To think you can’t be ‘oppressed’ if you’re rich?

[ThatRedBeaker]

I’m not saying rich people don’t have problems but it feels ridiculous when millionaires and billionaires claim to be oppressed. Money buys you options, protection, power - everything that shields you from the worst effects of oppression. AIBU to think that if you’re rich, you might still face discrimination but you’re not truly “oppressed” the way working-class or poor people are?

My sister. She owns a condo worth 3.5 million quid (at 28) but she was pressured into marriage by my parents and my parents kinda got her to sign a loan agreement for her condo on top of a mortgage. She is a junior doctor in a public hospital. My parents micromanage her life. She can never get out. I know because I eloped at 22 with 400 euros in my pocket (dh paid for my flight ticket as a student and i moved into his 1 bed student flat) and it wasn't easy, I had some savings from saving all the cash gifts from relatives since birth but my parents kept my savings (they returned it after they realized i saved enough for a deposit on a london flat so that money made no difference to me). So I had to make everything work in Europe and then London from scratch. The flat I own in London is worth around 400k but I count myself as having more freedom than her despite being much poorer.

The biggest cage you can be in is the cage that is constructed in your mind

Lots of rich women in Saudi Arabia.

Patriarchal oppression still exists
Racial oppression still exists
Homophobia etc

She’s not oppressed at this point in time in her life - but to get to that she has shown that a woman has to have a billion pounds - and even so if she did pop in to Afghanistan I’d give her about ten seconds before she was oppressed again

it’s interesting that even when talking about oppression on a predominantly women’s site the OPs musing is from a patriarchal lense. If the OP was thinking of the question truly through the lense of the female experience I think it would be a different musing

I think she would be, yes. I guess I wouldn't consider Obama oppressed especially , but he had to show the USA that an African American could be president. An African American in different circumstances to him may well be facing oppression daily..

I feel for the ordinary women who could face severe consequences for holding the same views as JKR's too.

You are conflating targeted/silenced/marginalised with ‘oppressed’. They are different things. The wives of wealthy men have been and are still regularly oppressed: as women in patriarchal society. If they are deprived of freedoms as to how they can dress, what they can say, whether they can work or leave their homes without a companion as has happened in the past and is even happening today (Jemima Khan when she was married to Imran, for example). ‘Oppression’ is about your life being confined as a result of being a member of a specific demographic - black, female, etc. It’s not about celebrities being ‘silenced’…

It does mean you don't have to worry about bills, keeping a roof over your head and food on the table.

Would being rich make everything fine for me? No. But I wouldn't have the worry that I'm being made redundant and have the nigh on impossible task of finding another job that fits around DS's needs. I could use the money to, for example, get mental health support for DS who is suicidal but doesn't meet the criteria for CAMHS because the bar for help is so high now.

It would mean I could replace the moth infested carpets, not have bare plaster on patches of the living room walls, and have kitchen units that aren't disintegrating. We could be warm in the winter and have 17.5 be the minimum temp rather than the maximum.

I think that many many many men and some women have been and are desperately trying to oppress JK Rowling.

and as well as her shed load of money it has also taken personal courage for her to not be oppressed - so I think that in a way she is still opppressed in that if she/women were truly not oppressed she should not have needed money or personal courage

lots of wealth women are oppressed. I am very comfortable financially but I’m still oppressed in lots of ways and I live in supposedly liberal UK.

Bottom line - I think all women and girls are oppressed - it’s just to varying degrees and money doesn’t go that far in buying women out of oppression

He’s oppressed only by the minuscule mass of his own brain.

To be fair, both Musk and Trump had unhealthy relationships with rubbish fathers and it's clearly affected their emotional development.

I was about to sayn the same thing, but you've said it for me!

Don't agree with you here.
I think that some of the negative behaviours to her can quite reasonably be called oppression.

That's a fairly simplistic view. Abuse of all sorts happens in the wealthiest of households.

Political oppression can happen anywhere. I have a wealthy friend who had to flee her home as a child, with her DM, at zero notice because of the political situation in her home country, despite being a very wealthy family.

I said YABU because as has been pointed out wealth does not protect you from sexist racist and homophobic oppression.

However seeing your additional posts OP I agree with you that Elon Musk is not oppressed or “cancelled” and it’s ridiculous to pretend that he is. A collective judgement that he’s a piece of shit which means the share price on his company goes down is perfectly valid. The opposite would mean people are required to buy his products and use twitter against their will to avoid him ever experiencing financial detriment which is obviously ridiculous. Imagine how entitled you are and how repulsive your soul must be to believe that or see any equivalent with real oppression.

I love this 😂

Why do people think having money makes all your problems go away . Try being rich and still dealing with daily shit that happens . Yes it gives you more options than not having money but money doesn’t cure most problems.

Feeling oppressed is nothing to do with money. My husband has a multi million pound buisness yet I feel so opressed in my marriage its suffocating, i am controlled and my life choices dictated , ive never felt so trapped.