater oppression of black women. In an 1867 speech, she said,
"...if colored men get their rights, and not colored women theirs, you
see the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be
just as bad as it was before." Moreover, suffragist Elizabeth Cady
Stanton stated that black women would suffer from a "triple bondage
that man never knows" if they did not receive voting rights when
colored men did. Anna Julia Cooper discussed black women's double
enslavement through race and gender. Moreover, in 1904, activist Mary
Church Terrell explored the unique discrimination faced by black women
when she wrote about women of color�s discrimination as a result of
both their race and gender.
According to scholar Eric McDuffie, the term "triple exploitation" was
coined in the 1930s by activist and Communist Party member Louise
Thompson Patterson to describe the oppression pertaining to class,
race, and gender suffered specifically by black women.
Triple oppression was popularized during a time of transition when the
Old Left as a movement was rendered powerless post-World War II.
Communism, although prominent in earlier years, reached its highest
peak in the political atmosphere in the 1960s. The Communist party was
made up of immigrant members and foreign and the various coalitions
formerly associated with the Socialist Party of America; those
workers, many of whom were not fluent English-speakers, made little
effort to include Black Americans and their rights even when both
mirrored each other. As the Socialist Party was rising, still little
effort was made to include many African-American members. Although
leaders often were committed against racial segregation, many in the
Socialist Party didn't see the connection to racism and how it
affected many in the United States. "Some African Americans
dissatisfied by Socialist attitudes and their unwillingness to speak
up about racial issues, joined the Communist party; others went to the
African Blood Brotherhood (ABB), which was known for being a radical
black liberation organization." The Communist Party's new concept
introduced triple oppression focusing on Black women workers. This
oppression is shown through, "The most privileged group members
marginalizes those who are multiply-burdened and obscures claims that
cannot be understood as resulting from discrete sources of
discrimination." The party focused on the blatant issues of race,
class, and gender while including intersectionality. After much
frustration from black citizens and a reformulation of the Communist
party, many African Americans joined the party to further the goal of
equality. Eventually after World War I and II, the communist party
underwent many splits that caused the party to get smaller and
eventually disappear. Many groups came out of this, including militant
power movements like the Black Panther movement.
Claudia Jones
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The concept of black women's triple oppression was popularized within
the Communist Party by party member Claudia Jones. Jones believed that
black women's triple oppression based on race, class, and gender
preceded all other forms of oppression. Additionally, she theorized
that by freeing black women, who are the most oppressed of all people,
freedom would be gained for all people who suffer from race, class,
and gender oppression. Jones saw that the Communist Party focused on
the oppression of the white working-class male, and she criticized the
party's lack of recognition of the specific oppressions of black women
in her article, "An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro
Woman" (1949).
Jones was sure to articulate a socialist feminism that took into
account not just race, but the disparate struggles of all working
women. Jones felt that black American women experienced a unique form
of oppression that was not acknowledged by feminism. She argued that
with the liberation of black women, black nationalism would be much
more achievable. As she puts it, "once Negro women undertake action,
the militancy of the whole Negro people, and thus of the
anti-imperialist coalition is greatly enhanced."
Jones's views influenced other Communist women and black female
activists, such as Angela Davis and the Combahee River Collective.
Davis writes about triple oppression in her book 'Women, Race, and
Class' (1981).
Double and multiple jeopardy
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Frances Beale introduced the term "double jeopardy" in 1972 to
describe the dual oppressions of black women. While she notes that
these two oppressions are often linked to economic oppression, this
idea was not included in the creation of the term.
According to Deborah K. King, racism, sexism, and classism are widely
accepted as the major facets of the status of black women. However,
some writers have suggested that homophobia should be an additional
jeopardy in the black woman's experience. King believes that double
jeopardy and triple jeopardy do not fully explain the relationship
between the different oppressions faced by black women. Thus, King
coined the term "multiple jeopardy" in 1988 to represent that
oppressions are multiplicative, not additive. As such, King believes
that different oppressions interact with each other rather than acting
independently.
Jim Sidanius and colleagues have pointed out that while it is true
that subordinate group women (e.g. black women) do experience both
racism and sexism, racism tends to be primarily directed at
subordinate group males (e.g. black men) and that the empirical
evidence supports the idea that the worst outcomes are generally found
in subordinate group males, not females as predicted by the double
jeopardy hypothesis.
Intersectionality
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Intersectionality is the sister of triple oppression while describing
the various divisions of human beings. It is a deconstruction of
categories such as race, class, and gender. "Ain't I a woman," by
Sojourner Truth, is associated with intersectionality due to the
relationship with the black feminist movement and the multiple
identities they manifested in. The idea of triple oppression dives
into these different categories, race, class, and gender, by
developing an understanding of the way in which each work together
often through injustices. Barbara Smith relates this combination by
stating, "The concept of the simultaneity of oppression is still the
crux of a Black feminist understanding of political reality and, I
believe, one of the most significant ideological contributions of
Black feminist thought." Both intersectionality and triple oppression
show the neglect and subordination of many experiences of Black women
and these played a vital role in the multitude of movements that
prospered out of this.
Political participation in South Africa
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In "Gender, Social Location, and Feminist Politics in South Africa"
(1991), Shireen Hassim discusses how triple oppression negatively
affects South African women's participation in politics. She argues
that the rhetoric surrounding triple oppression at the time of the
article's publication focuses too hard on the "additive relation
between these different dimensions of oppression," and not enough on
their interdependent and intersecting facets. Black women workers'
struggles are often disregarded as one identity gets the most
political attention. Race is politically prioritized, so that gender
is seen as less important within the patriarchy, among both women and
men. Hassim argues that women's issues exist as political agendas only
within broader ones, such as labor movements and resistance to racism.
Discouraged by the unreliability created by feminism's bad reputation
in South Africa, black women focus less on women's issues and more on
anti-apartheid and labor issues, where they may receive more support.
Hassim goes on to explain that because of the intersections between
capitalism and patriarchy, labor, as a gendered issue, creates a
"double shift" that discourages women from participating politically,
because they are too busy juggling their roles as "wage-earners and
managers of families". As women are "isolat[ed]...in the household",
they are robbed of the opportunity to develop "a common consciousness
of oppression or exploitation." If they cannot gather, women cannot
organize. Hassim argues that it is a combination of patriarchal values
that empower men and employment obligations in domestic and other
service-based jobs that limit women's ability to become active in
campaigns that would benefit them only: women's rights campaigns.
Employment opportunities for Mexican-Americans
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Denise Segura argues that the social inequality women of color face
cannot be properly explained by an analysis any one of the facets that
constitute triple oppression, because their subordination in social
hierarchies is relative to men, white people, and higher-income
strata. Chicana, or Mexican-American, women are subject to inequality
in the home as well as in social contexts, such as the labor force.
The relegation of women and minorities to traditionally low-paying
jobs has made it so that Chicanas do not have many options for work
outside of agriculture or domesticity, areas characterized by low
wages and, therefore, low status. Discrimination based on race and
gender and a reluctance to acculturate inhibit occupational mobility.
Cultural cues and high fertility also encourage Mexican-American women
to remain in the home and bear children instead of participating in
the work force. The combination of race and gender bias and the
inability to obtain white-collar jobs form the basis for the triple
oppression felt by Mexican-American women. In turn, triple oppression
limits Chicanas� employment opportunities to low wages, lower than her
male (Chicano) and white (women) counterparts, and "secondary" jobs
e.g. clerical and factory jobs, effectively solidifying their status
at the bottom of the social hierarchy.
Asian-American activism
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Adrienne Ann Winans and Judy Tzu-Chun Wu argue that "othered" groups,
such as racial minorities, suffer from poor job prospects because of
their "designat[ion] as outsiders." Groups marginalized by legal
status and patriarchal values often find only low-paying work with
little to no benefits or job security. Poor employment opportunities
contribute to an intersectional subordination that includes legal
status, gender, and race. Asian-American women's organizational
efforts in the 1960s and 1970s to counter such phenomena proved to
facilitate them. According to Winans and Wu, female activists
recognized a bias within their own activism circles which "relied on
female labor but privileged male leadership." Other manifestations of
triple oppression in the Asian-American community are the exploitation
of immigrant female workers, and gender roles that prescribe a duty to
the "double shift." Within the double shift, women are expected to not
only procreate but also rear the products of their unions 'and'
contribute to the work force at the same time, a feat not demanded of
their male counterparts.
Queer communities
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While the term 'triple oppression' has typically been reserved to
describe the plights of working women of color, the phenomenon of
three intersecting social burdens has plagued gay men of color. Diaz
et al.'s 1999 study, published in the 'American Journal of Public
Health', found that the combined impact of homophobia, racism, and
poverty cause adverse psychological effects in Latino men, including
low self-esteem, depression, sleeping problems, anxiety, and social
alienation. A factor that does not arise in typical analyses of triple
oppression is HIV incidence, but this study concludes that HIV status
as a source of social discrimination to the likes of race and class
correlates with higher psychological symptoms. Gay men may benefit
from male privilege, but only so long as they act straight, following
the strict guidelines that some societies dictate. In any case, they
too can experience a measure of oppression in the form of systemic
homophobia, with incidents of violence, belittlement, familial
disapproval, job discrimination and police harassment.
Catalan countries
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Catalan nationalist left-wing feminists have theorised a 'triple
oppression' characterisation of the status of working-class Catalan
women. Their perspective points out to capitalism, Spanish nationalism
and patriarchy as three interlocking domination systems.
See also
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* Black feminism
* Black nationalism
* Communist Party
* Intersectionality
* Matrix of domination
* Oppression olympics
* Socialist Party
* Womanism
Further reading
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* Davies, Carole Boyce. 'Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment (Ayebia
Clarke Publishing Ltd)', Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2011.
* Viehmann, Klaus. 'Three Into One: The Triple Oppression Of Racism,
Sexism And Class', Paper Street, 2004.
* All India Democratic Women's Association. 'The Triple Burden: Some
Issues of Class and Caste Oppression of Women' (AIDWA publication
series), B. Karat on behalf of AIDWA, 1999.
*
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