Welcome to Oppression 101, the best and most important class at [school]! My goal is that in the next 7 minutes, you'll be fully knowledgeable on how to successfully oppress any group of people you wish. Let's get started.
Before we even get started on the action part of oppression, let's talk knowledge. What is oppression? Now, if you just google the definition of oppression you'll get *CLICK* "prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control" but in reality, it goes a bit deeper than that.
To understand the depth of oppression, we'll be looking at The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Attwood – in this book, we see an ideal oppressed society.
Now to be an oppressor, you, evidently, need a group of people to oppress. You need to believe someone is *CLICK* inferior. That belief alone, is a form of oppression. You having this stigma towards a group, is ideological oppression. In The Handmaid's Tale, one of the oppressed groups are women, so we're going to base our lesson on them.
Now you've found your victims, what's next? *CLICK* Interpersonal oppression. Convincing other people that women are inferior and deserve to be limited. Let me introduce you to your new best friend, *CLICK* propaganda. "'Notwithstanding she shall be saved by childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.' The only way to save women is through childbirth! It's written in the Bible!" If you say it enough, people will start to believe it, that's just how humans work.
So now, you've convinced all the people around you that your victims are inferior and they must be controlled! Now what? You begin to control, you begin to oppress. You create laws and a government that will oppress. You ban women from working, you forbid them from having money, you force them to have children. You begin step number 3, *CLICK* institutional oppression. You force oppression to be so deeply rooted in your societal system that it won't go away for years, even after you leave.
For bonus points, you can create *CLICK* internalised oppression. Imagine convincing your victims that they are inferior. If you reach that point, you don't have to do anything, you just sit back and relax as your victims remain *CLICK* obedient.
Obedience is important, because what fun is oppressing if your victims are rebelling? Now, in our book, most of the oppressed are obedient. So how did they establish obedience?
I present to you, the *CLICK* obedience house. If you use all roommates properly, it can result in obedience. So who's in it? Propaganda, validation, apathy, defeat. Let's meet each of them.
Now obviously, oppression messes with your mind. Luckily, for us, the oppressors, we can use that to our advantage. When you destroy people endlessly, you get two outcomes: *CLICK* people desperate for validation, and the defeated. Both you can use to establish compliance. You can use Serena Joy, a prideful woman, and crush her. You can crush her self-respect, ruin her dignity, make her the other woman in her own marriage. Get rid of anything that validates her. And watch, as she becomes a puppet for you to control in exchange for people who'll give her a bit of validation.
My favourite type of people, *CLICK* the defeated. Offred is a great example. She tried escaping, failed, her husband probably died because of that, she lost her child, she lost her identity; her name is a reference to whichever commander owns her. She lost, she was defeated. And for a long period of her Handmaid life, she was obedient because she lost, she failed, she was defeated. She lacked hope. When your victims are educated enough to have hope, they use it as a reason to rebel. But when they're hopeless and defeated, they'll do whatever you want. Defeated people don't have the energy to rebel.
*CLICK* Obedience through apathy is great. Have you ever walked past a homeless person and ignored their existence? Ignored the fact that our economic system requires homelessness? Apathetic people have managed to convince themselves that the problem doesn't exist. And you can't rebel against a problem that's not there.
*CLICK* Now, propaganda works best at fueling internalised oppression. You can spread it through religion, fearmongering, media, stereotyping, name calling, the list goes on. Institutional oppression in the Handmaid's Tale was established through religious propaganda. The Bible was weaponised to oppress women. When Aunt Helena made everyone blame Janine and say "she did. She did." to Janine's confession of being gangraped, she was trying to spread propaganda through name calling, she called Janine a slut. Eventually, Janine heard it enough and truly believed she was the one to be blamed for the assault. And afterwards, she became obedient. Propaganda fueled Janine's internalised oppression until she believed this was what was meant to happen and until she became obedient. We see this in our everyday lives as well, women who voted for Trump. They truly believe that a man whose own daughter accused him of sexual assault is the best fit for presidency. A man who attempted to oppress so many women would be great. You see, they heard so much propaganda that now, they have internalised oppression, they believe they deserve to be oppressed.
Some people became obedient through *CLICK* fear, like Offred. Offred is terrified of rebelling. When Moira tells Offred her plan of faking sick, Offred begs her not to, simply because "They'll find [her] out." She is terrified of the Aunts and getting hit, or worse sent to the Colonies. This fear is also promoted by the abundance of warnings that are placed everywhere in society, the propaganda spread everywhere in society. A wall where killed disobeyers are put up for display? In our everyday lives, the mass-execution of protestors in Iran? That's causing obedience through fearmongering. Don't rebel, if you do, they'll kill you.
And there you have it! *CLICK* Oppression 101.
And if you're someone, especially a minority, that walked into the wrong class today and are sitting here thinking you don't want to be an oppressor, I want to thank you. Personally, I think every future oppressor in this class should thank you. Because whether you admit it or not, you're not listening to Atwood's warnings, you're helping us. We benefit from oppression. And our society is filled with oppressors and the oppressed. Look at Jeff Bezos. Amazon employees were peeing in plastic bottles because they weren't allowed washroom breaks. They are being oppressed at work, and Bezos is getting richer. But you don't care enough to boycott Amazon and fight for a change. Look at Nestle, they have single-handedly ruined drinking water for anyone in the state of Michigan. Them and the government that allowed this is profiting off the absence of human rights, why aren't you furious? Why aren't you fighting? Because we've used propaganda to hide these facts and told schools to blame climate change on the people so you don't blame Nestle, or because protestors got killed on the streets during the BLM movement and we're too scared to fight against Amazon, or because we're apathetic, we wanna ignore the fact that the amount of people who are oppressed is actually increasing? Why don't you fight? Actually no, don't fight, your obedience is crucial for us. We've worked so hard to craft it, so thank you, you're helping every oppressor reach the dream society, one filled with oppression like the one in the Handmaid's Tale. Thank you, because whether or not you identify as an oppressor, you are doing your part in helping our fight to oppress.
