Sexism, racism, classism, heterosexism, and ethnocentrism are examples of what Warren calls unjustified “isms of domination” (1990, 2000). Warren argues that these isms of domination share conceptual roots in five features of an oppressive conceptual framework. The first feature is value-hierarchical, Up-Down thinking that attributes greater value to that which is “Up” than to that which is “Down”. In canonical philosophy, value hierarchical thinking (typically) puts men Up and women Down, culture Up and nature Down. By attributing greater value to that which is higher, the Up-Down organization of reality serves to legitimate inequality “when, in fact, prior to the metaphor of Up-Down, one would have said only that there existed diversity” (Elizabeth Dodson Gray 1981: 20)  