Does Oppression Require Recognition?

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Philosopher Carol Hay writes the following:

Oppressive harms come about as a result of judgments that concern the qualities that all members of a group are presumed to share, or that concern what such people are presumed to deserve. A harm counts as oppressive only if it results from the recognition that the individual in question is a member of a certain group or category of people

I'm interested in the claim that oppressive harms imply recognition that the harmed person is part of a certain group. Take a step back real quick. Oppressive harms are like moral harms more generally: oppressive harms are morally problematic, they can be damaging (whether materially or psychologically) and they constitute prima facie wrongdoing against the harmed party. But oppressive harms are unlike general moral harms in at least two important respects: oppressive harms are systemic and they afflict a person because of their membership in a particular group.

Hays claims that oppressive harm results because of the recognition that the individual is a member of a certain group. If recognition is required for oppressive harm, one wonders, is a recognizer required as well? Sam, a woman, experiences routine discrimination in the work place. Reasonable requests for pay increases routinely go wrong, she is overlooked for promotions because of the concern that she could get pregnant and have to take time off work, and so on. The discrimination happens as a result of her employer's recognition (whether conscious or not) that Sam is a women. Seems like a usual case of oppressive harm. 

But while recognition may often result in oppressive harm, I doubt that it is necessary for oppressive harm. Sam refrains from pursuing certain lucrative careers, decides against certain job offers, and so on, all because she reasonably believes that she would face adversity, be penalized for having children, endure real challenges to career mobility, and feel alienated as a woman in those spaces (since the relevant jobs are comprised mostly by men). Two things seem true about Sam's situation: (1) the potential for unfair treatment is itself an oppressive harm against Sam and, yet, (2) that harm is not the result of recognition that Sam is woman. The harm can be explained by the fact that Sam is a woman living in a cultural milieu with a particular history and particular structures. But the fact that Sam is harmed in this particular way is not crucially connected to anyone's recognition that she is a woman (except, perhaps, her own recognition...but I took Hay to be saying that the recognizer is part of the harming group, not the harmed). If you have doubts about whether mere potentialities can count as oppression, then try this: Sam is incentivized to turn down lucrative career pursuits that she would enjoy and for which she is qualified. The incentivization/discouragement is oppressive, but it does not result from someone else's recognition that Sam is a woman. 

One last example: Sam routinely keeps quiet about some of the concerns and problems facing her at work. It is too risky raising complaints about the wage gap, about promotion policies that disproportionately favor men, about offensive sexual language used in the work place, about the hardship of being the primary caretaker of her children without paid maternity leave, and so on.  She fears that raising complaints could hurt her status at work. As a result, she doesn't speak up [1]. If you think this is a manifestation of gender oppression, then oppressive harms need not result from the recognition that the oppressed person is part of a particular group. The inability to safely raise work-related concerns free of penalty is an oppressive harm against Sam, but it does not arise as a result of any one's recognition that Sam is a women. It results from the structures, biases, and policies at place in Sam's workplace that systematically discourage women from speaking up. No one's recognition of Sam as a woman is crucial to explaining the oppression in this case though the fact that Sam is a woman is crucial to explaining the oppression. 

[1] Elsewhere, this has been dubbed "testimonial smothering." See Dotson, "Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Epistemic Silencing" (2011).