Mackinnon through Young's "Five Faces of Oppression"

As Mackinnon unravels the issues with both the sameness and difference standards, which inhabit modern sex equality practices, cultural imperialism—the most common aspect of oppression according to Young—becomes apparent in the language of legal sexual inequality, which “provide[s] two ways for the law to hold women to a male standard.” Marginalization becomes evident within these same legal practices when “maleness provides[s] original entitlement, not questioned on the basis of its gender,” but male entities still benefit from gender-blind rulings such as alimony and child custody because fresh inequality is derived under the guise of progress. Mackinnon acknowledges that mere political silence is not the only problem of equality, but in their silenced state and at the height of their marginalization women "are deprived of a life out of which articulation might come." 

The incorporation of Young’s ideas of exploitation and powerlessness are more concrete in Mackinnon’s argument against the difference approach than other aspects of oppression because her main argument relies on practices within the workplace instead of political theory. The workplace inequality Mackinnon describes in differentiated between original, imposed, and imaginary. Original inequality assumes “excluding women is always an option if inequality feels in tension with the pursuit [of] itself” and denies women rights because men don’t need these rights. Imposed inequality assumes there is no male precedent to exemplify what basic human rights should be in this situation. Imaginary inequality is solely based on perceptual differences between genders. All rely on the inherent differences between men and women and “for women to affirm differences, when differences mean dominance…means to affirm the qualities and characteristics of powerlessness.”

                If male dominance was not already clearly defined in women’s role depicted in relation to men within the workplace and society at large, the quote above clearly relates how difference standards are inherently unequal. “The difference approach tries to map reality; the dominance approach tries to challenge and change it.” The dominance approach also highlights the violence—the last and perhaps most radical form of oppression—which the difference approach seems to ignore and which women are subjected to because they are women and because all the other forms of persecution lead women to the reality of such an existence. The statistics regarding assault on a female is significantly higher than assaults committed on males and workplace inequality drives (some) women into professions which both objectify and exploit violence committed against them in the form of sex.

                “Protection is not a dirty word and equality not a special privilege,” but difference implies inequality and dominance acknowledges the reality of this approach with its issues.

-Sarah