In contrast to individualistic explanations of social injustice that appeal to implicit attitudes, structural explanations are unintuitive: they appeal to entities that lack clear ontological status, and the explanatory mechanism is similarly unclear. This makes structural explanations unappealing. The present work proposes a structural explanation of one type of injustice that happens in conversations, discursive injustice. This proposal meets two goals. First, it satisfactorily accounts for the specific features of this particular kind of injustice; and second, it articulates a structural (...) explanation that overcomes their unattractiveness. The main idea is that discursive injustice is not the result of biased interlocutors, but of problematic discursive norms. (shrink)

This article discusses the category of foreigner in the context of academia. In the first part I explore this category and its philosophical significance. A quick look at the literature reveals that this category needs more attention in analyses of dimensions of privilege and disadvantage. Foreignness has peculiarities that demarcate it from other categories of identity, and it intersects with them in complicated ways. Devoting more attention to it would enable addressing issues affecting foreigners in academia that go commonly unnoticed. (...) In the second part of the article I argue that current efforts to make academia a more inclusive environment should address the disadvantages that many foreign academics face. I focus on two senses of foreigner: working and living in a country that is not your country of origin, and being a nonnative speaker of the language in which you work. (shrink)

In this note, my aim is to point out a phenomenon that has not received much attention; a phenomenon that, in my opinion, should not be overlooked in the professional practice of philosophy, especially within feminist efforts for social justice. I am referring to the way in which being a non-native speaker of English interacts with the practice of philosophy.1 There is evidence that non-native speakers are often perceived in prejudiced ways. Such prejudiced perception causes harm and, more importantly, constitutes (...) wrongdoing. As in other cases of prejudiced perception and biased behavior, it would be pretentious and misguided to expect philosophers and the philosophy profession to be free from this vice. There are good reasons to think that this prejudiced perception is bad not only for the persons who are perceived in such a way, but also for the profession, for it might make us miss important things that could improve philosophy in general. I claim we should be more sensitive to this phenomenon, both out of concern for justice, and for the sake of doing better philosophy. (shrink)

I’m at the playground with my baby, and a smiling adult inquires, “Is it a boy or a girl?” Scientific studies show that if I say X, they will see my baby as doing A, being A, feeling A—versus if I say Y.1 They’ll likely make different assumptions about whether my baby is able to climb up the playground structures and sit without support, and they’ll encourage my baby to engage in different activities.2 And of course, they’ll respond to them (...) differently depending on whether they think the baby is a boy or a girl. What do I do if I don’t want that to happen? One way to respond to the question is not to reveal the gender, or rather, to reject the assumption that my baby already has a gender, which is arguably a weird move, breaking out of a smoothly functioning, well-oiled social exchange. Here I want to talk about this weird move: How weird it is? What are some of the reasons to make the move anyway, and what are some of the concerns? (shrink)

The activism we don’t appreciate: Your Honor Kent, my mother is a feminist and votes even if she doesn’t know she’s oppressed Resumen: Broncano mantiene que ocupar una situación de opresión no garantiza la lucidez necesaria para identificar la propia situación como injusta. Esta posición nos advierte que nos vamos a encontrar con casos de personas oprimidas que no tienen conocimiento sobre su situación de injusticia ni una actitud crítica hacia la misma. Lo que me interesa analizar en este comentario (...) es cómo afecta esto a la agencia política de esas personas. La conclusión que quiero evitar es la siguiente: Cuando no escuchamos a alguien que está oprimida pero que no conoce su situación de opresión, no la estamos traicionando como agente política, no la estamos silenciando como posible activista. En este comentario propongo un análisis de las quejas que nos permite escapar de esa conclusión. Las quejas de muchas mujeres han de entenderse como acción política, una acción política que no está necesariamente acompañada de conocimiento sobre la injusticia que sufren. Una vez entendemos sus quejas como activismo, ya no podemos excluir a estas mujeres como sujetos políticos en la lucha contra el sexismo. Este análisis de las quejas nos lleva a concluir que estas mujeres sí que pueden ser traicionadas como agentes políticas, aunque no tengan conocimiento de su situación de injusticia. Las traicionamos cuando no entendemos sus quejas como resistencia. Abstract: Broncano thinks that being oppressed does not guarantee knowing that you are oppressed. This view warns us that we are going to find people who are oppressed and who don’t have knowledge about their oppression nor a critical attitude towards their situation. What concerns me here is how this view affects the political agency of those people. The conclusion I want to avoid is as follows: When we don’t listen to someone who is oppressed but who doesn’t know their position as oppressed, we are not betraying them qua a political agent, we are not silencing them as a potential activist. I propose an analysis of complains that allows us to escape that conclusion. I propose that the complains expressed by many women should be understood as a political action, one that is not necessarily accompanied by knowledge of the injustice they are suffering. Once we see their complains as activism, we cannot exclude these women from the fight against sexism and deny their political agency. Under this analysis, women can be betrayed qua political agents even when they don’t have knowledge of their unjust situation. We betray them when we don’t understand their complains as resistance. Palabras clave: Conocimiento, agencia política, activismo, resistencia, quejas. Keywords: Knowledge, political agency, activism, resistance, complains. (shrink)