WMST250, Section: 0108
Assignment #3: Matrix of domination
April 20, 2008
Understanding the Matrix of Domination in my Life
The Matrix of Domination is a theory sociologist use to explain oppression issues that deal with race, class, gender, religion, age, and sexual orientation. The theory of the Matrix of Domination deals with the relationship of power in marked and unmarked categories of life. Unmarked categories are the things that come to mind first when a person says any word. An example is the word gender. The first word that would come to an individual’s mind when they hear the word gender is male. Male is the unmarked category of gender. The opposite of unmarked categories is marked categories. Marked categories are the things that need deeper consideration when a person hears a word. If the Word gender is spoken, a person might think male first but after deeper consideration they might think about women. In this case women are a marked category. The relationship of power between marked and unmarked categories is also significant. In the case of gender generally speaking, the unmarked category ‘man’ has more power compared to the marked category ‘woman’. Unmarked categories do not always have more power when compared to marked categories; sometimes they have the same amount of power. Webster dictionary definition of power is, the “ability to act or produce an effect” (Webster). In my opinion power is any thing or place that can affect my life enough to influence it in either a positive or negative way.
Family is the main source of power in my life. Since I grew up in West Africa and my parents and grand parents were Africans, I grew up with a strong sense of family ties. My family is a rather big extended family, even though I only know the matrilineal part of my family. Family members motivate me to do better and to always do the best I can without giving up when things gets difficult. My grand parents always say ‘do not give up when the going gets tough and the tough gets going’. The marked categories of my life include the fact that I am female; I grew up in West Africa and I have different interests compared to the interests of a typical American teenager. Most American teenagers unlike me like watching MTV and they are normally up to date on things going on in Hollywood. I do not watch MTV or other reality TV shows that much, unless there was someone else in the room watching them and there was no other available TV I could use. I prefer shows like Bones, CSI, Charmed, Smallville, Scrubs, Fresh Prince of Bell air and shows that are not reality TV shows. As for stars in Hollywood, I just know the faces of the very famous actors and actresses, while some American teenager would tell you the name and types of movies the actor or actress was in. In the US my religion, sexuality and age group fall under the unmarked category. I am a protestant, heterosexual and a young adult. If I was in Sierra Leone my religion would be in the marked category because seventy percent of the population consider themselves Muslims. The marked and unmarked categories of my life shows that even though other people might consider me strange because I do not conform to the norm of being like a ‘typical teenager’, my family, which is part of the marked category of my life keeps me focus on my goal of becoming the best I can be.
The path of becoming the best in what I choose to pursue in life leads me to the second greatest source of power in my life, education. Education is the second greatest source of power in my life. School is an important factor in my life, the farther I get in education, the better chance I have of becoming the best in my career choice. Because my family values education, success in school is an unmarked category for me. When I am in school, I am expected to be the best or one of the best students in what ever I might be doing. Being average in my family is not an option. If I am not one of the best, my family automatically concludes that it is because I am not trying hard enough. They will provide me with tutors to help me succeed in what I am failing to succeed in. Since so much emphasis is placed on being the best, I have to choose my friends carefully. I remember my first year in middle school. I had no friends that year because I was doing what I consider to be evaluating potential friends. The marked category of my friends includes: they should steer me towards my goals not away form them, and they should also keep me from getting into trouble. Whenever I find friends that fit this marked category I try to behave the same way I would like them to behave.
To fully understand the matrix of domination in my life one has to also understand the matrix of domination in the place I currently reside, which is the US. Factors like the media, gender roles, and life would to be considered in order to understand power around me in the US. Media in the US includes newspapers, news broadcasts, magazines, TV shows, movies, Broadway shows and radio transmissions. The media plays a major role in influencing people because most people if not everyone in the US has access to some type of media at least once every day. Most of those people tend to believe things they hear in more than one news broadcast. The media can be separated into three main categories: TV shows, news, and magazines and periodicals. Unmarked category for TV shows includes: entertaining, and helping to make audience more relaxed. The true value of TV is not known until half of the cable stations are not broadcasting. Most people would become restless because they are used to a larger selection of things to watch. The marked category includes the fact that TV shows can be very informative. In my opinion robbers can get great ideas of how to rob a bank due to an action movie that came out about the perfect bank robbery. Although news stations tend to exaggerate bad news and make the good news seem inferior, most people believe in what they see on the news. Some people believe that Africa is full of villages and poor people because that is the only type of image the media portrays of the continent. A marked category of weather stations is that they get their predictions wrong a third of the time. Although they get their predictions wrong weather men and women just brush of the mistake saying that they avoided a potential bad weather. The general public does not make a big deal out of theses mistakes because the worse that could happen was that you would get wet when the weather people predicted sunshine and it rains. In these examples unmarked categories seem to have more power when compared to marked categories.
Gender relationships in the US are unlike that of any developing country. In the US men and women are almost equal. Women still get paid less than men on average but there are lots of wives that make more money than their husbands. Husbands are slowly getting used to the idea that their wives may get paid more than them because the unmarked category of women being subordinate to men is slowly changing. The marked category of men not being soft is also changing with the amount of gay and lesbian’s increasing. The stigma of being a homosexual is also changing due to the fact that the idea of the unmarked category of homosexuals not being as pure as heterosexuals is changing. A story I used in my team’s power point is of a Christian woman who is worried that her son’s salvation might be at risk because he was gay and he does not want to resort to celibacy. The different religions seem to agree that being homosexual is not acceptable but society on the other hand seems to be saying that it should be acceptable due to the fact that the number of homosexuals is on the rise. The power between marked and unmarked categories in the US gender relationships is relatively equal because gender roles are becoming increasingly equal in the US.
It is also important to understand the matrix of domination in Sierra Leone relative to that in the US. Power in Sierra Leone shifted from family and government before the civil war to more emphasis on family, less emphasis on government and the media after the civil war. Before the civil war started in 1991 people enjoyed the power of politics and what it meant to be a politician. In Sierra Leone the unmarked category of a politician included money, influence and good standard of living. The marked category included very little because the system was extremely corrupt and politicians only dealt with the positive aspects their positions rather than the negative aspects. The family’s unmarked category included class and emotional and financial support whenever needed. While the marked category of family in Sierra Leone included conflict of interests. It was assumed that most families do not fight because of the strong ties between family members. When looked at closely, one finds out that the family structure had one person or several people who constantly provided the financial support needed to other family members. Before the civil war life was good.
After the civil war most people lost so much in terms of material things that they realized that material things did not have as much value as people placed on them. The valuable thing became family, friends and life. Every one in the country for at least five of the ten years the war lasted was affected by the civil war. The rebels killed, mutilated, raped and burned down houses, churches, and offices of millions of people. If one of these horrible tragedies did not happen to a particular person, that person had a close relative or friend that experienced at least one of those tragedies. The unmarked category of TV shows became increasingly important. The unmarked category of TV shows included entertaining and helping its audience to relax. It was necessary for people to relax and see the fact they were alive was the most important thing even though they might have nothing left to live for. The marked category of TV which was information also became necessary. It informed it audience when humanitarian relief was in the country. In these TV examples the power between marked and unmarked categories are equal because they were both important in helping the nation recover form the effects of the civil war.
In Sierra Leone, the war did not change the marked and unmarked categories of gender issues. Sierra Leoneans believe that men and women have different roles that are equally important even though the man is considered to be the head of the household. The unmarked category for men included going to work every day and watching the children when ever necessary. Most men in Sierra Leone knew how to cook and do house work because they were raised by their grand parents while their parents went to work. On the other hand the unmarked category for men included acting tough and not being ‘weak’ when their woman needed them to support her. Unmarked category for women included caring for their husband, the children, the house and working. The marked category included the nurturing nature of women. Fathers and mothers were equally the backbone of the family. If you remove one or the other from the picture life would get harder but the family would not crumble under the stress because the grand parents are always there to help when needed. Life as a whole became more complicated after civil war in Sierra Leone because some people were adjusting to living without a limb while others were adjusting to the idea of building their house again because it got burned down even though they had no way to finance the construction. The power between marked and unmarked categories using gender relationships in Sierra Leone were relative equal.
Matrix of domination in the US is different from that of Sierra Leone because the values of the people are different. The civil war that just ended in Sierra Leone also made the matrix of domination shift because the priorities of people in Sierra Leone shifted from material things to non-material things. It has been a long time since US has not experienced a war in their homeland, so the people of this generation do not understand the value of non-material things yet. Another reason the matrix of domination is different between the two countries might be because the standard of living is very different. Poor people in the US would be considered rich compared to poor people in Sierra Leone.
When comparing power in my life to power in Brenda’s life, I noticed that family is the main source of power in my life followed by school, while in Brenda’s life religion and the media are things with most power in her life. I find the things with the most power in Brenda’s life strange because religion and the media normally do not mix. The media and religion do not mix primarily because the media tends to focus on the negative aspects of life and they exaggerate most things while, religion focuses on the positive aspects of life. The only occasion they tend to mix is on Sunday morning for the different Sunday church services and gospel hours. Things in her unmarked category included being artistic, shy and determined while her marked categories included being female, tall and Cameroonian. Things in my unmarked category included being: heterosexual, protestant and a young adult. My marked category included things like: female, grew up in West Africa, and not being a typical American teenager.
After considering power in my life, power in the US, Power in Sierra Leone, and power in Brenda’s life one can see that the theory of the matrix of domination changes as things like gender equality and culture change. Geographic location and culture plays an important role in the patterns of the matrix of domination. The culture of a lot of African tribes regardless of the country they are situated in puts family first while people in the US believe in the idea of ‘everyone for themselves and God for us all’. If Brenda had grown up in Africa, the sources of power in her life might be very different from what they are now. Media might not be one of the sources of power in her life because most of the African countries have one to five local TV channels unlike the US that has ten to twelve local channels. People who had more TV channels in Africa had to buy a satellite dish that was expensive to receive the signal, which is the main reason why most people did not own satellite dishes. Although people in the US also have to pay for cable, the costs of transimiting increases as continents are crossed. If I had grown up in the US, the places of power in my life might have also been different from what they are now.
Another reason the matrix of domination in America and Africa are different might be because of the cultural value differences due to their locations. People in the US tend to take most things Africans value for granted. Things like family, neighbors and freedom are things some Americans take for granted that most Africans would not take for granted. Most Africans know more about their neighbors other than their names, unlike neighbors in the US who try to avoid other neighbors at all cost. Extended family and neighbors help each other out when ever help is needed. The person being helped does not even have to ask the other person to help them unlike the US where even though lots of people request help it is rare to see a neighbor helping out another neighbor or an extended family member. The only person that comes to the aid of people in need in the US is the government. In Sierra Leone on the other hand, the government does come to the rescue of most people in need. As mentioned before people in the US tend to have the idea of ‘everyone for themselves and God for us all’. They believe that if a person tries enough they will eventually achieve what they want. Most Americans do not keep in contact with their extended family. They are always in a hurry to move out of their parent’s house and never move back in. Power in West Africa is mainly in the family structure. Family values and family members hold up a person in good times and in bad times regardless of the wealth of the family. Power in the US is mainly in the media and education because people rely on the media to get their outside information about their community and the rest of the world. As seen in earlier examples, Power in marked and unmarked categories vary according to the issue being evaluated. Power in marked and unmarked categories in gender relationships in Africa are equal while there is more power in unmarked categories when compared to marked categories in the media in the US. The matrix of domination helps people understand where power is in their daily lives so we can be prepared to deal with the consequences of the marked and unmarked categories. Without understanding the matrix of domination, people would always wonder why ‘men’ is the first word that comes to mind when the word ‘gender’ is heard.
Works Cited
http://www.afrol.com/News/sil007_civil_war.html
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/power
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