In “Silence and powerlessness go hand in hand,” Rebecca Solnit wrote: “Being unable to tell your story is a living death.”What does she mean by this?

1. In “Silence and powerlessness go hand in hand,” Rebecca Solnit wrote:
“Being unable to tell your story is a living death.”
What does she mean by this? Based on Solnit’s article, along with any other sources (including
the Powerpoint slide from Week 1) that strike you as relevant with regard to the theme of silencing, explain whether you would agree with that statement, keeping in mind Solnit’s claim that
“[h]aving a voice is crucial, [but] I don’t mean only literal voice.” Try to think of some illustrative
examples.
2. In “On Psychological Oppression,” Sandra Lee Bartky wrote:
“In sum, then, to be psychologically oppressed is to be caught in the double bind of a society which both affirms my human status and at the same time bars me from the exercise
of many of those typically human functions that bestow this status.” (31)
What does she mean by this? Be sure to explain what a ‘double bind’ is,* and try to relate this to
her view of ‘mystification’ as “the systematic obscuring of both the reality and agencies of psychological oppression so that its intended effect, the depreciated self, is lived out as destiny, guilt,
or neurosis” (23). Do you think that this sense of psychological oppression is a significant aspect
of sexist oppression in contemporary society? Explain, and if possible give some illustrative examples.
* Recall that in “Oppression,” Marilyn Frye wrote the following: “One of the most characteristic
and ubiquitous features of the world as experienced by oppressed people is the double bind—
situations in which options are reduced to a very few and all of them expose one to penalty,
censure or deprivation.” (85)
3. In “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex,” Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw wrote:
“[Black women often] experience double-discrimination—the combined effects of practices which discriminate on the basis of race, and on the basis of sex. And sometimes,
they experience discrimination as Black women—not the sum of race and sex discrimination, but as Black women.” (149, italics added)
What does she mean by this? Be clear about the ‘additive’ model of multiple oppression thatshe
is claiming is inadequate, and why she thinks it is inadequate. How might Crenshaw’s claim relate
to bell hooks’ assertion (“Feminism: A Movement to End Sexist Oppression,” 57) that “[d]efining
feminism as a movement to end sexist oppression is crucial for the development of theory because it is a starting point indicating the direction of exploration and analysis”?
4. Think of some other great question (one that relates to the course materials without overlapping
too much with the above questions), but please run it by me first …

Last Completed Projects