Quotes About Oppression

The proletarians have nothing to loose but their chains. They have a world to win.

What we call nowadays totalitarianism belongs to a tradition which is just as old or just as young as our civilization itself

It is not difficult to show that a theory of democratic control can be developed which is free of the paradox of sovereignty. The theory I have in mind is one which does not proceed, as it were, from a doctrine of the intrinsic goodness or righteousness of a majority rule, but rather from the baseness of tyranny; or more precisely, it rests upon the decision, or upon the adoption of the proposal, to avoid and to resist tyranny." Karl Popper, 'The Open Society and Its Enemies', Chapter 7.

Every enlightened path can turn on itself and become a new tyranny

It's the same thing as any colonial structure anywhere: The business of making money depends on having a peon culture.

The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.

The Hunger Games gets people invested in a contest. People are rooting for their favorites, rooting for their survival. And suddenly, unwittingly, the people being oppressed are actually engaged in this form of entertainment...The way you get control of people is to make them participate, not just subjugate them.

I had not realized how much anger I held against my heart for all the people who use others as nothing more than tools to build a house for themselves, who wrap chains around others and then claim they have the right and even the obligation to do so.

I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator. —Mary Harris "Mother" Jones

And beauty has a quality all of its own that seems supreme; that seems above mere men with slaving ships and pistols...

A sexual revolution begins with the emancipation of women, who are the chief victims of patriarchy, and also with the ending of homosexual oppression.

This is how psychiatry has functioned-as a kind of property arm of the government, who can put you away if your husband doesn't like you.

Patriarchy, reformed or unreformed, is patriarchy still: its worst abuses purged or foresworn, it might actually be more stable and secure than before.

It is interesting that many women do not recognize themselves as discriminated against; no better proof could be found of the totality of their conditioning.

If knowledge is power, power is also knowledge, and a large factor in their subordinate position is the fairly systematic ignorance patriarchy imposes upon women.

Under patriarchy the female did not herself develop the symbols by which she is described. As

For it is precisely because certain groups have no representation in a number of recognized political structures that their position tends to be so stable, their oppression so continuous.

The derogation of feminine status in lesser males is a consistent patriarchal trait. Like

However muted its present appearance may be, sexual dominion obtains nevertheless as perhaps the most pervasive ideology of our culture and provides its most fundamental concept of power.

las mujeres hemos sido protagonistas indiscutibles de la pérdida de la razón. Pero la locura ha estado siempre envuelta en la vergüenza.

The subordinated group has inadequate redress through existing political institutions, and is deterred thereby from organizing into conventional political struggle and opposition.

Mientras nosotras amábamos ellos gobernaban el mundo.

Perhaps patriarchy's greatest psychological weapon is simply its universality and longevity. A

herrschaft, a relationship of dominance and subordinance.3