second-class citizens
Marginalized group members
Second-class citizens are people who receive inferior treatment, rights, or opportunities compared to others in the same society.
The term often describes groups facing systemic discrimination—racial minorities, immigrants, women historically denied the vote: Without equal pay, women remain second-class citizens in the workforce.
The singular form describes an individual's diminished status: The new policy made him feel like a second-class citizen.
- underclassLowest socioeconomic group
- inferiorOf lower rank
- separate but equalRacial segregation's constitutional fiction
- womenFemale adults collectively
- childrenYoung human beings
racism · discrimination · unequal treatment · disenfranchisement · apartheid · untouchables · segregation · stateless persons · oppression · redlining · exclusion · Jim Crow laws · caste system · denizenship · servants · slaves · inequality · xenophobia
second-class citizensfirst-class citizens
Those with complete rights
privileged class · the elite · elites · insiders · the upper class
second, class, citizen, citizens, secondly, secondary, classed, classes, classing