Oppression Olympics is a characterization of

marginalization Social exclusion or social marginalisation is the social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society. It is a term that has been used widely in Europe and was first used in France in the late 20th century. It is used across discipline ...

as a competition to determine the relative weight of the overall oppression of individuals or groups, often by comparing race, gender, socioeconomic status or disabilities, in order to determine who is the worst off, and the most oppressed. The characterization often arises within debates about the ideological values of

identity politics Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these i ...

intersectionality Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of a person's social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of adva ...

, and

social privilege Social privilege is a theory of special advantage or entitlement, which benefits one person, often to the detriment of others. Privileged groups can be advantaged based on education, social class, caste, age, height, weight, nationality, geographi ...

. The term became used among some

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

scholars in the 1990s. The first potential recorded use of the term as a way to theorize comparing oppression was by

Chicana feminist Chicana feminism is a sociopolitical movement in the United States that scrutinizes the historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic intersections impacting Chicana identities. Chicana feminism is empowering and demands women within ...

Elizabeth Martínez Elizabeth "Betita" Martínez (December 12, 1925 – June 29, 2021) was an American Chicana feminist and a long-time community organizer, activist, author, and educator. She wrote numerous books and articles on different topics relating to socia ...

in a conversation with

Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, scholar, and author. She is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A feminist and a Marxist, Davis was a longtime member of ...

at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

in 1993. Martínez stated: "the general idea is no competition of hierarchies should prevail. No 'Oppression Olympics'!"

Dynamics

The Oppression Olympics have been described as a contest within a group, to "assert who is more authentic, more oppressed, and thus more correct". This may be on the basis of one's race, gender, sexuality, among other stated or ascribed identities. A person's stated or ascribed identity "become fetishised" within the group and judged in preconceived

essentialist Essentialism is the view that objects have a set of attributes that are necessary to their identity. In early Western thought, Plato's idealism held that all things have such an "essence"—an "idea" or "form". In ''Categories'', Aristotle si ...

terms. There is a dynamic "of agreeing with the most marginalized in the room". According to Stoyan Francis, "the gold medal of the Oppression Olympics is seen as the commanding spot for demanding change, for visibility and allocation of resources".

Usage

Elizabeth Martínez, in a conversation with Angela Davis on May 12, 1993, responded to a question about coalition building as follows: "There are various forms of working together. A coalition is one, a network is another, an alliance is yet another. ... But the general idea is no competition of hierarchies should prevail. No Oppression Olympics!" Davis supported Martínez's characterization and stated, "As Betita has pointed out, we need to be more flexible in our thinking about various ways of working together across differences." Martínez would later write more extensively about the "Oppression Olympics" in her 1998 monograph ''De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century''. In a foreword for the book, Angela Davis writes that Martínez evoked "a term that will be recognized by many who have heard her speak" and states that Martínez "urges us not to engage in 'Oppression Olympics' r createa futile hierarchy of suffering, but, rather, to harness our rage at persisting injustices in order to strengthen our opposition to an increasingly complex system of domination, which weaves together

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

patriarchy Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males a ...

homophobia Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitude (psychology), attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, h ...

, and global

capitalist Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...

exploitation".

Criticism

The dynamics of the Oppression Olympics have been criticized as being "intellectually lazy, lacking political depth", and "leads towards

tokenization Tokenization may refer to: * Tokenization (lexical analysis) in language processing * Tokenization (data security) in the field of data security * Word segmentation * Tokenism Tokenism is the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic ...

". These dynamics surrounding identity politics have been criticized within

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...

thought for their social hierarchy building, with anarchists fundamentally being against notions of hierarchy. Academic Ange-Marie Hancock has criticized the energy spent upon the Oppression Olympics within progressive circles as being an impediment to wider collective action in furthering social change. She opines that "Thanks to the Oppression Olympics and the political complexity facing the twenty-first century, standing in solidarity for wide social transformation is increasingly difficult to begin and challenging to pursue."

Scholarly work

In her article "Dialogical Epistemology—An Intersectional Resistance to the 'Oppression Olympics, Nira Yuval-Davis addresses the issue of Oppression Olympics and argues that categorical intersectionality provides an enhancement to this problem. In her work ''Solidarity Politics for Millennials: A Guide to Ending the Oppression Olympics'', Ange-Marie Hancock argues that the core causes for Oppression Olympics are the desire to one-up other victims, and blindness to the plights and disadvantages of other groups. Research in identity studies have termed this (inter-group) competitive victimhood.

References

{{Reflist 1993 neologisms Angela Davis Identity politics Intersectionality

Dynamics

Usage

Criticism

Scholarly work

See also

References