Patricia Hill Collins The Matrix Of Oppression Summary

Patricia Hill Collins, a theorist whose research and scholarship has examined and analyzed how issues of race, gender, social class, sexuality, and or nation “mutually construct one another as systems of power and as theoretical constructs; exploring epistemologies of emancipatory knowledges.” She argues that black women stand at a point where two extremely powerful and prevalent classifications of oppression come together; between race and gender. She examines how “African American male and female youth’s experiences with social issues of education, unemployment, popular culture and political activism articulate with global phenomena, specifically, complex social inequalities, global capitalist development, transnationalism, and political activism (Patricia Hill Collins).” The Matrix of Domination, also known as the “Matrix of Oppression,” was developed by Patricia Hill Collins “as a concept to represent the fact that in order to truly

The perception of women in society focused on them as a domesticated role; taking care of the children and the home. In our society now, women have rights just as same as men do and feminism was about a movement that emphasized the struggle us as women went through to get these equal rights. Patricia Hill Collins used the matrix of domination to describe the connection between oppression, race, and gender, and how these statuses can sometimes cause some internal suffering. For example, an African American woman in our country may feel oppressed due to her race and the mere fact that she is a woman. This matrix of domination theory shows that privilege leads to oppression, while also having an impact from society and other individuals. For this reason, it plays a substantial role in encouraging people to use their rights and freedoms in a way that will not oppress