“The statement that women are oppressed is frequently met with the claim that men are oppressed too. We hear that oppressing is oppressive to those who oppress as well as to those they oppress. Some men cite as evidence of their oppression their much-advertised inability to cry. It is tough, we are told, to be masculine. When the stresses and frustrations of being a man are cited as evidence that oppressors are oppressed by their oppressing, the word ‘oppression’ is being stretched to meaninglessness; it is treated as though its scope includes any and all human experience of limitation or suffering, no matter the cause, degree or consequence. Once such usage has been put over on us, then if we ever deny that any person or group is oppressed, we seem to imply that we think they never suffer and have no feelings. . . . Thus we are silenced before we begin: the name of our situation drained of meaning and our guilt mechanisms tripped.” ~Marilyn Frye, “Oppression,” in THE POLITICS OF REALITY (1983), p. 1.
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