Youth Oppression
- ricrotaract
- Oct 23, 2021
- 3 min read
“What do you know? You haven’t experienced anything”
Are you a young person who has heard this occasionally? Do you consider that irrespective of your age you have experienced “something” in your life, not “nothing”?
Sexism, Racism, Feminism are concepts that have been acknowledged largely throughout the world. However, the persisting, systematic oppression of the youth largely remains untouched. It is quite surprising that very few social movements illuminate the existence of the oppressed youth regardless of it not being an oppression of a tiny minority but an oppression faced by many young individuals directly.
Young people can be considered to be one of the oppressed groups within the. They are occasionally ordered on what to eat, how to look, what to study, what to wear and also on some occasions on which friends to choose, this is fertilized by fact that the young are considered to be inexperienced. This mistreatment is often strengthened by social institutions, laws, customs, and attitudes.
From the point of receiving education people are oppressed from a very young age. Schools are segregated based on gender, religion, language and ethnicity and presented along with a state defined curricula which will be imposed upon every student. The real world in not separated in such old-fashioned ways. Therefore, the young students deserve to work and learn without any separations imposed by the state without being subjected to such oppressions. These oppressions imposed on students can undoubtedly haunt the adult lives of the students throughout the course of time. In a constricted sphere of segregated education systems students are expected to know more than the other where the capacity of knowledge is determined by a forced curriculum. They are forced by the law and parents to go to school even though it may be not be an effective learning environment. As soon as a student’s learning style, energy and spirit deviate from this forced curriculum they are considered either as a failure or as a person with special needs and who will ultimately be labelled as a dropout.
Moreover, young people are one of the most heavily oppressed groupby almost all of the economic spheres. In relation to the work force, young people are violated in several ways. At times they are excluded from the workplace and at other times they are forced against their will to become a part of it. However, with all these oppressions young people are the heavily exploited group of people in a capitalist market system. The youth market is exploited for profit as the manufacturing and entertainment industries manipulate styles, fads, popularity, and all other aspects of mass culture by targeting the youths’ open mindfulness and the desire of the young to assimilate. This process forms a significant group of young people in whom wants are being commercially conjured but who themselves cannot allocate the material manifestations of those desires — that is, they simply can’t afford all the things they are told they desire.
The youth are often denied control of their own decision which affects their body, desires, their space and their possessions. “You are too fat for your age” or “you are too skinny for your age” are general remarks that young people hear more often. Moreover, it is mostly considered normal for an adult to touch, kiss or touch children’s’ hair without a mutual connection, further, if a young person voices their disagreement on something it is less likely that their thoughts are put into consideration as the youth are considered to beignorant about the world.
It is very common for young people to be frequently followed by security guards in stores, or chased from parks or gathering places for no good reason by police, and assumed by passing adults to "be up to no good". This is often backed up by the media which portrays negative stereotypes of young people as troublemakers.
In a world where people are oppressed from a younger age itself it is inevitable that a variety of societal issues exist. They are being told what to do and what not to do regardless of their own desires and often segregated based on gender, religion and ethnicity from a very younger age. As the current world moves towards a struggle of liberation from various kinds of oppressions no one should be left behind, especially the youth in whose hands the future depends and to whom that the torch of revolution will be passed.
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Written By: Rtr. Sajani Pathiranage, LLB, 1st year
Edited By: Rtr. Dulithi Jagoda, BSc. Econ and Finance, 3rd Year
Design By: Rtr. Mohamed Umair Jamal, BSc. Data Science and Business Analytics, 2nd Year
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