Community
Many communities experience marginalization, with particular focus in this section on Aboriginal communities and women. Marginalization of Aboriginal communities is a product of colonization; as a result of colonialism, Aboriginal communities lost their land, were forced into destitute areas, lost their sources of income, and were excluded from the labor market. Additionally, Aboriginal communities lost their culture and values through forced assimilation and lost their rights in society (Baskin, 2003). Today various communities continue to be marginalized from society due to the development of practices, policies and programs that “met the needs of white people and not the needs of the marginalized groups themselves” (Yee, 2005, p. 93). Yee (2005) also connects marginalization to minority communities, when describing the concept of whiteness as maintaining and enforcing dominant norms and discourse.
A second example of marginalization at the community level is the marginalization of women. Moosa-Mitha (as cited in Brown & Strega, 2005) discusses the feminist movement as a direct reaction to the marginalization of white women in society. Women were excluded from the labor force and their work in the home was not valued. Feminists argued that men and women should equally participate in the labor force, in the public and private sector, and in the home. They also focused on labor laws to increase access to employment as well as to recognize child-rearing as a valuable form of labor. Today, women are still marginalized from executive positions and continue to earn less than men in upper management positions.
Read more about this topic: Social Exclusion
Famous quotes containing the word community:
“The community and family networks which helped sustain earlier generations have become scarcer for growing numbers of young parents. Those who lack links to these traditional sources of support are hard-pressed to find other resources, given the emphasis in our society on providing treatment services, rather than preventive services and support for health maintenance and well-being.”
—Bernice Weissbourd (20th century)
“I am convinced that our American society will become more and more vulgarized and that it will be fragmentized into contending economic, racial and religious pressure groups lacking in unity and common will, unless we can arrest the disintegration of the family and of community solidarity.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“Human life in common is only made possible when a majority comes together which is stronger than any separate individual and which remains united against all separate individuals. The power of this community is then set up as “right” in opposition to the power of the individual, which is condemned as “brute force.””
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)