The matrix of domination refers to the overall organization of power in a society. It describes oppression in terms of race, gender, and social class. The term was coined by Patricia Hill Collins to describe four interconnected domains that coordinated power relations in society. These four domains are Structural, Disciplinary, Hegemonic, and Interpersonal.
Unformatted text preview: 1 Matrix of Domination Student’s Name: Institution Affiliation: Course Number and Title: Instructor’s Name: Due Date: Matrix of domination is also called matrix of oppression and is a sociological term which gives explanations to oppression related issues dealing with race, class and gender.Thou these issues belong to different social classifications …
The matrix of domination or matrix of oppression is a sociological paradigm that explains issues of oppression that deal with race, class, and gender, which, though recognized as different social classifications, are all interconnected. Other forms of classification, such as sexual orientation, religion, or age, apply to this theory as well. Patricia Hill Collins is credited with introducing the …
The matrix of domination is a way for people to acknowledge their privileges in society. How one is able to interact, what social groups one is in, and the networks one establishes is all based on different interconnected classifications.
Mechanisms of social control find themselves helping to categorize those who are not cis-gendered and white as the "Other". Heitzeg, using Patricia Hill Collin's "matrix of domination" explores how shapes access to social control as well as opportunity.
Kimberlé Crenshaw, the founder of the term intersectionality, brought national and scholarly credential to the term through the paper Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics in The University of Chicago Legal Forum. In the paper, she uses intersectionality to reveal how feminist movements and antiracist movements exclude women of color. Focusing on the experiences of Black women, she dissects several court cases, influential pieces of literature, personal experiences, and doctrinal manifestations as evidence for the way Black women are oppressed through many different experiences, systems and groups.
In April Bernard's article, "The Intersectional Alternative: Explaining Female Criminality", Bernard applies Patricia Hill Collins’ work to the study of feminist criminology, as a means of explaining the cumulative effects of identity in a system of oppression on women's decisions to commit a crime. Bernard employs an intersectional approach to dissect the complexities that act as determinant factors in a woman's decision to partake in criminal activities, and more specifically, the limiting pressures of a patriarchal society. In particular, this article is framed in response to Robert Merton's claims about deviance as a response to a lack of adequate resources to achieve cultural goals, as Bernard employs an intersectional paradigm model that explores female criminality as an expression of constraint and circumscription, rather than a "strained reality". With this alternative framework, Bernard suggests that societal goals are not unanimous, and are instead shaped by individuals’ experiences in economic, political, and social spaces; for marginalized women, access to the means through which they build success are impacted by micro- and macro-level norms and histories that have created indicators of class (e.g. racial, economic, political, sexual) and subjugated them to limited networks. Thus, identity makes women with marginalized identities more vulnerable in the legal system, subjugates to oppressive states within multiple institutions, and creating a need for policies that move toward creating an equitable reality for them.
The most obvious benefit that differs between classes is the amount of money made. Upper-class workers receive significantly more pay than the working class, and while the upper class receive salaries, the lower class typically receive their pay based on hourly wages. Moreover, the chance of getting a raise is greater for the higher-ups. More benefits that the upper class enjoy over the working class are vacation time, flexible hours, retirement savings, and greater coverage of healthcare and insurance.
There are countless numbers of court cases that examine intersectionality within the workforce that did not allow individuals to have equal opportunities because of their race, gender, and social class.
Whites have a median income of about $71,000 while blacks have a median income of about $43,000. Statistics show that blacks make up 16% of public high school graduates, 14% of those enrolling in college, and only 9% of those receiving a bachelor's degree.
The Matrix of Domination and the Four Domains of Power. Sociologist Patricia Hill Collins coined the concept matrix of domination in her book Black Feminist Thought to describe four interrelated domains that organize power relations in society. This approach to an analysis of power informs us about how structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, ...
The Disciplinary Domain of Power. The disciplinary domain of power manages oppression. The organizational practices of social institutions manage power relations and control certain subpopulations. Collins notes that social policies and rulings determined by government bureaucracies and surveillance technologies shape the modern social organization.
Hegemony refers to the system of ideas developed by a dominant group that justifies their practices. Collins writes that in this domain of power old ideas that uphold the system get refashioned as society changes over time. Through ideology, culture, and consciousness, the beliefs of the dominant group get normalized as common sense ideas ...
The Matrix of Domination is founded on the Ideology of Inequality. This idea centers on the fact that the position people have in life is earned. For example, the wealthy are worthy of their riches because they worked for it, while those who are poor deserve their plight for being lazy etc.
In this section, research and describe what the housing and neighborhood conditions are like for your ethnicity in America and what residential segregation exists between your ethnicity and others.
The Matrix of Domination is a sociological paradigm that explains issues of oppression that deal with race, class,and gender, which , though recognized as different social classifications, are all interconnected. Other forms ofclassification, such as sexual orientation, religion, or age, apply to this theory as well. Patricia Hill Collins is creditedwith introducing the theory in her work entitled Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and thePolitics of Empowerment.
Feminist literary criticism is literary criticism informed by feministtheories or politics. Its history has been varied, from classic works offemale authors such as George Eliot, Virginia Woolf,[56] and MargaretFuller to recent theoretical work in women's studies and gender studiesby "third-wave" authors.[57]
Intersectionality (or Intersectionalism) is the study of intersections between different groups of minorities;specifically, the study of the interactions of multiple systems of oppression or discrimination [1] . This feministsociological theory was first highlighted by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989). Intersectionality is a methodology ofstudying "the relationships among multiple dimensions and modalities of social relationships and subject formations"(McCall 2005). The theory suggests—and seeks to examine how—various biological, social and cultural categoriessuch as gender, race, class, ability, sexual orientation, and other axes of identity interact on multiple and oftensimultaneous levels, contributing to systematic social inequality. Intersectionality holds that the classicalconceptualizations of oppression within society, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and religion- or belief-basedbigotry, do not act independently of one another; instead, these forms of oppression interrelate, creating a system ofoppression that reflects the "intersection" of multiple forms of discrimination.[2]
From thelittle documentation that exists, it is understood that the concept of intersectionality came to the forefront ofsociological circles in the late 1960s and early 1970s in conjunction with the multiracial feminist movement. It cameas part of a critique of radical feminism that had developed in the late 1960s known as the "re-visionist feministtheory." This re-visionist feminist theory "challenged the notion that 'gender' was the primary factor determining awoman's fate".[5]
The term intersectionality theory was first coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. Crenshaw mentioned that theintersectionality experience within black women is more powerful than the sum of their race and sex, that anyobservations that do not take intersectionality into consideration cannot accurately address the manner where blackwomen are subordinated.[7]
There are three different approaches to studying intersectionality. The three approaches are anticategoricalcomplexity, intercategorical complexity, and intracategorical complexity , and they serve to represent the broadspectrum of current methodologies that are used to better understand and apply the intersectionality theory.[6]
The theoretical basis of this approach involves viewingsocietal knowledge as being located within an individual's specific geographic location. In turn, knowledge becomesdistinctly unique and subjective—it varies depending upon the social conditions under which it was produced (Mannand Kelley, 1997, pg. 392).