Oppressive Praise

Especially compared to criticism or blame, praise generally seems to be harmless (or entirely positive).

Over the past handful of years, though, philosophers (especially Jules Holroyd) have written about potential negative aspects of praise, especially “Oppressive Praise,” a term Holroyd coined for praise that produces or reinforces oppressive social and systemic structures.

For instance, people (and societies) praising fathers for sometimes handling a fraction of the child-rearing responsibilities many mothers tackle on a daily basis (and with substantially less fanfare) can reinforce the understanding and expectation that men should do the bare-minimum, while women are expected to do a lot more as a default matter of course (a paradigm sometimes called the “daddy dividend”).