You are wrong. These terms (and the definitions steveklabnik gave) are very important in sociology, and were coined in large part by sociologists looking for a way to describe social phenomenon that they'd observed.

We've used them in the vernacular (which is the dictionary definition) to describe individual offenses, but when sociologists and academics use them (the field the terms came out of), it is very useful to describe a power structure and things that happen within that power structure.

I'm sad to see that steveklabnik has been downvoted so much on this board for saying something that is so very correct.