During this week’s readings, we learned about how gender impacts society's way of communicating with one another. During the article 'The Problem of Speaking for Others', Linda Alcoff talked about how problematic it can be to speak for others, and how the act of speaking for others is heavily criticized. Alcoff mentioned that “if the practice of speaking for others is problematic, so too must be the practice of speaking about others, since it is difficult to distinguish speaking about and speaking for in all cases” (Alcoff, 9). I found this extremely interesting because I had never thought about the correlation between speaking for and speaking about someone. When someone speaks about another person, they push their narrative and perspective of this person onto the next. In reality, they are actually speaking for someone even though they believe that they are speaking about their situation. For example, the article 'On the Limits of Satire' by Rebecca Krefting brings up a great perspective of how society views our gender as our entire personality. Krefting talked about her sexuality as a lesbian woman is prioritized and emphasized when people talk about her. She specifically talked about how all of her interests were ignored and left out, and that people had hyper focused on her sexuality when speaking about her.
While reading the articles, I thought of politicians and how they are supposed to represent and speak on behalf of the people that elected them. The majority of politicians in the United States are white cisgender males who are supposed to present the melting pot and diversity of the U.S. This creates a problem when considering everyone that they are supposed to be representing. I find it extremely interesting when politicians speak on behalf of a community, for example the LGBTQ community, when they do not share the same experiences. Alcoff talked about how “the model of political representation cannot be used in all instances of speaking for others, though it may prove instructive when we attempt to formulate responses to the problem” (Alcoff, 11). This fascinates me because I had always thought that it was strange that the politicians that are supposed to represent us, have nothing in common with us.
I definitely found the concept of speaking for/about others interesting as well - it's something I feel is often neglected when considering ethics. I also like that you used politicians as an example, because their entire jobs center around speaking and making decisions for others! I also like that you highlighted most of these are white cis men, when the majority of America is made of people of color, women, and those who identify outside of the gender assigned at birth. It's always inherently frustrating hearing politicians discuss stances on abortion or the LGBTQ+ community when they themselves do not have a uterus, and are cisgender and heterosexual.
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