Summary
Internalised oppression is what happens when members of an oppressed group come to believe the negative messages a dominant group holds about them, and act on those beliefs against their own interests. The term belongs to social justice theory and psychology. It’s understood as a product of growing up in an oppressive environment, absorbed through open discrimination and through quieter everyday slights, and takes forms such as internalised racism, sexism, homophobia and ableism.
Its counterpart is internalised domination: members of a dominant group accepting their privileges as natural and deserved. Because people who absorb a prejudice often go on to act it out, the process helps oppression sustain itself.
Rationale
Our articles don’t use this term. It names, for people on the receiving end, the loop Part 1 describes: dominant dispositions “make existing institutions and arrangements feel natural or inevitable”, even to those they harm.