Wow. So that was one of the most confusing things I’ve ever read. Lots of run on sentences? anyways! reading it, there was her obvious bias. Her dislike, might I even say, hatred toward speaking for others. But unless I missed it ( which I very well could have; I couldn’t concentrate toward the end) it seemed very one sided. She did give many examples and reasons to why speaking for others was detrimental, but it seemed there was a complete lack of any argument for the other side. That alone, the failure to show the other side takes away some of the credibility. It makes it seem more like a rant. Of course, there was still a lot of good information in there. Just reading through it, I got the feeling that her hatred of speaking for others were a bit over the edge.

“There is a strong, albeit contested, current within feminism which holds that speaking for others—even for other women—is arrogant, vain, unethical, and politically illegitimate.”

That just really struck me, the choice of words used. All some of the worst insults you could say to someone. Also              “The declaration that I “speak only for myself” has the sole effect of allowing me to avoid responsibility and accountability for my effects on others; it cannot literally erase those effects. ” This was really interesting. Even though you try to speak for yourself, you can still end up speaking for others. Of note, is that no matter what you say, its going to have an effect one way or another on someone elses views.

This intertextualizes with service in this class thus far, because currently, we are providing a service to the Boys and Girls Club.  Our personal experiences are akin to what she Alcoff is talking about. She mentions people in different locations speaking for people of a different location, with location not being just the traditional sense, but also, a persons “social Location”; what rung are they on society’s ladder.

“In other words, a speaker’s location (which I take here to refer to her social location or social identity) has an epistemically significant impact on that speaker’s claims, and can serve either to authorize or dis-authorize one’s speech”

This highly pertains to us and our class, because as we do our sevice learning, we are interacting with a group who are at a different location in society. Thus, we must tread lightly, as we can not truely understand them. Since we are going to be making a Public Service Announcement, what we say is going to either, as Alcott puts it, “authorize or de-authorize” our announcement.

For me, it just sort of re affirms the idea of not being able to truely speak for another group of people. But at the same time, it also dredges up questions of where that line is. At what point can you still speak for others, and at what point should you just stop. Also, it makes me think about the ramifications of everything i say, and also when I dont say anything, what happens.