Ø Elitism: Elitism is the belief where a group of people believe, because of their superior ancestry, intrinsic quality or worth, higher intelligence, more wealth, or specialized training, they are the elites and are above other who are not
Ø Ethnocentrism: Ethnocentrism is to judge another culture or group of people based on their own standards because they believe that they are the norm and everyone should be like them.
Ø Classism: Classism is discrimination based on social class where beliefs, practices, or attitudes are designed to benefit the upper class and suppress the lower classes
Ø Racism: Racism is prejudice based on biological differences or the color of one’s skin because a group believes that they are the superior “race”
Ø Sexism: Sexism is discrimination based on gender differences where one gender believes they are better, more fit, stronger, or more intelligent than the other; sexism may often stem from traditional values or stereotypes
Ø Adultism: Adultism is prejudice and discrimination against young people as adults have power over children
Ø Nationalism: Nationalism is the political ideology that involves individuals adoring or growing attached to one’s nation and believe they are better than all other nations and have superiority over them
Ø Heterosexism: Heterosexism is discrimination against homosexual people because of their different sexual orientation compared to the “social norm”
Ø Ageism: Ageism is discrimination based on age especially among the elderly or the young people because ageists believe that they do not contribute to the society and needs constant attention
Ø Discrimination based on disability: Discrimination based on disability is as its name suggests, people having prejudice or favors other people less because they have a history of disability or is physically or mentally impaired
Personally, I believe that racism and sexism are the two most harmful as they are the most prevalent throughout the world and they influence many people. Although race is a very broad and ambiguous word, racism occurs to many races, mainly Africans and Asians. Racism has been existent for a very long time but it reached its pinnacle of its sphere of influence under European dominance of the world. They saw the Africans as inferior and brought them as slaves to the “New World”. Racism has caused mass torture and deaths in the world, draining the population of Africa during peak of the slave trade from the late-1600s to early-1800s. Despite human actions to try to eliminate racism, it still exists in many places and affects the lives of many people. Perhaps the symbol of racism is the infamous KKK or Ku Klux Klan that thrived during the late-1800s to the early-1900s, with their notorious methods of killing innocent black men and women and children. Sexism is just as worse as it has lasted perhaps longer than racism ever did and it influences many people in developing countries today. Women, throughout history, have been oppressed by men and expected to do menial jobs. For the majority of civilization, the social norm for women is to work on domestic affairs such as house cleaning or taking care of children. They haven’t had as much opportunity as men to influence the society as a whole. Only few women have done so, but it remains in small minorities. It was not until the availability of women’s suffrage did their rights slowly increase until today, in most developed worlds, they are allowed to do what most men can do, excluding the military. However, in less developed places especially in the Middle East and India, they still remain discriminated against. Every few weeks there would be reporting on BBC about a hanging in India because of sexism. Women stand for approximately 51% of the human population and should be treated equally. Thus, sexism is a major type of structural violence that needs to be tackled and eliminated. The most difficult to eliminate is probably classism/elitism and racism. Sexism is still a problem in many places, however, the world has seen a much faster and drastic change in the roles of women than any of the other discriminations. Racism, ever since the 1960s, has decreased and many different races in the United States has gained more rights and equality, however, the amount of people it affected isn’t as much as Emmeline Pankhurst and other female political actors did when they fought for women’s suffrage. In addition, racism is still existent in many parts of the United States that does not have as much contact to the global society as places such as Los Angeles or New York. Even when I went to Baltimore for summer camp, walking down the street, I heard some people murmur racist slurs about me. Classism is also very difficult to eliminate as there has nearly always been a social class system in every society. Those “elites” or those who are in the upper class can’t help but feel perhaps greater or more superior compared to those beneath them. It’s an innate instinct that is hard to rid of. Even in schools, the higher the grade, the more they feel like they have authority over the younger students.
I think the most important levels of analysis IR scholars must tackle in order to fix these problems is through the domestic and inter-state levels. Awareness and education are common attempts to solve these issue largely because it is effective when put into use. Thus, in the domestic level, the government must try to increase education for the public in order to educate the public about these types of structural violence. Sexism, for example, decreases with the increase of education for all people. In places such as India, education is not as prevalent and not everyone gets to go to school as some families might prohibit or need some of their children to work in coal mines to supply for the family. Thus, in order to provide education to everyone, not only does there not need to be more schools but also the overall GDP per capita of India also must increase. This means decreasing corruption and stopping the increase of brain drain in the country. To help countries such as India achieve those goals, that requires inter-state levels with different countries working to help the developing world become the developed. As for racism, it is not as widespread as it once was, however, it affects even the developed countries such as the United States, a prime example. The public school system in the US is not effective in teaching children anything about the global society. Thus, improving education would be a necessary step to try to stop the spread of racism.