Hegemony: Race, Disability, Class, And Gender

Hegemony is leadership or dominance, especially by one country or social group over others. Some key points that correlate with hegemony is patriarchy, genders, masculinity, and power. Hegemony allows people to see and think the way they do, and is in everyday life. It controls as if it is innate or natural. Hegemony supports and upholds the power and privilege of the white, upper class, heterosexual men. With that being said, this essay will examine how race, disability, class, and gender have been used to uphold the hegemonic privilege. Every form of oppression is rooted in social institutions: the family, education, religion, government, law, and the media (Kirk 13). Oppression is used by the hegemonic group in society to exploit …show more content…
It is an idea made up by the hegemonic groups in society to create and maintain unequal status. This in turn is where hegemonic masculinity comes into play, which is the culturally dominant ideal of masculinity being centered on authority, strength, and heterosexuality. Hegemony says what genders exist and how it is ordered a certain way. This can be used by men to feel dominant over women. Society says men are supposed to be independent, competent, and strong while women must be emotional, fragile, and dependent. The unfortunate reality of this, is when a person doesn’t perform their gender the way they are told, they are discriminated against. And this relates back to how oppression is used as a way to uphold the hegemonic privilege. Also, transgender persons help to strengthen the hegemonic privilege. As we saw in the Taboo video, transgender persons will perform the hegemonic gender categories, man or woman, thus strengthening those …show more content…
In the United States specifically, the hegemonic group dehumanized the minorities using the 3/5 compromise, violence, and treating enslaved people as property. In Sojourner Truth’s speech “Ain’t I a Woman?” the issue of feminism and racism is addressed. When women began to seek rights, black women were not included in the discussion (Kirk 27). Racism was rampant in the United States, but black women were oppressed by not only their race, but also their sex and class. Class comes into the discussion because economic stance is important to upholding the hegemonic privilege. It is hard to escape the cycle of poverty in the United States. In lower class areas, the schools there do not have the best education opportunities thus making it harder for the lower class to get a good education. In upper and middle class areas, the schools have better education opportunities. This in turn lets the students in these acquire higher paying and higher power jobs in the