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Defiance to Oppression as Our Duty
How Breaking the Rules Can Build a More Just Society
Deviance is often painted as something negative…a disruption to social order, a challenge to the norm.
But what if defiance is the only way to create justice?
Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat. Iranian women cutting their hair in protest. Boycotts against corporations funding human rights violations. Throughout history, acts of defiance have sparked change, forcing societies to confront their own injustices.
Deviance, in sociological terms, is behavior that violates social norms. But norms are not always just. When people accept oppressive systems without question, injustice thrives.
My own experience with deviance came not from public protest, but from necessity.
At sixteen, while trying to navigate the U.S. immigration system to save my family, I broke rules I hadn’t even known existed. I circumvented bureaucratic red tape, contacted people I had no legal right to, and found loopholes wherever I could.
