How does Hobgood's arguments about dismantling race, class and gender Essay

How does Hobgood's arguments about dismantling race, class and gender privilege challenge your prior knowledge Which of her i - Essay Example What Hobgood eventually reveals is that some of the victimised and some of those that dish out victimisation may not recognise that they are involved in it. Class, race and gender systems construct different identities through unjust power arrangements. These systems are patterns of relations that elites reproduce through their ownership and/or control of the major institutions in the society (Hobgood 1). Every race seems to be wired to think of itself as superior to others. Many people even believe that if a person comes from any other race apart from theirs, such a person does not deserve to get any attention from them. This superiority complex has been attributed as the reason colonialism thrived in the manner it did. Colonialism succeeded because the whites – the colonisers – were of the opinion that their race was superior to every other race in the world. They went around to parts of the world that were yet to be explored with the intention of being lord and maste r over those people. In many of the places they went, the culture of the locals was rubbished. The colonisers were often involved in the act of saying that they discovered things the locals had been using for a very long time, even before the birth of the colonisers themselves. It was so bad that the coloniser had to share the colonies amongst themselves without consulting the people whose daily lives were affected by the sharing. This is only a tip of the iceberg of what the segregation as a result of race has caused. Obviously, as in her book, the opinion of Hobgood is the same with this. So, in this regard, what she succeeds in doing is to deepen many of my long-held opinions. It is important to mention that at many points in history, race, class and gender have adversely affected the growth and development of humanity. There have been periods in human history when women were not recognised in anything. During this period, they were completely inconsequential (Purvis 40). During that period, it was really a man’s world in which a woman was only supposed to be who the man says she is. Religious institutions did not even help the plight of women (Blevins 21). Women got little or no education. They could not even vote or be voted for at some point. It is very certain that during that period of time, many women who had potentials for greatness were denied a chance to bring their endowments to reality. Of course, as repercussion, not only those women will suffer from it, even the society would suffer from the consequences. This also is very much in line what Hobgood expresses. Assumptions about human behaviour that members of market societies believe to be universal, that humans are naturally competitive and acquisitive, and that social stratification is natural... (Gowdy 291) In many societies of the world, there is social stratification. In such societies, certain unseen borders are automatically created when people are divided into classes based on the ir social means or capability. In such societies, the wealthy is the master and the poor is the servant (Barnard 379). The wealthy are the elite of the society