I'll add that this concept can be applied to most forms of oppression throughout history. The abilities to communicate and share knowledge are massively important.
Those in power have always sought to control access to education in order to maintain their status, as well as control of the narrative. Those deprived of education/life experience can be easier to manipulate, lie to, and silence; because they literally don't know what they don't know.
Men didn't want women learning to read; white people didn't want slaves to read; anti-woke policymakers try to erase queer history from books and websites and prevent international students from getting an education; child abusers target younger populations' knowledge of consent and reporting...
It's all working toward the same goals of control and power.
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Emerson (ASU??)
As a librarian at a university, when I teach research to students, I try to really harp on authority. Authority on a topic does not necessarily mean an advanced degree or peer review. While those are important, they are only part of the picture. I work with criminal justice students and I make the point that if one is doing research on solitary confinement, all the articles and studies are good things, but what about the experience of a person who has been in solitary confinement, are they also an expert on issue with a voice that is important to the conversation. As researchers I feel we need to be listening to more voices outside the institution.
Me
Wooow @Emerson Meinhart you've just blown my mind; what a great way to phrase that, absolutely. That could be applied to so many unheard voices that just have the whims of our systems enacted upon them without regard for what they actually need/want. My undergrad was in justice systems and I actually worked in law enforcement for awhile. A big factor in my finally leaving a few years ago was the unavoidable fact that policing/prisons/our laws as they are now are not what communities need (and that those in power both are aware of that and do not care to listen).
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Lost a close loved one to an argument over the importance of appropriate sex ed in schools.
I sent pages of thoughtful research, citations of books I’d read on the topic, as well as my own personal experiences.
It took hours. I cried writing it.
They sent back that I should be wary of my sources (which they refused to review even when I offered to do a book club and/or send more specific passages).
So yeah.. Now I’m halfway through my gender studies master’s degree about it.
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