Collins’ Concept of the “matrix of Domination”

Collins’ Concept of the “Matrix of Domination”

Race, gender and class inequalities are inescapable in everyday life whether it is through the economy, the division of household labor or health care. Collins (1998) explains her concept for the “matrix of domination” explaining how all the parts are interrelated and work like a system. She portrays the idea that race, sex, and class are all topics that work together in the theory of oppression. We as individuals often view our situation in the negative one sided light instead of looking at it like we are lucky compared to some and how if we worked together we could help each other.

This idea is best said in a quoted from Collins (1998:32) “…we typically fail to see how our thoughts and actions uphold someone else’s subordination. Thus white feminist routinely point with confidence to their oppression as women but resist seeing how much their white skin privileges them.” The problem Collins says is that then African American’s turn on white women because they view them as white power when the truth is that both are part of the same struggling group, women, suffering from oppression. If they joined together they could accomplish more for women as a whole. As stated before inequalities are everywhere and institutions are no exception.

The home institution is a main example of gender inequality. The division of household labor is unequal as shown by statistics gathered by surveying men and women. They were asked “Who is responsible for the doing the house hold duties of the house?” This survey was conducted by General Social Survey and shows that 76% of women said that they are solely

responsible for the housework in their household. Then in a following survey men and women were asked if they thought the division of labor they were experiencing was fair, which was show above, with women having the most responsibility. The statistics say that 79.3% of men and 74% of women feel that it is fair the way the duties are distributed. The statistics showing how responsibility is distributed is obviously unequal and unfair, but some how women agree they are being fairly treated. This is a gender inequality that can be blamed on anything from upbringing, media, biological reason etc. The fact of the matter is that it is an inequality that is not being changed because the people being affected are content being oppressed by the men and happy doing more then men as shown by then voting it is fair.

Health care is a prime example of how all the inequalities of race, gender and class come together in this institution. Race, gender and class all make up a person’s eligibility for a job. Health care is given out through jobs and Silverstein (1999) explains how women are in a lower social class because they often are in lower paying jobs. Health care is distributed through jobs in most cases therefore a lower coverage of health care is provided for a lower paying job. This means that women, ethnic minorities and lower classes have less access to health care. The unemployed do not qualify for old age health care nor do they have a job to provide them access to health insurance. All the inequalities here are working together to oppress the less fortunate more and deny then the ease of access to a serious topic of health care.

Without a surprise statistics provided to us show that Whites dominate the economic sphere over Blacks and Hispanics. The median house net worth for Whites is $67,000 as opposed to Blacks at $6,166 in 2000. When looking at the median income in 2000-2002 whites

earned $47,194, Hispanics $33,946 and Black at $29,982. These statistics are from Mikaila Mariel Lemonike Aruther at New York University and show that whites overwhelming make

more money and are more financial well off. This can be