This paradigm-shifting work, written by a Harvard-educated physician and social engineer, is expected to have a dramatic impact on individuals, academia, and society. This book is about how to heal and deliver you from shame and social oppression. This is the first in-depth inquiry into the core of human suffering, from the combined perspectives of the biological, social and political sciences. You will learn how to exit from the cage of all forms of oppression and victimization-Or recognize when you are becoming prey, and get out of it quickly. You will experience a deep healing process that is built into this book's flow and structure, along with expertly crafted somatic exercises based on trauma therapy. Shame was genetically wired into the human brain for our survival in prehistoric times. But, today, if shame is culturally perpetuated, it becomes toxic starting in infancy, and significantly alters the natural balance of the most evolved part of the brain-the prefrontal lobes- to achieve full toxicity by the early 20's. Systematic, yet unrecognized, forms of abuse maintain toxic shame in socialized adults. When abuse occurs at a sufficient frequency or intensity, trauma manifests as widespread brain malfunction. And a population that is traumatized is easily oppressed. My vision, which transcends writing this book, is to create social change. The book presents a treatise that may lead to a paradigm shift affecting the social and political sciences, economic theory, and biomedicine. "Overcoming Oppression" is also an activist's dream model for creating mass resistance to oppressive institutions. We labor under the yolk of social and political oppression on a global scale, and social change is required. This happens naturally when enough people understand the urgent need for reform, and this work represents a grand leap towards educated action. This book examines issues such as the true roots of most physical and emotional disease, racial prejudice and homophobia, predatory relationships and love, childrearing practices and educational systems, criminal justice and addiction, religion and self-sabotage, seniorhood and death. Special emphasis is given to the growing schism of wealth and neoslavery under the rule of a self-serving corporate elite, driven by an insatiable greed for concentrating more and more wealth in the hands of the very few.

This metaphysical self-help/how-to book is a practical guide designed to help one recognize what life is for, and, how to stay oriented to living a truly human life. Events that cause one to reflect on the passage of time (like an old song), or an intense experience, often serve to "Wake us up." We may feel an imperative to not waste life on worries, hates, or fears, but to sublimate over the petty, in order to focus on and create our life. To be believing in you. This survival manual will help one overcome oppression, to stay believing in you; doing so, one lives true to what life is for. One is at the pinnacle of humanity, regardless of ones physical or mental attributes, or socio-economic classification.

Analyzing Oppression presents a new, integrated theory of social oppression, which tackles the fundamental question that no theory of oppression has satisfactorily answered: if there is no natural hierarchy among humans, why are some cases of oppression so persistent? Cudd argues that the explanation lies in the coercive co-opting of the oppressed to join in their own oppression. This answer sets the stage for analysis throughout the book, as it explores the questions of how and why the oppressed join in their oppression. Cudd argues that oppression is an institutionally structured harm perpetrated on social groups by other groups using direct and indirect material, economic, and psychological force. Among the most important and insidious of the indirect forces is an economic force that operates through oppressed persons' own rational choices. This force constitutes the central feature of analysis, and the book argues that this force is especially insidious because it conceals the fact of oppression from the oppressed and from others who would be sympathetic to their plight. The oppressed come to believe that they suffer personal failings and this belief appears to absolve society from responsibility. While on Cudd's view oppression is grounded in material exploitation and physical deprivation, it cannot be long sustained without corresponding psychological forces. Cudd examines the direct and indirect psychological forces that generate and sustain oppression. She discusses strategies that groups have used to resist oppression and argues that all persons have a moral responsibility to resist in some way. In the concluding chapter Cudd proposes a concept of freedom that would be possible for humans in a world that is actively opposing oppression, arguing that freedom for each individual is only possible when we achieve freedom for all others.

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A passionate call to arms against our era’s most pervasive human rights violation—the oppression of women and girls in the developing world. From the bestselling authors of Tightrope, two of our most fiercely moral voices With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth. Drawing on the breadth of their combined reporting experience, Kristof and WuDunn depict our world with anger, sadness, clarity, and, ultimately, hope. They show how a little help can transform the lives of women and girls abroad. That Cambodian girl eventually escaped from her brothel and, with assistance from an aid group, built a thriving retail business that supports her family. The Ethiopian woman had her injuries repaired and in time became a surgeon. A Zimbabwean mother of five, counseled to return to school, earned her doctorate and became an expert on AIDS. Through these stories, Kristof and WuDunn help us see that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women’s potential. They make clear how so many people have helped to do just that, and how we can each do our part. Throughout much of the world, the greatest unexploited economic resource is the female half of the population. Countries such as China have prospered precisely because they emancipated women and brought them into the formal economy. Unleashing that process globally is not only the right thing to do; it’s also the best strategy for fighting poverty. Deeply felt, pragmatic, and inspirational, Half the Sky is essential reading for every global citizen.

We have all been told, at one time or another, to "never give up hope." It's a common injunction to children, but as we grow older, sustaining hope becomes more challenging, particularly in a world we come to see as often frightening, dark, and unjust. But what is this thing "hope," and why is hope so valuable that we are so often urged to preserve and protect it? This book explores the nature and essential role of hope in human life under conditions of oppression. Oppression is often a threat and damage to hope, yet many members of oppressed groups, including prominent activists pursuing a more just world, find hope valuable and even essential to their personal and political lives. Katie Stockdale offers a unique evaluative framework for hope that captures its intrinsic value, the rationality and morality of hope, and ultimately how we can hope well in the non-ideal world we share. She develops an account of the relationship between hope and anger about oppression and argues that when people are angry about oppression, they tend to also harbour hope for repair. When people's hopes for repair are not realized, as is often the case for those who are oppressed, their anger can evolve into bitterness. They feel unresolved anger as a result of losing hope that injustice will be sufficiently acknowledged and addressed. Fortunately, things do not have to be this way. Even when people may feel that they have lost all hope, faith can help them to be resilient in the face of oppression. They can join with others who share their experiences or commitments for a better world, uniting with them in collective action. By doing so, they can strengthen hope for the future when hope might otherwise be lost. Ultimately, this work illustrates the crucial value of hope for both individuals and collectives in the pursuit of justice, and in an increasingly uncertain world.