oppression

Slavery is one particularly nasty form of oppression.

Those that perform oppression do not understand the concept of tolerance, acceptance, or diversity, and surely do not Celebrate Diversity.

External oppression occurs when an individual, group, or force with privilege and/or power harms an individual or group without those privileges. The most viewed example of this would occur when a man rapes a woman.

Internalized oppression occurs when an oppressed person believes and acts upon the negative message being brought upon them.

Horizontal oppression would be the opposite of internalized oppression in the sense that the oppressed lash out against the oppressor usually due to anger and sense of powerlessness.

Internalized and horizontal oppressions are both really a subcategory of external oppression and branch off it. This is because the external oppressor leads the oppressed to react in an internalized or horizontal form of oppression towards another individual or group.

Op*pres"sion (?), n. [F., fr. L. oppressio.]

1.

The act of oppressing, or state of being oppressed.

2.

That which oppresses; a hardship or injustice; cruelty; severity; tyranny.

Job xxxv. 9.

3.

A sense of heaviness or obstruction in the body or mind; depression; dullness; lassitude; as, an oppression of spirits; an oppression of the lungs.

There gentlee Sleep First found me, and with soft oppression seized My drowsed sense. Milton.

4.

Ravishment; rape.

Chaucer.

© Webster 1913.