Oppression: Frye ARGUMENT

              When I think of oppression, I think of women, African Americans, the poor; anyone who is being held back in life because of a quality that they don't posses that would be beneficial to them if attained. This author Frye  argues that "Oppression is the experience of being caged in: all avenues, in every direction, are blocked or booby trapped." (pg5) She believes that there are certain standards and criteria that need to be met to actually be oppressed. Frye believes that we need to secure an absolute definite definition for the word because it is being thrown around too easy, it needs to be sharp and sure. To place a representation in your mind for what oppressed actually looks like, Frye uses the image of a bird cage (just like Maya Angelou did), imagine being so close to one of the wires that you can't see any of the others, you have a glimmer of hope that your not stuck, you keep going around and looking at the wires so closely as individuals that you don't see how close the others are. The wires are so close that you cannot get out, you are trapped by your surroundings, everything that holds your cage together is actually holding you in. It will always be a lose lose situation.
              I understand the ideas that Frye presents but I don't think that you have to be in such sever situations to be oppressed, I you were a woman in the corporate world and you have reached that glass ceiling, you keep trying, someone will see your work, and there is the hope that you can move up. Frye is telling us that you have to have no hope, and no way out. I believe that everyone is oppressed in some way or another, we all have something that is held against us no matter what.    

Here is a different look at who is actually oppressed, something that many of us westerners would never have questioned