Oppression By Marylin Frye: The Concept Of Oppression By Marylin Frye

In “Oppression” by Marylin Frye, Frye discusses the concept of oppression. She claims that women are being oppressed, and unfortunately, it’s true. Many men claim that they are being oppressed as well; and in a way they are. According to basic essentialism, men must be tough, and if a man were to “cry”(149) they would be laughed at and made fun of. Frye doesn’t want to undertake to prove that women are being oppressed, and men aren’t; she wants to sharpen the word, oppression, and show that it does indeed exist. The root of the word, “opress” is the element “press” presses are used to mold and shape things, to reduce them in bulk. Presses mold things, by molding things they are restraining them, they are preventing motion and mobility. When

If a young woman is sexually active, she may be called many derogatory words such as slut, whore, skank etc. If this young woman were to become pregnant, it would be seen as her fault. Even worse, if she were to be raped by someone, since she partakes in heterosexual acts, people would say that “she liked it.” It really is sad. On the other side of the spectrum, If a woman were to not partake in sexual acts, she would be labeled a “man-hater”,”uptight”, or “frigid”(150)
Another analogy that Frye uses is the birdcage example. If you focus on one wire, you do not see the rest of the wires in the cage. One would ask, why doesn’t the bird just fly away, when in reality it is completely encaged. Oppression is hard to see and recognize. The one example I didn’t like in this essay was the example of holding doors. Somehow, Frye claims that if a man were to hold a door for an able bodied woman, this is a sign of disrespect. I always hold doors for people, I could care less if you’re a man, a woman, black, white, green, purple. To me, I’m simply completing a kind gesture and not being rude.
Oppression is a macroscopic phenomenon, and If we look at it from a microscopic level, we will not be able to see it. Oppression does exist and until we start looking at the bigger picture, we will never fix