Iris Marion Young presented an analysis of a new type of oppression that is not the result of deliberate decisions of a tyrannical authority, but rather a type of oppression that is performed by individuals who are part and parcel of modern societies and believe in democratic values. Young explained that such an oppression can be the result of some hidden structures which are embedded in traditional legal systems, institutions and social roles. Such structures form the frameworks of collective identities which are experienced by individuals through embodied consciousness.
This study aims to explicate the concept of embodied oppression by revealing the aspects of the collective experiences that are related to the structures of oppression, by drawing on the philosophy of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
The first part of this study deals with defining the problem and some basic concepts such as the concept of embodied oppression and its five forms. The second analyses the historically precipitated structures of oppression and their role in the formation of oppressed groups. The third part sheds light on the importance of the use of existential phenomenological methods in revealing the various aspects of embodied oppressed experiences.