Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-fmk2r Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-26T20:57:06.127Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘To Possess the Power to Speak’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 May 2021

Linda Martín Alcoff
Linda Martín Alcoff*
Affiliation:
Hunter College City University of New York
*
lmartina@hunter.cuny.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I argue here that first person speech on sexual violence remains an important dimension of the movement for social change in regard to sexual violence, and that the public speech of survivors faces at least three groups of obstacles: 1) the problem of epistemic injustice, that is, injustice in the sphere of knowledge 2) the problem of language and power, and 3) the problem of dominant discourses. I explain and develop these points and end with a final argument concerning the critical importance of speaking publicly on these areas of human experience.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 89: How Do We Know? The Social Dimension of Knowledge , May 2021 , pp. 51 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alcoff, Linda and Gray, Laura, ‘Survivor Discourse: Transgression or Recuperation?’ SIGNS 18 (1993) 260–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beard, Mary, Women and Power: A Manifesto (London: W.W. Norton and Company, 2017).Google Scholar
Brison, Susan, Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of the Self (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).Google Scholar
Cahill, Ann, Rethinking Rape (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001).Google Scholar
Clastres, Pierre, Society Against the State translated by Robert Hurley (Brooklyn, New York: Zone Books, 1987).Google Scholar
Freedman, Estelle, Redefining Rape: Sexual Violence in the Era of Suffrage and Segregation (Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press, 2013).Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in an Age of Reason translated by Richard Howard (New York: Random House, 1988).Google Scholar
Gauthier, Jeffrey, ‘Consent, Coercion, and Sexual Autonomy’ in A Most Detestable Crime: New Philosophical Essays on Rape edited by Burgess-Jackson, Kenneth (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) 71–89.Google Scholar
Gavey, Nicola, Just Sex? The Cultural Scaffolding of Rape (New York: Routledge, 2005).Google Scholar
Hacking, Ian, Historical Ontology (Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press, 2004).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F., Philosophy of Right Translated by Dyde, S. W.. (Garden City, N.Y.: Dover Publications, (1820) 2005).Google Scholar
Lievore, Denise, ‘Victim Credibility in Adult Sexual Assault Cases’ Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice (Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2004).Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole, ‘Women and Consent’, Political Theory 8 (1980), 149–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapin, Steven, A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth Century England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).Google Scholar
Shead, Karen, ‘Responding to Historical Child Sexual Abuse: A Prosecution Perspective on Current Challenges and Future Directions’, Current Issues in Criminal Justice 26 (2014) 55–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Traister, Rebecca, ‘Was it Worth It?’ New York Magazine September 30-October 13, (2019) 32–48.Google Scholar