What it means to be marginalized

In reading political blogs the last few days, and during the past 6 months, there has been a distrubing trend. There are some sites that are willing to ‘temporarily’ sacrifice the goals for some groups of people – people of color, women, gays and lesbians, and environmentalists, to name of few. This is not a tirade and not a political diary. This is an analysis of what it means to be marginalized or trivialized….as part of those groups.
The beginning is to think about how the phrases we use are incorporated into this marginalization. I’m only going to pick a few and then work through their history – from my perspective only. Any alternative histories of these phrases are welcome.

Right to Life – marginalizes a woman’s reproductive rights
Originally:
A man’s property – her husband – and his decisions are supreme
Children are a man’s property

Don’t ask, don’t tell- marginalizes GLBT
Originally:
Don’t speak until spoken to
Children should be seen and not heard
It’s a secret – don’t tell anyone (child molester / abuser)

A woman’s place is in the home / stay at home mom – marginalizes women that work
Originally:
Don’t speak until spoken to
Women should be seen and not heard
A man’s property – of her father’s home until her husband’s home
A woman without a man needs to work and is therefore inadequate
Women that work abandon their children

In the closest / out of the closet – marginalizes GLBT
Originally:
Don’t air your dirty laundry in public

Single issue groups – marginalizes any group that is non-conformist
Originally:
Don’t speak until spoken to

These items came to mind during a 5 minute walk to get coffee this morning….as the day and weekened progresses I’ll probably think of more. Perhaps it’s not necessary – there is a distinct pattern here. This pattern is dismissing the opinions of those that are not ‘the same’. It used to be openly applied to blacks in this country, and before that the Italians, and the Irish, and the Native Americans, and the list is endless. There has since been a burying beneath the polite veneer of society the open marginalization.

Questions to ponder
-If we suppress the discussion of the marginalized – isn’t it just more of the same but not open?
-If we marginalize aren’t we denigrating the beliefs of a few or many?
-If we denigrate – don’t we start to oppress – subtly at first and openly later?

History is full of marginalized individuals and groups that are subsequently abused or oppressed. Marginalize, trivialize, disenfranchise, and then oppression. This isn’t a political question, it is a humanist question.

In the interest of full disclosure:
-I was an abused child – told not to tell. This is a separate story of fighting against religious oppression of women and children.
-I am a woman that grew up without freedom of choice in reproductive rights.
-My best friend in high school had an illegal abortion. Fortunately for her it was with a doctor and safe – but an office procedure and hidden as something else.
-I filed discrimination charges in several employment positions in the 1970’s and 1980’s because of being a woman.
-My ex-husband turned violent and pulled a gun the night I left him – and he said “don’t tell”.

So….add your info…add your history of marginalizing comments….or just read and ponder what it means to the person in the next room or next house or down the street.