If I were able to go back in time to the beginning of my trading journey with one idea, it would be “risk premia.” It is vital for any trader to understand the idea of risk, and how you are compensated by taking on said risk. Risk premia/premium should be the very foundation upon which you build upon. I consider it the easiest way to make money. All you must do is hold an asset for a certain amount of time to generate returns. This is why buy-and-hold is often the benchmark to see if a more active system is worth the effort. For equities, you see stockholders taking advantage of risk premium to generate higher returns than treasury bonds (risk-“free” rates). As interest rates get higher, so do the risk-free rates, which makes stocks look less attractive.
It's a lot easier to paint a picture using bonds. Bonds are used by companies or governments to raise money from investors. While bond prices have an impact on how investors make decisions, we will use flat numbers to keep things simple. Assuming bond price of $100 per bond and 5% interest rates for both, if you had the choice between buying bonds from Microsoft or from the local grocery store, which one would you choose?
A more risk-savvy investor would always choose the Microsoft bonds, as they are much less at risk of defaulting or failing to pay investors back. Now, if the local grocery store offered 15% interest, investors would then consider the difference in interest rates to decide. Since there’s a 10% spread in interest, the risk premium is 10%. For accepting a higher risk of default, you accrue 10% more interest on your investment. These opportunities appear in Forex, but they aren’t nearly as apparent.
Here is a research paper that explores the idea of how risk premium causes seasonality, or patterns in price that occur at regular intervals. This is a very heavy read for most traders, but the gist of it is this: Holders of USD are exposed to the negative fundamental news that affects the dollar during the New York open. As EUR is naturally a riskier currency (blanket monetary policy over several countries with different levels of economic health is not ideal) than the USD, it must appreciate to compensate investors for holding onto a riskier asset. The holders of the USD know their currency is exposed to more risk during the NY session, so they move to an asset that is less exposed to these events. JPY is where risk-averse investors will flee to. Meaning, the USD value falls during the NY session as investors move to a safer currency. The safer currency is JPY. The increased supply of USD naturally means a stronger EUR. Simple supply and demand mechanics.

• “When introduced to a new idea, always ask why you should care. Do not expect an answer right away but demand an answer eventually.“ – Ravi Vikal

If you’ve made it this far, this is why you should care. Here is what we call a market inefficiency. There’s a repeating pattern in that offers active traders a chance to gain abnormal returns on a daily basis. All due to a risk-based assessment of the market. Risk causes uncertainty, which we can take on in exchange for alpha.
So, the strategy. We buy EUR when the NY session opens and sell when it closes. Then short EUR and GBP when the London session starts. We will test from the beginning of 2002 to Oct 2022, so almost a 20-year backtest. The chart and stats. Well, it appears that the author may have been onto something. Now let’s see what happens when we add GBP and JPY into the mix. Here we keep the original strategy but sell JPY on the NY market open and buy when the Tokyo session starts. We also buy and sell GBP in the same manner as EUR. Here is the chart, and stats. While admittedly not as impressive, it still shows the pattern is there. Considering we're exposed to market risk around the clock, I'm honestly surprised this came out so positive. The point of concern here is the flat equity curve in recent years. This may be due to increased intraday volatility plus central bank intervention from both JPY and GBP this year. While volatility can make us money, it is not always our friend. The amount of liquidity and lack of intervention in the EUR may be our saving grace with this strategy, but as the stats show, JPY might be the most profitable asset. So, let’s find out. The chart and stats. Again, not as impressive. Seems like focusing on the more stable EUR is the best way to trade this idea.
Let’s talk about tempering expectations though. There are no trading costs considered, as this is a “perfect world” testing environment. We’re just seeing if the idea holds, and it appears to do so. This strategy may or may not be tradeable depending on your broker’s trading environment, in fact, I suggest you don't trade this until you come up with a risk and money management strategy. The backtest results are extremely optimistic (this is my disclaimer). There are also no stop losses or take profits, so a clever trader may incorporate something like ATR to make it a more profitable idea.
What we have here is a trading strategy based on a real market inefficiency. No fitting stories to price curves, no market myths, and hard evidence that the idea works. The strategy is extremely simple with hard quantifiable rules. While the average profit is very low, remember that we have not set any take-profit rules, stop losses, reinvestment strategies, or risk management rules, meaning it assumes lot sizes do not change as the account grows. There is plenty to build upon and experiment with. While trading is very difficult, all you really need is one discovery and a bit of creativity to be successful. For example, here is a free potential edge you can imply from this research and mess around with.

• What else is correlated with the rise and fall of currencies? Indices. Most gains on the S&P 500 occur overnight, which falls in line with the appreciation of the JPY during the Tokyo session and the depreciation of the EUR during the London session. These also tend to be commission free on most brokers, so all you need to worry about is the spread, which shouldn’t be an issue due to the potential gains. However, you are essentially trading directionally with no hedging.

My intention with this post is to stop the infighting about different trading strategies and encourage users here to dig to find research on trading strategies that follow actual market mechanics. They are out there, but sometimes you need a second pair of eyes and another brain to really understand what the research is saying along with finding the implications of said research. The best thing you can do when it comes to trading is to collaborate with others and share ideas and findings. Having hard evidence that these ideas and findings are real is key though.
Credit: A user named PCZ on the Zorro forums was where I got this idea from. Part of the point I wanted to prove is that finding profitable and statistically proven strategies is possible if you look hard enough. These papers often include a trading strategy as well. I will be the first to admit that none of my trading strategies are original, but modified versions using techniques I’ve picked up over time. My code will be left as an exercise for my fellow programmers (I’m sure any of you can figure it out with some effort), but please note that I use true-to-life market open times rather than what the user found to be the best so results will vary.

I've been learning about forex and trading in general for a while now and I have reached a dead end. Some guidance would be very helpful.
In trading, it seems like almost every content creator is out there trying to rip you off. Time becomes irrelevant and you would waste 6-12 months before realizing that you're listening to the wrong person.
What I can't wrap my head around is how 90% of the content out there revolves around technical analysis and some basic fundamentals. But what about economic models and trying to make sense of the market data using quantitative measures to get an actual directional bias that would guide your thought process?
It seems like everyone is just talking about support/resistance and double bottoms and whatever. But these things aren't quantifiable. How can you base your entire forex career on speculative and baseless principles?
Backtesting strategies that rely on some random indicators and lines without using economics or finances to derive your decision is pretty much another way of saying gambling, to me at least.
I have looked more into trading and how it's actually done, and I was informed that getting certificates like the CFA, FRM, CMT, and learning about data analytics would be the best way to go about doing this.
My question is
Am I in the wrong here? And if so, how do you guys see Forex, and is it worth pursuing as a career rather than starting a business?

For a 7 week semester at ASU Online, I took a class recently that really opened my eyes, as a white, bisexual, female in the lower working class, in a bi-racial relationship, that honestly grew up in a pretty redneck, racist family. I never realized the truths behind my privilege, but also the oppression that I, and many others that don't fit the American standard of a white, Christian, educated, straight male.
The definitions I provide below are from deep dive discussions into articles, journals, and publications that I studied in my CAP220 class at Arizona State University, so I hope you enjoy the education without the work I had to do!
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• The first, most important keyword is Oppression & its five “faces” (Young, 2004): Oppression, or "a condition of groups" states, "all oppressed people suffer some inhibition of their ability to develop and exercise their capabilities and express their needs, thoughts, and feelings." As stated by Young, the "starting point is reflection on the conditions of the groups said by these movements to be oppressed: among others women, Blacks, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans and other Spanish-speaking Americans, American Indians, Jews, lesbians, gay men, Arabs, Asians, old people, working-class people, and the physically and mentally disabled." The concept of a social group is not simply a group of people, such as men or women, but intertwined by identity. Social groups are differentiated by cultural forms, practices, or ways of life. The 5 faces of oppression are different categories in which oppression can be described and compared for different social groups. The faces consist of exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence.

1. The first face of oppression is exploitation, or "social rules about what work is, who does what for whom, how work is com­pensated, and the social process by which the results of work are appropriated operate to enact relations of power and inequality.
2. The second face of oppression is marginalization, or people in the system who are basically 'unusable', such as old people, recovering mothers after birth, and minorities.
3. The third face of oppression is powerlessness, or those who lack authority or power to give orders, but have to take them.
4. The fourth face of oppression is cultural imperialism, or the "experience of how the dominant meanings of a society render the particular perspective of one's own group invisible at the same time as they stereotype one's group and mark it out as the Other."
5. The last and fifth face of oppression is violence, or direct hate acts towards groups of people, intentionally and unintentionally.

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• From there, I think it's important to define, Contemporary racism, three forms or types (Neville, Spanierman, & Lewis, 2012). The three types of contemporary racisms are:

1. Symbolic racism can be described as the cultural opinion instilled in those at childhood that shapes their perspective before they have any genuine interactions with the ‘inferior’ group. Society will tend to adhere to the conservative, dominant social groups values and project them onto the subordinate groups as if it were equal treatment, denying their experience. The group opinion tends to sway towards thinking lesser of, for example, blacks compared to whites when it comes to speaking up, getting assistance, or holding whites accountable for racism.
2. Aversive racism is when a dominant social group is unaware of their underlying unconscious negative attitudes about a subordinate group, such as whites denying they don’t like blacks. These people tend to sympathize with the inferior group, they still project an attitude that deems otherwise. An aversive racist will moderate their actions around a minority group to hide their attitudes.
3. Laissez-faire racism can be described as the dominant groups entitlement of resources and status towards the subordinate groups, as well as perceiving them as a threat. This can be general thoughts and beliefs in a culture that deem racism, ie “if more blacks get good jobs, then there’s less good jobs for everyone else." (Neville et al. 2012, pp. 340-343)

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• This next one is going to be relatively uncomfortable for my fellow whites to grasp, but I am glad to speak it to you, there's a chance you're enforcing something called, Color-blind racism as legitimizing ideology (Bonilla-Silva, Lewis, & Embrick, 2004; Neville et al., 2013; Ramsey in MTV Impact, 2016; Yi et al., 2022).

According to Ramsey (in MTV Impact, 2016), the statement “I don’t see color.” is problematic because it simply denies the existence of racism, which is prevalent, and secures the benefits of the social class that is dominant or saying that statement. This problem usually benefits whites in America and puts all minorities at a disadvantage in society. When Ramsey states that race is not biologically real, it’s to make us understand how absurd racism is and that we made it up as a social construct to give power to different classes, which for some reason humanity has made skin color a qualification. By telling us that racism is not biologically real, it implies that this is something we can reframe our thinking because it’s not a set in stone concept that can’t be reversed or changed.
Ramsey taught me that implicit racial bias can be unfair judgements of others based on internal associations related to race, such as hiring white sounding names over more ethnic names. Another example of implicit racism would be showing less apartments or denying any availability to people that aren’t white, yet showing many more to white people at the same place. Implicit racial bias targets anyone that doesn’t sound or look like the dominant culture, in America this is white people. Racial colorblindness also targets any minority as it benefits the dominiant social group who is stating their blindness, denying the reality of the minority group.
Racial colorblindness benefits the people who embrace it by benefiting their group over colored people. An example of this is preschool punishment, where colored children are typically punished more and worse than any white students despite there being way less Hispanic or black children than white. Racial colorblindness manifests for black children as being treated differently yet being told they’re not and that it’s fair. It also manifests as getting less job opportunities based on their name if it doesn’t sound like a typical white person, judgements are made about their character. It also manifests as mistreatment in public places or in private businesses due to bias.
The color-blind racial ideology, or CBRI, can be defined as the denial of existence of race, race issues, and/or racial inequality in a society where different colored people are prevalent - which needs to STOP! Don't deny, acknowledge & treat them with respect.. it's so appreciated.
So, taking what we have learned so far.. lets compare:

1. When comparing CBRI to symbolic racism, they are both ignoring the existence of racial inequities in newer times. These perspectives both are concerned with the opportunity to reject unjust or equality inducing outcomes.
2. When comparing CBRI to aversive racism, they are both ways to help avoid the topic of racism and help avoid the discomfort that comes with racial issues, while projecting unacknowledged racial attitudes on the inside to people of color.
3. When comparing CBRI to racial microaggressions, they are both invalidations of the pure humanity one possesses. They both can deny the reality of a colored person by evading talking about their race or that it even exists.

The authors, (Bonilla-Silva et al., 2004), analyze what they call ‘racial stories’ in, ““I Did Not Get that Job Because of a Black Man ... ": The Story Lines and Testimonies of Color-Blind Racism”, by interviewing students via self-submission quiz and a home interview. They then compile similar routes of conversations amongst whites concerning black and colored people and their views. There were also blacks interviewed on the effect on their lives and their perspective, but not as many as the researchers would like. The racial context in which they are describing is the dominant culture that is benefitting from the viewpoints of subordinate groups. This is prevalent in mass social groups, not only a few racist individuals.
The authors of the story lines are derived from the 1997 Survey of College Students Social Attitudes and the 1998 Detroit Area Study, where the testimonies that are prevalent amongst whites, the authors, were documented and analyzed. The counter-narratives are used by those who are at the ‘bottom’ of the social racial order, such as blacks or whites that don’t hold these racist views, that tend to hold oppositional views to the whites who benefit from their location and power. The authors of the counternarrative can also be described as the subordinate groups within society. The authors intention is to popularize the counter-narratives by showing evidence and breaking apart the reasoning in the authors stories from the dominant group.
Yi et al. (2022) were forming a meta-analysis amongst numerous journals published on CBRI and finding similar conclusions as groups of data to form a unified conclusion about CBRI.

• The results for racial prejudice concluded there was a significant correlation between racial prejudice and CBRI.
• The results of multicultural competencies concluded that there was a significant correlation between CBRI and the power evasion of multicultural practice competencies.
• The results of the social justice orientation and CBRI concluded that the were not significantly correlated.

According to Yi, Neville, Todd, and Mekawi (2022), the purpose of their meta-analysis was to better understand CBRI’s role as an individual-level barrier to dismantling anti-Blackness and eradicating structural racism. Critical quantitative inquiry advocates for using quantitative methods to disrupt the racial status quo. The authors sook to "unveil" how CBRI may reinforce anti-Blackness and other forms of racial oppression. The assumption that underlaid their work was that a critical psychological science can best inform the ways in which individual actors can contribute to or disrupt institutional level and anti-Black policies and practices.
The meta-analysis established that CBRI, specifically power evasion, is associated with greater prejudice against Black people, thus providing evidence against the idea that CBRI is a way to “get past” racism Their findings were that CBRI was significantly related to racial/ethnocultural, but not general, empathy highlights the ways in which CBRI attitudes may differ from traditional, more explicit racism. Endorsement of CBRI allows individuals to avoid empathy by blaming People of Color for their lower social status in society.
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• Next up is concept by Crenshaw on intersectionality (in Institute of Arts and Ideas, 2021):

Crenshaw produced a case study on understanding intersectionality in society in a 5 minute video. At (0:25-1:00) in the video, Crenshaw defines intersectionality as an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of a persons social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege.
She describes this terms as a way to describe when an inequality that someone is prepared to encounter overlaps an inequality that they're not prepared to encounter or commit to, such as a woman surgeon. Crenshaw then presents a case at (1:20-2:10) stating that a black woman represented black women at her job for racial and gender discrimination. The case was dismessed at (2:22-3:30) due to the courts not seeing an issue with the company, 1. hiring black people, and 2. hiring women, but not seeing the overlap of the issue being against black women itself. This case also supports the pre-existing schemas of assuming who people are before understanding the reality of who they really are.
The concept of intersectionality in this video aligned with the face of oppression called marginalization, where women of color weren't seen as able to represent all women, or all black people, or even themselves. By discrediting this group of people, it implies that they aren't as much human as the other groups being described, and that they're worth not being able to work the positions that she was suing the business for.
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• As you can see, these concepts are starting to build onto each other to help you understand the importance of the next! :) Next we go into understanding: Racialized social system, systemic racism, & racialized organizations (Bonilla-Silva, 1997; Ray, 2019; Smooth in Race Forward, 2015).

Smooth (in Race Forward, 2015) relflects on the distinct income differences between white, hispanic, and black families, as well as the massive differences in single white, hispanic, and black womens income. Although black people make up 13% of our country, they somehow only hold about 2% of the countries wealth. The differences are stark, and this is an example of systemic racism.
A racialized social system, according to Bonilla-Silva (1997) is societies in which economic, political, social, and ideological levels are partially structured by the placement of actors in racial categories or races. Races typically are identified by their phenotype, but the selection of certain human traits to designate a racial group is always socially rather than biologically based. This means that racism gets blended into a hierarchal social order, where some are deemed 'better looking' or 'smarter' and are therefore capable of making physical decisions, such as segregation, against other races. This framework of racialization allows analysts to explain overt as well as covert racial behavior.
Ray (2019) explains that a racialized organization is meso-level social structures that limit the personal agency and collective efficacy of subordinate racial groups while magnifying the agency of the dominant racial group. Racialized organizations 'shape agency' by differentially apportioning time along racial lines or redistributing time from non-Whites to Whites. When focusing on the health care system, argues that racial differences in life expectancy are partially produced by health care organizations that literally steal time from Black people.
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• I know this is a lot to take in, but you're basically almost done with a university understanding of the Self in a multicultural society, and that's pretty cool! Well done for getting this far! :) Next up is a fun concept, I promise, called Selective perception & the mental harmony puzzle (So in TEDx Talks, 2015).

So explains how, as humans, we make assumptions of others immediately, based on their physical features. The issue here is that we tend to make misjudgments of others, and receive them at the same time. These misjudgments are typically internally justified to empower our thought about another based on our internal frame of reference. So deeply questioned the illusion that people have when they believe that they are always right about their assumptions of others. So, in the Tedx Talk: Why do we believe things that aren't true?, asked the question, "How can we explain the cognitive bias for relevant daily life experiences?"
He came to the conclusion of the Mental harmony puzzle, or ‘a trap our mind falls into’. We start with thought that is like a picture of a puzzle. We save that picture in our mind for reference of new information coming in. If it fits the puzzle, we feel in harmony. If it doesn’t fit, we toss the thought away. Then unconscious process that filters all information according to the picture in our minds, via selective perception. If we can see and hear only information that fits the picture, we select that to affirm our thoughts. (i.e., the "trap" of the mental harmony puzzle).
We can affirm our perception through three different biases: confirmation, hind-sight, and self-serving.

1. Confirmation bias is when we actively seek information that confirms our beliefs and reject information that rejects our beliefs. Confirmation builds a picture of a belief and confirms the initial beliefs. Hind-sight bias is a tendency that we don’t remember the task of what we experience, but what we experience later.
2. Hind-sight bias helps one build a new picture of the past reality to align with they beliefs.
3. Lastly, self-serving biases are a tendency that focuses attention on information that enhances self-esteem and protects us from negative feedback. A self-serving bias builds a picture of ourself that protects our beliefs.

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• So how are these beliefs really being 'passed' down and around us? It may be... Knowledge community & contagious understanding (Fernbach in TEDx Talks,2017).

Fernbach states that, "False belief is our birthright." It's more common than we realize that humans believe things that aren't true, and it's historical that we are swayed easily by false news to change our beliefs. Typically, public attitudes sway how we see things, we all seem to agree on how things work. Fernbach uses the example of asking a group of people how a glowing rock works, and no one knows how. But when the group of people is told that a group of scientists can explain why its glowing, the group of people said that they understood the object better as well, simply since the scientists said they did.
We have access to the internet, but according to Fernbach, Thomas landauer did a study to compare the human brain storage to that of a computer from memory experiments. Using that data, over 70 years he estimated we acquire 1GB of knowledge, and explains how we can purchase a 64GB card on amazon for $18. He goes into how we don’t need to know a lot because we aren’t made to think on our own, but in collaboration.
Having access to the internet makes us feel like we know a lot more than we actually do. Understanding is contagious, paired with individual ignorance, expressing strong beliefs because one feels that they understand, although false, others around influence this belief. Yet no one does enough to verify actual source of information - this is called contagious understanding. We live in the illusion that we have seriously researched our beliefs. When someone doesn’t believe what we believe, we think they’re too stupid to know the truth, but neither do we.
When we express beliefs, we are channeling our communities of knowledge. Knowledge is shared, and we can thrive by sharing our knowledge - this is called communities of knowledge. We gather information from each other, and base that off what we know from others, so when one understands confidently, it can spead. Ie, when a scientist is said to back something up compared to asking if someone knows about it, they will better if a scientist has studied it and shared that knowledge.
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• These ways of thinking help us find our 'place' in society, and what we identify with. This can also be described as, Social identity & social location (Kirk & Okazawa-Rey, 2007; Tatum, 2003).

(Kirk & Okazawa-Rey, 2007) describes the micro level as the level in which we describe the direct forces that make up our identity, such as being a woman, sexual orientation, age, etc. The micro level describes our daily practices. It also relates to minor and major traumas that happen in our lives that shape who we are in our daily experiences. The meso level tends to associate with the physical appearance of social group membership. An example is when someone who is white, bi-sexual, and working class may appear to have a disability, so people may ask, where are you from? Or what happened to you? To then classify your answer into a social group placement. The macro and global levels of communities refers to gender, race, and class levels. It relates to the dominant and subordinate groups in which people are compared and deeply affected in our society by. This can be seen in the historical white telling of the native American relationship. The white settlers made the NA people out to be unruly savages to justify the mass murders, and today the NA are known as the non-existent people to demonstrate the inequality placed amongst their people.
Maintaining systems of structural inequality relates to the justification and domination of the subordinate social groups in society. It requires the objectification and dehumanization of the subgroup by appropriating them to who they ‘should’ be as defined by the dominant social group. The values of the dominant group are what set up the basis of comparison for the sub groups evaluation. Terms that distinguish a difference are used to describe the sub group, as well as stereotyping the group of people to a set description of who they are. Typically when appropriated, it’s with good ‘intention’ but still doesn’t show the complexity of who the people are underneath the stereotype.
Although America is the ‘land of the immigrants’, not all came here willingly. Native and Mexican people were already on the continent and most were killed off. Blacks were stolen from their land and forcibly enslaved, exploited, and violated. The experiences of these people is entirely different than those that chose to immigrate here voluntarily. There were also many laws in place to prevent the ‘others’ from fully integrating into society, such as laws set in place to systemically give whites and advantage over any others. In America, white is the dominant group, and everyone else is described as ‘people of color’. These people tend to associate themselves with their nationality, but tend to just group themselves as the group people of color because whites have made it so.
Our social location is where all of our identities overlap and where that puts us in societal social groups. This expresses the core of ones existence to the social and political world, and places us in different dynamics with the dominant cultures in our society. Our social location also tells how much value and power we hold in society compared to others.
Oppression may seem normal to people who experience privilege far more often than they experience experience exploitation, marginalization, and violence because they are in the dominant group empowering the misjudgments, behaviors, and beliefs about the subordinate group. They may think that think is normal in society since the entire social group deems it acceptable. (Tatum, 2003)
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• Now, we go into the beloved topic of gender. This is huge as the topic is a buzzword today with many people identifying a certain way and many not understanding how or why. We will be defining the concepts, Gender (Elder, 2022, pp. 195-224; Fiorio in Kids Helpline, 2020; Scott, 2013). Gendered racial microaggressions (Lewis, Mendenhall, & Harwood, 2016). Heteronormativity & cisnormativity (Boe et al., 2020; Weinger in TEDx Talks, 2019a).

Fiorio (in Kids Helpline, 2020) addresses their struggle with what I believe to hear them say “transphobia and gender dysphoria”, which is very prevalent today. To transition from thinking the whole world was about to get them, to a better place, they found activities that they could individually enjoy and feel good about.
I believed that the author, Eder (2022, pp. 195-224), was most likely investigating the medical psychology of gender and how it’s scientifically explained. I believed that the author approaches the idea of gender by explaining real life experiences and medical histories of different gender identities. “It is important— even in the face of a depressing history."
I believe that the author, Scott (2013) intended to educate about gender and how it’s used in society and exploited in different ways as well. Scott suggests that gender means different things through the context of the term in different situations. Gender can refer to the difference of male and female and physical presentation. It also can lead to separation of man through gender and seeing women as less capable. Gender is also used interchangeably with sex and is used to describe male or female biologically. Scott explains that feminists argued that gender refers to socially constructed gender roles and not of the true purpose of the woman’s destiny in life. The use of gender has historically oppressed woman compared to men and what each ‘gender’ is supposed to behave in society. The emphasis of gender oppression highlights the differences from male that are highlighted as beyond the norm of what should be socially acceptable.
Gendered racial microaggressions, as explained by Lewis et al. (2016), are subtle and everyday verbal, behavioral, and environmental expressions of oppression based on the intersection of one’s race and gender. This is common with black women experiencing assumptions about their appearance, behavior, or aggressions based on stereotypes. You would know that this is occurring is you saw or experienced someone assuming the other is a 'Jezebel', or overtly and uncontrollably sexual, to fulfill the expectation of being an 'angry black woman', struggling for respect and authority of self, especially compared to whites, feeling invisible compared to others, and other assuming their beauty and communication styles. This is seen when comments are made about the size of their body, lips, or buttocks are made, or stereotypical rap songs are portraying them to want to shake their buttocks for men, or someone assuming they'll become irate if they disagree with you.
Heteronormativity, as explained by Weinger (in Tedx Talks, 2019a), is the social norm that heterosexuality is what everyone feels and agrees with, and anyone outside of that norm is enforced by homophobia. Heteronormativity is shown in the lack of representation of LBGTQ+ identifiers in society.
Cisnormativity, as explained by Bob et al. (2020), is a cultural phenomenon in which people privilege and normalize non-trans experiences which leads to marginalizing and oppressing transgender people. Cisnormativity is prevelant in America, where it's been 'normal' to only go off of two genders in life: male or female. This makes it hard for trans and other LBGTQ+ to be able to fit into society where they feel hears, accepted, and protected against society.
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• Being now in 2022, which surprises me, yet doesn't at the same time, as a woman, oppression against the sexes is still prevalent as we see with Ambivalent sexism (Begany & Milburn, 2002; Connor, Glick, & Fiske, 2017), Misogyny (Aron, 2019), and Transmisogyny (Serano, 2021).

Foundational thinkers, Glick and Fiske and their student lead author, put the two sexisms, benevolent and hostile, under the umbrella term "ambivalent" because it recognizes that sexism entails a mixture of antipathy and subjective benevolence:

1. Hostile sexism corresponds to classic definitions of prejudice as antipathy (Allport, 1954) and reflects the hostile derogation of women who pose a threat to the gender hierarchy (e.g., feminists).
2. Benevolent sexism is "a set of interrelated attitudes toward women that are sexist in terms of viewing women stereotypically and in restricted roles but that are subjectively positive in feeling (for the perceiver)" Benevolent sexism bestows affection on women who embrace limited but tradi­tional gender roles (e.g., housewives). Hence, although benevolent sexism may appear positive, it presumes and reinforces women's subordinate status.

Misogyny, as explained by Aron (2019), is conventionally known as the 'hatred of women', social inequity, and in some context, another word for sexist. This is explained perfectly by the quote by Dworkin in 1997, "Women are perceived to be appalling failures when we are sad. Women are pathetic when we are angry. Women are ridiculous when we are militant. Women are unpleasant when we are bitter, no matter what the cause. Women are deranged when women want justice. Women are man-haters when women want accountability and respect from men."
Transmisogyny is the facing of additional scrutiny due to the specific direction of gender transgressions, such as on the female spectrum, according to Serano (2021), which differs from transphobia, which is the belief that female and male are rigid, mutually exclusive categories, each possessing a unique and non-overlapping set of attributes, aptitudes, abilities, and desires, where trans people do not fit.
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• Social class (Suyemoto et al., 2022, pp. 154-168), occupational hierarchy (Wilkerson, 2020, pp. 128-136), and white trash, America’s strange breed (Isenberg, 2016, pp. 310-322).

Isenberg (2016) explains how although America is known as the ‘land of opportunity’ and boasts about every individual being involved in the government’s doings, it is a false story that’s not the actual reality for most. He describes Americas strange breed as those of the lower class that are portrayed in a derogatory way. He goes into how eugenics, or the science backed reasoning to a ‘master’ class, affects many in our country by making a divide in how life is perceived by the rich and poor. Eugenics gives a way to justify the breeding of a ‘master’ class. The poor, although not mainly known about when spoken of in America, is more prevalent than talked about. Typically, the poor ‘breed’ of Americans is portrayed as white trash, or another word for a derogatory way of describing a less-than white person in America. This white trash word is typically used to describe someone who is so engrossed in their poor lifestyle, that they choose to live this way, and have no class themselves to be respected in society. By differentiating the middle & upper class from the lower class by describing these people as a white trash breed, it creates advantages to those who have securely been able to secure land, hold better jobs, and have more opportunities in our country. Then those who don’t fit this basic description of success are thrown into the low-class breed of an American. In reality, the poor is more prevalent in our daily lives and aren’t just people who live a white trash lifestyle, they could also have jobs, be in school, be paying bills, and never make it out of this class.
The phrase "pillar number five" in Wilkerson (2020, pp. 128-136) suggests to me that the occupational hierarchy isn’t the first and only way of classifying the humans in a class system, that their jobs are only a factor. From the title alone, the terms Jatis and Mudsill possibly refer to those who are in power in a job and those who work for that person. The idea of a permanent low-labor class (i.e., caste) in the mid-eighteenth-century United States morphed by the early twentieth-century into the idea that Blackness and low-skilled labor were synonymous. This was embodied with whites owning blacks and having them only be allowed to participate in menial, ‘low-class’ tasks that no one else ‘wants’ to do. This philosophy never quite went away after the the slavery era, and only continued with keeping blacks below white Europeans who didn’t speak English/fit into society as well. This is still prevelant today, although the barriers aren’t as thick, black people are still seen to be less than whites in the class system in everyday forms life job promotions, job tasks, and job opportunities in general compared to whites. Wilkerson (2020, pp. 128-136) uses the term occupational hierarchy to explain the unequal opportunities and ways of perceiving those who are ‘stuck’ performing the mundane roles in society, and how most cannot get our of their roles when they are in the mudsill part of society.
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• This then leads us into, Classism & classist microaggressions (Cavalhieri & Wilcox, 2022; Smith et al., 2016, Suyemoto et al. (2022, pp. 154-168).

Suyemoto et al. (2022, pp. 154-168) explains classism as a social construct of economical systems, resources, as well as an objective fact of education or income, and a subjective social class, ie where we establish ourselves within the class system and compare to others abstractly. People of different classes tend to have different ways of going about life via communication, having children, acceptance of power, reasoning for economic inequality, and more. This is called class culturing, where those we are surrounded by in our class influence us to behave in different ways, like others in our class. At the same time, those of the same subjective class, sometimes have different definitions as to what it means to be in that class and may describe another in their ‘class’ to be higher or lower than they are. Classism comes into play by defining those below them as mediocre and limiting access to higher class resources. This can be seen where the upper class tends to have more natural privileges in life compared to those of a lower class.
Smith, Mao, and Deshpande (2016) explain the classist micro-aggressions are prevalent with the prejudice against poor and middle class students.. This, in my opinion, is also prevalent in everyday life when interacting with those of higher ‘class’ or higher income than I have, coming from a poor class myself.. Sometimes these are unconscious comments that have the intention of meaning well, but many that have been blessed with financial security can’t fathom the reality that many people in this country face on a daily basis trying to get ahead in life.
Cavalhieri & Wilcox (2022) explain how the mental health outcomes for African American people facing classism and racism varies. Those who agree with this stance are seen to have developed coping strategies that do not affect their mental health as heavily as those who do not associate with these perspectives of thought. The concepts of classism and racism negatively affected people of colors mental health, overall well-being, as well as stress levels daily.
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Yay, we made it through the concepts I feel that you SHOULD know navigating our world, and country specifically. Below is a mental model that helps you visualize where in our lives and society that these concepts occur. :)
On Theorizing the Self at a Crossroads Where Social Identity, Social Location, & Social Justice Meet
A mental model that shows the relationships between these concepts in our social structure: https://app.mural.co/embed/6ac7e096-e803-4634-8b3e-cece79f409c2

“I felt a great disturbance in the force as if millions of voices slowly and wildly got together and then there was an uprising against the government and the financial institutions”