ABSTRACT
The canopy of oppression overhangs a multitude of people – workers, women and children, black and ethnic minority people, disabled and older people, lesbians and gay men. To summarize the schema proposed by Iris Marion Young, oppression can be considered along its economic, political, cultural and social dimensions. The origin of oppression resides ultimately in the successful quest of some people to dominate, demean or destroy other people. Oppression manifests itself as an overlapping nexus of institutional hierarchies sanctioned by cultural antinomies. Citizenship harboured its own amnesia insofar as it was invented without any reference to cultural oppressions or status inequalities. There may be a critical difference between the dynamics of capitalism and those of sexism, racism and disablism, so that different oppressions require a different kind of overcoming. There will be plenty of indigenous stories – for example, women's self-help groups often revolve around the sharing of autobiographical tales of rape and recovery, malestream marginalization, silence and self-oppression etc.
