Marginalization For All Or None
Who Isn't In Need After All?

According to Wikipedia, it is the social process of becoming or being made marginal (to relegate to a lower social standing, for example). It involves people being denied degrees of power. It has the potential to result in severe material deprivation.(Mullaly, 2007).

Throughout history, people have been called marginalized for too many reasons to count.

The whole thing seems so ridiculous. Marginalized seems to mean that you don’t measure up to someone's standards. But, whose standards don’t you meet? It’s certainly not my standards that are the problem since I don’t care how much money you have or what color your skin is or how old you are or what you do for a living.

Perhaps, marginalization is a government term used to decide which people should get what portion of taxpayer money. In other words, the term is used to group people into various categories of need. It seems to be all about helping those who can’t or won't help themselves for one reason or another. Sometimes, it's even about forcing people into groups when they don't need or want help at all. This idea could become known as government empowerment or perhaps government disempowerment.

So, if government empowerment/disempowerment is all about being judged by others’ standards and being helped according to what others dictate as your level of need, then self empowerment must be when people, in need, set their own standards and stand up for themselves by going out and getting what they feel they need rather than waiting for others to decide their needs and then give it to them.

This is an important concept because, in truth, we are all in need in one way or another. For example, experts say that more than 90% of the world’s population is in financial need on some level. More than half of the world’s population are women and they are all marginalized and therefore in need. If you don’t have at least a college diploma or university degree, then you are definitely in need. If you’re not happy in your job, then you are in need and the list goes on.

Now, you can spend your whole life waiting to be labeled as marginalized in one way or another (refer back to the list of the top of this page) or you can get a little fire in your belly and choose self empowerment and stand up and say "NO" to labels. Stop waiting to be judged so you can receive what society says is coming to you. You will never be happy with your allotment.

So, if you live in a third world country or in the middle of a war zone or if you are trapped in a hospital bed or suffering from disability or mental illness, then perhaps you really are marginalized and need help. But if you live in Canada or the US or Europe or any other developed, democratic, non-warring nation in the world, then you really have no excuse. Even in tough economic times, when lay-offs happen and people are losing their homes because of foreclosures, you always have a choice.





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