Victimhood as a positive political resource

Abstract

Victimhood is commonly deemed negative. The dominant account of victimhood argues that leveraging victimhood involves asserting the moral superiority of the weak, leading to an oversimplification of complex political matters into moral binaries of good versus evil. According to this perspective, victimhood traps victims in a perennial position of weakness, thereby diminishing their agency. This paper challenges this negative perspective and argues that victimhood can enhance agency, serving as a positive political resource. When victimhood involves the acknowledgment of inherent vulnerability shared by all individuals, whether they are victims or non-victims, and concerns the unjust distributions of vulnerability experiences, it can empower individuals to overcome excessive self-doubt and transform their victimization into a political agenda. By examining the subway protests organized by Korean Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination activists, I demonstrate how recognizing the agency-enhancing potential of victimhood helps us better understand the political significance of these actions.

Keywords

Victimhood vulnerability protest disability agency

Introduction

On 3 December 2021, a group of individuals with disabilities maneuvered their wheelchairs into the gap between Seoul's subway trains and platforms. This alarming incident was the first of years of protests led by activists from Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination (SADD). The primary objective of these protests was to advocate for the right to mobility for people with disabilities, including access to public spaces and facilities. Activists used various tactics, such as obstructing subway doors with their wheelchairs, crawling onto subway trains, and causing delays by boarding and disembarking in groups at different stations (Kim, 2022). Throughout these actions, the activists openly claimed their status as victims, demanding recognition of their ongoing victimization. However, despite their efforts, these protests faced significant criticism. The activists were accused of using their victimhood politically, presenting themselves as victims while condemning any dissent as oppressive.

While victimhood is a subject of lively scholarly inquiry (Armaly and Enders, 2022; Chouliaraki and Banet-Weiser, 2021; Eroukhmanoff and Wedderburn, 2022), its perception tends to lean negatively within academia. The term “the politics of victimhood” often carries connotations of counterproductivity.¹ The existing literature predominantly emphasizes the adverse aspects of victimhood. Not only is victimhood frequently picked out as a weakness undermining progressive politics (Brown, 1995; Bruni, 2024; Campbell and Manning, 2014, 2018; Fukuyama, 2018, Horwitz, 2018) but it is also associated with problematic attitudes, tendencies, and behaviors (Armaly and Enders, 2024; De Guissmé and Licata, 2017; Schori-Eyal et al., 2017). Recent research has also linked victimhood to the rise of far-right political movements (Al-Ghazzi, 2021; Banet-Weiser, 2021; Chouliaraki, 2021). Across this body of literature, the political use of victimhood is commonly interpreted as negative.

Scholars, particularly those within feminist traditions, have extensively examined the societal and political ramifications of prevailing negative attitudes toward victimhood (Cole, 2007; Gilson, 2016; Manne, 2017; Ross, 2022; Stringer, 2014). However, the concept of victimhood remains contentious within feminist discourse. Some feminists reject the notion of victimhood (Denfeld, 1995; Wolf, 1993), and feminist language has shifted from victimhood to survivorship (Hoff, 1990; Orgad, 2009; Pollino, 2023). Moreover, there is a notable absence of a prominent affirmative account detailing how victimhood can positively affect political actions and relations.

This paper aims to challenge the dominant negative perspective on victimhood by arguing that victimhood can be a positive political resource. Here, “victimhood” denotes the recognition of one's status as a victim.² When I use the term “victims,” I am referring to individuals who have experienced injustice, particularly systemic oppression.³ While a detailed exploration of these concepts falls beyond the scope of this paper,⁴ societies generally have collective understandings of injustice or oppression among their members. Consequently, victims are typically identified based on criteria widely accepted within a given society. Assuming that these criteria are reasonably sound, my discussion generally applies to these individuals. This approach excludes at least two instances from consideration. First, individuals who claim victim status without corresponding experiences are excluded, such as white supremacists feeling victimized in response to calls for racial equality (Al-Ghazzi, 2021), or privileged men claiming they are victims in the face of the #MeToo movement (Banet-Weiser, 2021). Second, the discussion does not encompass individuals facing adversity solely due to bad luck, personal choices, or other factors unrelated to injustice. For instance, a cancer patient might be a victim of the disease, but not necessarily a victim of injustice solely due to the affliction. Similarly, an individual who gets drunk and runs in front of a car is not a victim of injustice merely because of the resulting injury.⁵

According to the dominant account of victimhood exemplified by Wendy Brown's (1995) arguments, leveraging victimhood is counterproductive for victims of oppression. Brown suggests that it involves asserting the moral superiority of the weak. When individuals claim victim status, it oversimplifies complex political matters into moral binaries of good versus evil and traps them into a perennial position of weakness, passivity, and incapacity. Therefore, using victimhood politically is believed to diminish the agency of victims, ultimately undermining their empowerment and emancipation. I call this perspective on victimhood agency-diminishing victimhood.

Challenging this account, I propose the concept of agency-enhancing victimhood. When victimhood involves the acknowledgment of inherent vulnerability shared by all individuals (Butler, 2009; Gilson, 2014, 2016; Mackenzie et al., 2014) and concerns the unjust distributions of vulnerability experiences, it can empower individuals to overcome excessive self-doubt and transform their victimization into a political agenda. By examining the subway protests organized by SADD activists, I illustrate how recognizing the agency-enhancing potential of victimhood helps us better understand the political significance of these actions.

Through this analysis, this paper aims to highlight the necessity for a more comprehensive understanding of victimhood in the political domain. Without a positive account of victimhood, political theorists cannot adequately explain instances where victim groups achieve valuable political outcomes by leveraging their victimhood, thereby enhancing their agency and empowering themselves as political agents. Consequently, political theory may discourage victims from tapping into the positive potential inherent in their victimhood. It also burdens them with the expectation to avoid, reject, or overcome their victimhood, even when it can serve as a resource in exercising agency.

The rest of the paper proceeds as follows. The section “The dominance of negative narratives surrounding victimhood” offers a critical examination of the dominant negative account of victimhood, as articulated by Brown (1995) and others, focusing on its depiction of agency-diminishing victimhood. The section “Rethinking victimhood: Unveiling its positive potential” introduces a redefined, positive perspective on victimhood, viewing it through the lens of shared vulnerability, and highlights the potential of agency-enhancing victimhood. The section “A case study: SADD's subway protest” presents a case study, illustrating how this new perspective provides a fuller explanation of SADD activists’ protests compared to Brown's account. The section “Concerns about competition among victims and its remedies” addresses potential challenges arising from the competitive dynamics surrounding victimhood. Finally, the concluding section discusses the implications of my analysis.

The dominance of negative narratives surrounding victimhood

A common assumption about victimhood is that individuals often weaponize their victim status. They are seen as portraying themselves as weak, powerless, and incapable, thereby relying on others to address their issues. Victims, it is feared, may strategically emphasize such negative traits to increase their moral appeal. For example, Campbell and Manning (2018) refer to this use of victimhood as “moral dependency” (46), characterizing it as an endeavor to seek external intervention from entities like legal authorities or the public rather than resolving issues through one's own action.

Brown (1995) offers a robust version of this critique. Brown suggests that employing victimhood for political ends undermines the agency of victims. Consequently, it contradicts their ultimate goal—namely, empowerment and emancipation. Specifically, she critiques the late 20th-century progressive movement's support for legal regulations on hate speech and pornography, positing it as counterproductive. While advocating for the empowerment and emancipation of oppressed groups, Brown maintains that the movement embodies ressentiment, a concept characterized by Nietzsche as “the moralizing revenge of the powerless” (Brown, 1995: 66). Here, the pursuit of revenge manifests through the legal establishment of victim status for these groups. As they seek to establish this status, their suffering and lack of social power are elevated as a sign of “social virtue,” concurrently subjecting groups with power, “strength,” and “good fortune” to moral criticism (Brown, 1995: 70). The overarching goal is to “achieve … moral superiority by reproaching power and action themselves as evil” (Brown, 1995: 70). Consequently, participants in this mode of politics are incentivized to enact and perpetuate their powerlessness and incapacity while simultaneously developing an emotional attachment to these weaknesses as integral components of their identity.

In Brown's view, the political use of victimhood involves the oversimplification of complex political matters into a moral binary, distinguishing good and powerless victims from bad and powerful oppressors. This binary is alluring, allowing those fitting into the perceived image of victims to accuse their critics of oppression. This process grants victims “power born of weakness and resentment,” characterized as the power of “pettiness” (Brown, 1995: 44). Essentially, individuals in victimized roles can assert, “You are a bad person for attacking me, a powerless and innocent victim.” Leveraging their status, victims can effectively shield themselves from political criticism, stifling genuine political discourse. Consequently, “political argument” is supplanted by the inclination to “moralize” (Brown, 1995: 27).

Through this process, victimhood diminishes the agency of victims (agency-diminishing victimhood). Despite the temporary increase in power, this strategy perpetuates existing social positions rather than changing them, as the recognition of their victim status solidifies into a fixed, ascriptive identity. This becomes self-defeating, hindering their efforts toward political progress. While victims fight to liberate themselves from unjust power structures, using victimhood as a tool inadvertently sustains those very structures. Brown recently reiterated that this approach keeps victims from addressing the underlying factors responsible for their victimization, specifically the “powers producing social subordination” (Brown, 2022: 625–626). From her perspective, the adoption of victimhood obscures this problem rather than addresses it.

What, then, should victims do to confront the power structures underpinning their suffering? Brown suggests that their efforts should be directed towards acknowledging the possibility of challenging, altering, and ultimately subverting existing structures: “[Victimhood] fixes the identities of the injured and the injuring as social positions, and codifies as well the meanings of their actions against all possibilities of indeterminacy, ambiguity, and struggle for resignification or repositioning” (Brown, 1995: 27).

Brown's account, while not explicitly prescribing a course of action for victims, suggests that even when one suffers from unjust power structures, calling attention to one's victim status may be inadvisable. Instead, she proposes that one's political agency should be exercised without leveraging victim status. To clarify, this does not necessarily mean that individuals who have faced particular injustices should refrain from seeking recognition and redress, including legal remedies. However, it is considered counterproductive for a collective group of individuals to embrace their status as victims based on shared experiences to inform their political actions. By implication, individuals are encouraged to avoid relying on their victimhood or, alternatively, to strive to overcome it while participating in political actions. Failing to do so may result in being ensnared in the paradox of victimhood: the political use of one's victim status perpetuates the very condition from which individuals seek liberation.

Surely, victimhood can sometimes yield counterproductive effects. It becomes self-defeating when victims rely on a calcified identity of being victims, oblivious to political changes or blind to varying contexts, thereby impeding their ability to engage in meaningful political actions. Brown's account may serve well in critiquing such instances where victimhood does indeed erode agency.

However, the prevalence of the account of agency-diminishing victimhood poses a problem for political theory. It fails to fully elucidate cases where victimhood serves as a catalyst for genuine political discourse and concrete actions toward progress, rather than transforming into a fixed identity. We are left to ponder how, then, victim groups can achieve significant political outcomes by embracing their status to inform their actions and consequently empowering themselves as political agents, as they often do. In certain instances, victimhood seems to enhance rather than diminish their agency, as seen in the SADD activists’ protests or movements such as Black Lives Matter. In these cases, as I will show in the sections “Rethinking victimhood: Unveiling its positive potential” and “A case study: SADD's subway protest,” victims effectively harness their victimhood to identify and resist specific power structures without falling into the trap of an ascriptive identity or shying away from acknowledging their victim status. It seems perplexing to suggest that individuals involved in these activities are not victims, that their victimhood is inconsequential to their actions, that they are simply avoiding or overcoming their victimhood, or that they fail to achieve any positive political outcomes due to their victimhood. Therefore, to explain such political instances and discuss a proper prescription for the political role of victimhood, we need a fuller, richer explanation of victimhood as a resource.

Moreover, Brown's theory is not adequate for providing a positive account of how victimhood enhances agency because it sharply distinguishes victimhood from agency. According to Brown's descriptions, politically using victimhood entails oversimplification because this approach involves claiming negative features like weakness, helplessness, and powerlessness to oneself while casting non-victims solely as powerful and capable. Consequently, an individual who relies on victimhood to engage in political action cannot effectively operate as an agent because agency necessitates cultivating contrasting attitudes—ones that aspire toward power and capacity to change the situation according to their will. Thus, those subjected to oppression are expected to focus on the possibility of achieving such power rather than their current lack of it.

However, this view does not capture the full complexity of agency and victimhood. While political agents can pursue power to affect others and situations as they desire, they can also be affected by others and situations regardless of their intentions. Importantly, recognizing how they are affected can enhance their agency. When individuals recognize how they experience harm and disadvantage from unjust power structures, their victimhood can enhance their agency, enabling them to engage with those structures as political agents. I will elaborate this view in the section “Rethinking victimhood: Unveiling its positive potential.”

To be clear, I do not mean that Brown flatly opposes victims recognizing themselves as victims in a temporary, contingent sense. Instead, my analysis of Brown's account shows that she stands against using such recognition as a basis—especially a lasting one—for political engagement, worrying that this strategy leads to self-defeating politics grounded in the fossilized identity of the victim. Yet, as I will elaborate in the section “Rethinking victimhood: Unveiling its positive potential,” this is an overly cautious approach to victimhood, given that victimhood frequently facilitates victims’ persistent, meaningful engagements with enduring oppression in reality. Then, we need to ask how victimhood can serve this positive function even when consistently embraced and used by victims. To answer this question, we must seek a new framework for understanding victimhood and agency. The following section outlines this framework and elaborates on how victimhood enhances the agency of victims.

Rethinking victimhood: Unveiling its positive potential

A new conception of victimhood: The vulnerability framework

To construct a framework that fully elucidates the potential of victimhood, moving past the simple binary is necessary. To this end, I draw on scholarship that interprets vulnerability as an inherent, universally shared condition of human existence (Butler, 2009; Gilson, 2014, 2016; Mackenzie et al., 2014). Throughout our lives, as interdependent beings, we encounter various experiences beyond our full control, including the consequences of our actions and our relationships with others. As Gilson (2016) aptly states, regardless of who we are or what our intentions may be, we are all “open to being affected” (Gilson, 2016: 72). Contrary to the common and narrow view that vulnerability is exclusive to certain individuals perceived as weak, powerless, dependent, passive, and helpless, vulnerability is intrinsic to all individuals. Furthermore, vulnerability is not a flaw to avoid but rather can be a source of positive experiences, including our ability to experience rich and genuine emotions such as “pleasure, rage, suffering, [and] hope” (Butler, 2009: 34).

Acknowledging that all individuals are vulnerable raises important questions: what, then, explains such vastly different experiences of vulnerability for different individuals (Cole, 2016)? If vulnerability is universal, why do some face disproportionately harmful and disadvantageous experiences while others do not? If everyone can sometimes feel weak, passive, and helpless, why do certain individuals encounter these moments more frequently? Victimhood arises from recognizing this inequality in experiences of vulnerability and connecting it to unjust power structures.

Specifically, victimhood can serve as a positive resource when it involves the recognition of the inherent vulnerability shared by all individuals, regardless of whether they are victims or non-victims, and highlights the recognition that experiences of vulnerability are unjustly distributed between victims and non-victims within a given context. While both groups are inherently vulnerable, victims experience their vulnerability in ways that are disproportionately harmful and disadvantageous, whereas non-victims are protected from such manifestations of vulnerability. Victimhood recognizes this situation as unjust by attributing harmful and disadvantageous experiences to specific power structures, distinguishing them from arbitrary factors like bad luck.

How does the vulnerability framework differ from the Brownian approach regarding the political potential of victimhood? The Brownian perspective assumes that political agency requires attitudes centered on seeking power, strength, and the ability to influence others as willed. These qualities enable individuals to control their own experiences and circumstances. From this viewpoint, victimhood appears incompatible with agency because it signals a failure to control one's experiences and a submission to the adverse influence of others.

In contrast, the vulnerability framework envisions political agency premised on human vulnerability—namely, the inherent lack of complete control over one's experiences. Individuals exercise their agency while simultaneously influencing and being influenced by others. Here, I define agency as an individual's capacity to act and to recognize her actions as flowing from projects and principles she endorses. Within this framework, victimhood can enhance agency. When a victim realizes that her harmful experiences result from unjust power structures, this recognition can clarify that certain forms of resistance are consistent with her projects and principles. Thus, acknowledging that one is a victim, rather than maintaining a sense of full control, can open up opportunities for exercising agency through taking resistance actions. Conversely, if an individual subjected to injustice fails to acknowledge her victimization, this lack of recognition can limit her capacity for agency, hindering her ability to address her victimization in ways that align with her own projects and principles.

Understanding political agency through the lens of inherent human vulnerability, rather than the pursuit of control, enables a comprehensive examination of the political meanings, roles, and implications of victimhood. Crucially, this perspective helps us appreciate the positive potential inherent in victimhood. Within the vulnerability framework, acknowledging how one experiences vulnerability—particularly recognizing how one has been victimized—and leveraging that recognition in political contexts is not necessarily seen as a failure to pursue power and capacity as political agents. Instead, it can enhance political agency, potentially empowering individuals to actively engage in political actions against unjust power dynamics that victimize them.

To clarify, I am not arguing that exercising political agency by using victimhood never contributes to increased control. Indeed, one can leverage one's victimhood in political engagements to empower oneself and consequently gain greater control over one's experiences. However, the vulnerability framework allows us to understand how individuals can embrace their intrinsic lack of control and recognize the harmful experiences arising from it, using that recognition to cultivate power and capacity. It highlights the possibility that individuals can pursue power by taking actions based on their status of being harmed and disadvantaged.

Therefore, the vulnerability framework provides a structured approach for evaluating the political uses of victimhood in precise and targeted ways, rather than hastily dismissing it as dangerous and something to be avoided, rejected, or overcome. As I will elaborate shortly, victims can prevent their victimhood from becoming counterproductive. In the absence of a proper framework to interpret victimhood, victims who incorporate victimhood into their political engagements—especially over extended periods—often face premature negative judgments that their victimhood is burdensome, even when their recognition of enduring suffering is legitimate and potentially beneficial. While Brown suggests that victims focus on “specific powers producing social subordination” (Brown, 2022: 625–626), her negative depiction of victimhood runs the risk of overlooking its potential to empower victims to address these power dynamics based on their experiences.

Two ways victimhood enhances agency

So, what are the specific ways in which victimhood enhances the agency of individuals? There are at least two instances where victimhood enhances agency.

First, victimhood empowers individuals to overcome excessive self-doubt while making their own judgments about experiences of victimization. Victims often question the validity of their intuitions and emotions when they encounter situations involving exclusivity, marginalization, or degradation. For instance, imagine a person with a disability interacting with people without disabilities. The able-bodied individuals may display minimal eye contact or conversational effort towards this person while being perfectly sociable with one another. Although the individual with a disability perceives this interaction as discriminatory and simultaneously feels offended, hurt, and angry, she feels compelled to doubt herself. She continues to question whether she is being overly sensitive or whether these people have legitimate reasons for their behaviors, such as being tired. Her self-doubt becomes excessive because she struggles to trust her intuitions and emotions even though they are valid.

This excessive self-doubt significantly diminishes the individual's capacity for agency.⁶ She has trouble making sense of her own experience, let alone acting based on her understanding of it. Furthermore, she might lack the proper concepts to understand her experience due to the persistent exclusion of people with disabilities from shaping collective hermeneutical resources (Fricker, 2007).

In such circumstances, victimhood can play a pivotal role in empowering victims to trust their intuitions and emotions while formulating judgments about their experiences, a crucial aspect of the capacity for agency. As victims achieve the recognition of the wrong in their experiences, this awareness allows them to interpret their world more clearly, act based on these interpretations, and see how their actions align with their own projects and principles. For example, the early feminist movements helped women recognize themselves as victims of gender oppression, which empowered them to identify this oppression embedded in their daily experiences. This recognition led to the development of concepts for specific practices oppressing women, such as sexual harassment, gaslighting, and mansplaining. This knowledge has facilitated women's resistance against these oppressive practices.

Similarly, feminist standpoint theory highlights the potential epistemic privilege of victims resulting from their unique standpoint (Collins, 1986; Harding, 1993, 2004; Hartsock, 1983; Hekman, 1997; Smith, 1974; Wylie, 2003).⁷ In particular, individuals who have firsthand experiences of certain injustices often possess “experiential knowledge,” including a “more nuanced and visceral understanding of the harms” inflicted by these injustices (Vasanthakumar, 2018: 470). While this knowledge can be a valuable asset for exercising their agency, recognizing their experiences as victimization is crucial for cultivating it. While victims have access to important resources for developing this knowledge, such as their firsthand experiences, these resources do not automatically confer an epistemic advantage over non-victims (Dror, 2023). Victims who fail to recognize their victimization often struggle to transform their experiences into meaningful knowledge and take effective action to address the victimization.

An important objection may arise here: recognizing one's experiences as instances of victimization may initially enhance agency, but continually emphasizing one's victim status risks solidifying it as a defining aspect of identity. This risk is particularly pronounced in political action, where victimhood-based strategies require a constant emphasis, rather than simple recognition and processing. Furthermore, finding their status useful might tempt victims to cling to this identity even when positive political changes occur. They might refuse to stop identifying as victims even when they “should throw a party, end the movement, and get on with [their] lives” after achieving significant political progress (Sullivan, 2023).⁸ While it is often controversial whether sufficient political progress has been made or whether a movement should close down after reaching certain victories, addressing the concern about a permanent victim identity remains important.

However, from the perspective of the vulnerability framework, it is evident that victims can prevent their victimhood from becoming an ossified identity by acknowledging universal vulnerability. The challenge of an ossified identity arises when individuals fail to engage attentively with specific political transformations and diverse societal contexts that shape how people experience vulnerability. Without this engagement, individuals will fail to reevaluate, renew, refine, and potentially relinquish their sense of victimhood when warranted. This is what leads to static victim identity. It is rooted in a binary view that distinguishes victims from non-victims as the vulnerable versus the invulnerable. For instance, consider the claim that women are victims of sexual violence. If this assertion rests on the belief that women are exclusively vulnerable due to certain physical traits, it overlooks specific contexts essential for constructing a productive form of victimhood.⁹ This belief is incompatible with the possibility of women breaking free from the victim status, thereby contradicting their political objectives of empowerment and emancipation. Moreover, this oversight neglects instances where men with mental disabilities or Black men are targeted under the guise of “protecting women.”

Nothing is inevitable about the ossification of victimhood. The possibility for ossification, however, highlights the importance of cultivating a nuanced approach to victimhood—one that acknowledges the shared vulnerability inherent in all individuals and considers broader contexts of victimization. In the example above, the claim that women are victims should be anchored in the unequal power dynamics of gender that significantly contribute to the harm and disadvantages faced by women. It should align with the acknowledgment of the universal bodily vulnerability shared by all individuals,¹⁰ focusing on societal and cultural contexts where women are disproportionately affected by sexual violence compared to most cisgender, heterosexual men. This impact extends beyond individual experiences of assault to affect women collectively, constraining their freedom due to the pervasive fear of violence (Hirschmann, 2009). Embracing a nuanced perspective can empower women to pursue meaningful political actions against these unjust power structures, contrasting starkly with simplistic, static forms of victimhood based solely on ascriptive attributes.¹¹

The second-way victimhood enhances agency is evident when victims strategically generate political agendas. Publicly claiming their status can help victims garner attention and provoke discourse around a specific topic, which amplifies their voices. While they may not always succeed, such claims often prove effective in capturing public attention and stimulating engagement in a particular debate.

This strategy is significant because victims may be disadvantaged compared to non-victims in setting political agendas. They are likely to possess less political power and lack resources such as money, time, and social networks. Consequently, their voices may be neglected in the competitive process of agenda setting. As SADD activists emphasize, their calls for an expanded government budget allocation for equal rights have been largely ignored for more than two decades. Given these obstacles, it can be strategically advantageous for victims to openly claim their status, strengthening their voices.

This suggestion may unsettle some, as they might perceive it as instrumentalizing victim status. Employing this strategy could hinder victims’ political pursuits in two ways. Initially, it could render their claims less authentic, leading them to prioritize tactics for gaining attention rather than genuinely addressing specific power structures responsible for their victimization. Additionally, it could make their claims look less authentic to non-victims, thereby impeding victims’ efforts to appeal to them.

Neither objection is persuasive. As for the first objection, it is unclear why a strategic use of victim status would diminish authenticity. There is no logical inconsistency between the two aspects. Specifically, an individual's willingness to leverage her victim status as a tool to rectify the situation does not invalidate the legitimacy of her status. Nor does it diminish the genuineness of her concerns. If anything, this objection relies on the assumption that individuals might become so focused on gaining attention strategically that they lose sight of their ultimate objective of addressing their victimization. However, this is merely speculation without substantiation. Furthermore, this objection seems to be tied to an ungrounded perception of “true” victims, characterized by passive and reluctant acceptance of their status (Cole, 2007).

The second objection relies on a simplistic understanding of victimhood, which restricts its potential to moral appeals. This perspective assumes that the political utility of victimhood primarily lies in its ability to evoke moral sympathy from non-victims, aiming for political change through their cooperation. It also assumes that if victims strategically use their status for political gain, it diminishes their moral appeal because non-victims may become less morally sympathetic towards them upon perceiving this tactic. While the latter assumption might hold some truth, the former assumption is unfounded. Victims can use their victimhood to negotiate a political agenda without relying solely on non-victims’ moral sympathy. As Hayward (2020) explains, in engaging in political disruption and forcefully claiming their status, victims often compel non-victims to take a clear stance on the issues, thereby transforming their victimization into a political agenda. As I will elaborate in the section “A case study: SADD's subway protest,” SADD activists seem to pursue a similar goal, possibly alongside other goals, aiming not merely to appeal to the moral sentiment of those without disabilities but also to set a political agenda.

In the following section, I conduct a close analysis of the subway protest by SADD activists. This case study illustrates how victimhood strengthens the agency of victims, positively impacting their political pursuits. By understanding victimhood as an agency-enhancing tool, I aim to shed light on their actions that cannot be grasped by viewing victimhood solely as diminishing agency.

A case study: SADD's subway protest

Since its inception in December 2021, SADD activists have organized over 40 subway protests throughout 2022, leading to disruptions in subway operations lasting from a few minutes to an hour and a half (김남영, 2022).¹² These activists stress the vital nature of their protest, highlighting the lack of public interest in their victimization and the government's continued neglect of their issues in budget allocations, despite decades of advocacy efforts.

Public statements by Park Kyoungseok, the leader of SADD, indicate that these activists clearly recognize their status as victims of systemic oppression, using this recognition to guide their activities. Park emphasizes that despite enduring years of exclusion and marginalization, their demands have gone unheeded for more than 20 years since SADD initiated its advocacy (김남영, 2022). Throughout this period, the community of people with disabilities has witnessed repeated deaths resulting from accidents involving wheelchair lifts, elevators, stairs, and vehicles (박승원, 2018). According to a survey conducted in 2023, 73.8% of respondents using wheelchairs reported near traffic accidents within the past 5 years, with 69.2% of those experiencing such situations monthly (장나래, 2023). In 2023, the availability of low-floor bus services, crucial for wheelchair users, averaged only 26.28% (정은경, 2023). The suffering of people with disabilities extends beyond these statistics, encompassing their constant fears of injury and death while using public transportation, insufficient support for living autonomous lives outside institutions, and a societal lack of understanding of their situations.

In their protests, the activists drew upon their personal experiences as victims to shape their actions. They reenacted distressing scenarios resulting from inadequate accommodations, such as getting their wheelchairs trapped in subway doors, experiencing falls without assistance, and facing judgmental stares while taking extra time to board or exit trains. These actions were strategically conducted during morning rush hours to garner maximum attention from the public. However, they have been met with significant criticism, including legal measures taken by Seoul Metro against SADD. Some critics have even gone so far as to liken the activists to terrorists, expressing outrage at the protests and accusing the activists of demanding their mobility rights at the expense of the rights of others (김남영, 2022).

The criticism of the protests exposes the widespread negative perspective on victimhood. Lee Junseok, the former leader of the conservative People Power Party, the ruling party, expressed this view in a Facebook post directed at the activists and their political allies. He stated,

They accuse me as a misogynist, but they cannot explain exactly what I did that was misogynistic. Similarly, they also accuse me of oppressing people with disabilities, but they cannot specify the actions they believe constitute oppression against them. They use this strategy because they learned that it is most convenient to rely on “under-dogma” to silence voices pointing out numerous contradictions in their argument … no matter how long they continue to rely on the frames of minority and underdog, the frame portraying women as absolutely weak or people with disabilities as absolutely good will not work anymore. (emphasis added)¹³

Lee contends that SADD activists weaponize the image of victims as absolutely weak and good to accuse their critics and opponents of oppressing them. He argues that, by employing this tactic, the activists seek to deflect political criticism, even in cases of legitimate disagreement.

Lee's argument surprisingly aligns with Brown's account of victimhood. Both perspectives depict political actions based on victimhood as an attempt to silence critique through the moral superiority of the weak. They both suggest that such framing does not contribute to meaningful political discourse, as it relies on simplistic moral binaries.

Contrary to this view, I argue that a more convincing interpretation of these activists’ actions can be achieved through the lens of agency-enhancing victimhood. While openly embracing victim status and demanding societal acknowledgment of it, they refrain from using simplistic language that implies moral absolutes, such as labeling individuals as good and evil. They do not portray their critics or individuals without disabilities who exhibit indifference to their struggles as malevolent oppressors. Rather, they acknowledge the vulnerability shared by those without disabilities, recognizing that they too can be affected by the disruptions caused by the protests (김남영, 2022). Nevertheless, the activists emphasize the urgent need for their actions, contending that such endeavors are vital for gaining public recognition of their ongoing victimization.

Firstly, their recognition of being victims of unjust power structures that exclude people with disabilities enables them to counter potential excessive self-doubt during the process of interpreting their experiences. Seoul, a city with a population of 10 million people, and 26 million in the greater metropolitan area, serves as the backdrop for their protests. The activists’ protests impose a heavy toll on the approximately 4.4 million individuals who use the Seoul subway daily for commuting (서치스(주), 2021). As a result, they face significant social condemnation, including being targets of aggressive yelling and swearing at the scene of protests (비마이너, 2022). Given these circumstances, if the activists were plagued by self-doubt, it would be highly improbable for them to choose a form of protest that not only causes great discomfort to others but also makes themselves targets of condemnation. Such a level of agency would not be attainable without a clear recognition of the unjust power structure. It is more plausible that individuals experiencing self-doubt would seek validation from others rather than engage in such assertive activism.

Moreover, the activists’ assertion of victim status helped capture public attention, aiding their endeavors to strengthen their voice in the agenda-setting process. Since the beginning of their subway protests, media coverage of this issue has notably increased, sparking public debates involving prominent politicians. When Park, the SADD leader, was invited to debate on a famous TV show with Lee, the former leader of the ruling party, this symbolic event marked a surge in public interest (JTBC News, 2022). The activists’ victim claim successfully generated tension around the topic of discrimination against people with disabilities, a matter often treated as less pressing by the government and the media.

To clarify, I do not assume that Brown would share a similar perspective on SADD activists’ protests as that of their critics. My claim, rather, is that the perspective of agency-diminishing victimhood would reduce the explanatory power of Brown's analysis. There is a mismatch between her potential political sympathy toward these activities and her perspective on victimhood. The SADD's protests can be interpreted in two ways based on Brown's negative position on victimhood.

The first approach involves endorsing the protests as a positive form of political action by dissociating these actions from victimhood. It posits that these activists are not relying on their victimhood for the protests but rather exercising their political agency. From this perspective, these activists do not conform to the stereotype of victims as weak, passive, and helpless. Instead, they actively pursue power through their actions of disrupting subway operations, asserting their will upon others.

While this approach may not be entirely wrong, it fails to perceive that the activists explicitly recognize their victim status during their actions. Furthermore, they leverage their experiences as victims to inform their actions, employing a deliberate strategy that showcases and enacts distressing moments emblematic of their victimization, such as the instance of being trapped in subway doors. Crucially, throughout these endeavors, these activists do not shy away from or attempt to overcome their victimhood; instead, they actively seek proper acknowledgment of their victimization. They do not strive to demonstrate strength by denying their victim status or concealing their distress. Nor do they endeavor to reclaim a sense of control by interpreting structural injustice as personal obstacles that they can overcome. Their objective is not to prove that they remain unaffected by their experiences by brushing off offensive language or overlooking disrespectful attitudes. Instead, they interpret their experiences as victimization, recognizing their status as victims and demanding proper acknowledgment from society.

Certainly, in specific circumstances, the pursuit of “resignification” for harmful experiences, as acknowledged by Brown, might have merit (Brown, 1995: 27). This involves endeavors such as envisioning oneself in a new position within power relations, reconstructing the meanings of painful encounters in novel ways, or interpreting distressing experiences as opportunities for personal growth. Such efforts could assist victims in expanding their political imagination or enduring the emotional pain associated with experiences of victimization.

Nevertheless, even in these contexts, recognizing one's experiences as instances of victimization remains crucial for fostering political action against the power structure. If the efforts to find new, positive meanings within one's experiences do not coincide with the acknowledgment of one's current status as a victim, they may not effectively guide victims toward political actions aimed at undermining the structure. Instead, they might offer temporary comfort or even lead to a form of self-deception.¹⁴

Alternatively, Brown might adopt a critical stance on the protests, interpreting them as at least partly rooted in victimhood and thus, to that extent, diminishing the agency of those involved. From this perspective, activists seeking political agency should actively assert their will rather than depend on unreliable moral sympathy. In a 2022 survey, 35% of respondents expressed that SADD's protests negatively impacted their perception of people with disabilities, while only 23% reported a positive change (Song, 2022). This data suggests that emphasizing one's victim status to appeal to others may be counterproductive.

However, it is important to note that these activists’ goal is not merely to gain moral sympathy from the public. Instead, they aim to draw attention to the issues of their victimization, even if this results in negative public attitudes. Park, the SADD leader, emphasizes that even negative attention, such as anger and annoyance, is an improvement over indifference or mere pity (신아람, 2022). This indicates that these activists do not simply rely on public sympathy but seek to avoid being seen as objects of pity while demanding acknowledgment of their victim status.

So far, I have explained how victimhood can enhance agency and illustrated this through case analysis. In the subsequent section, I address a potential complication: competition among victims when victimhood becomes a political resource.

Concerns about competition among victims and its remedies

The political use of victimhood can lead to complications, especially when different victim groups compete with each other. This phenomenon, often referred to as the “Victimhood Olympics” or “Oppression Olympics,” involves groups comparing their suffering to gain recognition as the most oppressed. Scholars worry that this dynamic might hinder endeavors toward solidarity and emancipation (Hancock, 2011).

To address this concern, it is crucial to define the specific problem posed by competition among victims. The issue does not necessarily stem from disagreements or competition among victim groups over issues of injustice, such as those between liberal feminists and radical feminists. At times, such competition can be productive, contributing to the shared political goal of challenging unjust power structures.

Instead, the issue arises when victim groups deny or downplay the severity of other groups’ experiences to assert their own status as more disadvantaged. For instance, consider a group facing racial and gender oppression but enjoying economic privilege. If they disregard the experiences of the economically underprivileged to claim a higher level of oppression, it undermines the shared goal of dismantling kyriarchy—interconnected social hierarchies that perpetuate oppression.¹⁵ Pursuing this goal, it is often neither straightforward nor productive to determine which group of victims experience greater harm and disadvantage than others.

However, this problem highlights the need to establish normative standards for evaluating victimhood-based political engagements rather than discouraging victims from harnessing the positive power of victimhood. While political uses of victimhood are not always positive, our overwhelmingly negative attitudes toward victimhood have impeded necessary discussions on normative standards for its positive use. Since victimhood can enhance victims’ agency, contributing to their empowerment and liberation from oppression, we should define proper standards to distinguish its beneficial use from instances of misuse.

By providing resources for establishing such standards, my theory offers guidance on mitigating the harmful competition surrounding victimhood. This theoretical framework is grounded in the acknowledgment that vulnerability is not exclusive to certain individuals; thus, all individuals can be victims in principle. Proper normative standards should align with a nuanced understanding of victimhood, based on the perspective of universal vulnerability rather than a dichotomous view of the vulnerable versus the invulnerable. According to such standards, a positive case of victimhood must be open to acknowledging the experiences of other individuals or groups subjected to victimization across various domains of oppression. By evaluating instances of victimhood in this way, we can identify and discourage cases where individuals attempt to dismiss or overshadow the experiences of others to assert a greater victim status.

While I cannot delve into a comprehensive exploration of specific standards in the remainder of this paper, any specific standards consistent with a nuanced understanding of victimhood would likely require those engaged in the politics of victimhood to avoid critical flaws such as close-mindedness, impetuousness, or dishonesty. In other words, victims might need to cultivate certain virtues to successfully provide testimonies about their experiences as the primary agents of the politics of victimhood. For instance, Vasanthakumar (2018) suggests that victims develop “testimonial virtues,” including “conscientiousness, open-mindedness, perception, honesty, transparency, trust, and critical reflectiveness” (Vasanthakumar, 2018: 472).

Of course, not everyone will endorse and follow such standards. Some may misuse their status and experiences as victims, disregarding the principle of nuanced victimhood. There is a concern that identifying and deterring these misuses may not always be straightforward, potentially leading to further disagreement and conflict among victims regarding the normative standards for victimhood.

However, it is the absence of constructive engagement between victim groups that jeopardizes the politics of victimhood, not the presence of such engagement. As hooks (1986) notes in her discussion of racism within feminist circles led by white bourgeois women, the expectation for victims to “‘unconditionally’ love one another … [and] to avoid conflict and minimize disagreement” often hinders their efforts to identify and address their own shortcomings (hooks, 1986: 129). Normative standards for the positive use of victimhood are essential to prevent the politics of victimhood from stagnating. Victims’ political engagements should not be considered sacrosanct or immune from normative assessment. Instead, victims should actively participate in establishing, applying, and refining these standards to prevent their victimhood from descending into harmful competition.

Furthermore, what matters for a theory is not necessarily its ability to arbitrate between specific claims based on victimhood or police the boundaries of its positive use. My intention in suggesting normative standards is not to provide a way to completely prevent negative instances but to offer a theoretical perspective on how to mitigate these issues. In specific circumstances, those engaged in the politics of victimhood will need to use their best judgment to align with the standards for positive victimhood. This paper aims to demonstrate that, with collective efforts to establish and adhere to proper standards, the political use of victimhood can be positive.

Conclusion

I have challenged the dominant negative attitude toward the political use of victimhood and have presented an affirmative account of its potential. If my discussion succeeds in demonstrating the capacity for victimhood to serve as a positive political resource, it raises new questions about the ethics surrounding its role in politics. Instead of defaulting to a blanket condemnation of any political utilization of victimhood, our inquiries should be more targeted. We might inquire whether a specific instance where victimhood is leveraged enhances or diminishes the agency of those involved. We could also ask whether a particular situation requires victims to actively embrace and utilize their victimhood as a political resource.

At first glance, this question may seem counterintuitive. When it comes to political engagement, victims are often seen as recipients of support and redress rather than bearers of obligations. However, this assumption has been challenged by scholars who argue for the duties of victims to engage in resistance actions based on various grounds (Hay, 2011; Shelby, 2007; Silvermint, 2013; Vasanthakumar, 2018). In these contexts, if embracing and leveraging their victimhood proves conducive to their agency and resistance, while avoiding, rejecting, or trying to overcome victimhood is counterproductive, their duties of resistance may require them to choose the former approach over the latter. Of course, this requirement must be accompanied by detailed qualifications. Nevertheless, linking this fresh perspective on victimhood to the scholarship on victims’ duties can yield the novel implication that victims may sometimes be required to accept and use their victimhood in political contexts.

Certainly, these questions do not cover all possible avenues for future exploration. The positive potential of victimhood as a political resource underscores the need for additional scholarly inquiries into its meaning, role, and significance in politics. This paper aims to highlight this necessity.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Jihyun Jeong

Notes

References

서치스(주) (2021) “데이터로 보는 서울시 대중교통 이용 [Analyzing Seoul’s Public Transportation Usage Through Data].” 통합 데이터 지도. Available at: https://www.bigdata-map.kr/datastory/traffic/seoul (accessed 15 March 2024).

비마이너 (2022) 출근길 장애인 지하철 점거를 막는 가장 확실한 방법 [The Most Effective Way to Prevent the Occupation of Subway Stations by Disabled People]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HylEYvy9icM (accessed 15 March 2024).

박승원 (2018) “장애인은 죽고, 리프트는 살아있다 [People with Disabilities Die, but the Lifts Survive].” 비마이너, 31 December 2018. https://www.beminor.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=12970.

김남영 (2022) “‘출근길 시위는 테러’ 항의에, 전장연 ‘우린 21년을 참았다’ [In Response to Complaints, ‘Protests Blocking Commutes Are Terrorism,’ SADD Protestors Say, ‘We’ve Endured 21 years’].” The JoongAng, October. https://www.joongang.co.kr/article/25112948#home.

신아람 (2022) “지하철을 타는 장애인 [People with Disabilities Riding the Subway].” book journalism. 5 May 2022. https://www.bookjournalism.com/books/50647/chapters/50650.

이보람 (2022) “이준석 ‘내가 여성·장애인 혐오? 절대적 선악 프레임 안 통한다’ [Lee Junseok: ‘Me, Hating Women and People with Disabilities? The Absolute Good-evil Framework Doesn’t Work Anymore’].” 중앙일보, 26 March 2022. https://www.joongang.co.kr/article/25058524#home.

장나래 (2023) “휠체어 이용 장애인 4명 중 3명 ‘교통사고 날 뻔한 경험 있다’ [Three Out of Four Wheelchair Users Experience Near Traffic Accidents].” 한겨레, 20 April 2023. https://www.hani.co.kr/arti/society/society_general/1088645.html.

정은경 (2023) “저상버스 도입률 지역 간 격차 최고 6.21배…전국 평균 26.28%에 불과 [Regional Disparity in Low-floor Bus Adoption Rate Reaches up to 6.21 Times…Nationwide Average Only 26.28%].” 미디어생활, 12 October 2023. https://www.imedialife.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=46802#:∼:text=%EC%B5%9C%EA%B3%A0%EB%8A%94%20%EC%84%9C%EC%9A%B8%2063.39%25%2C%20%EC%9D%B8%EC%B2%9C,%EB%A5%BC%20%EB%B3%B4%EC%9D%B4%EA%B3%A0%20%EC%9E%88%EB%8A%94%20%EA%B2%83%EC%9C%BC%EB%A1%9C%20%EB%82%98%ED%83%80%EB%82%AC%EB%8B%A4.

Al-Ghazzi

(2021) We will be great again: Historical victimhood in populist discourse. European Journal of Cultural Studies 24(1): 45–59.

10.

Armaly

Enders

(2022) ‘Why me?’ The role of perceived victimhood in American politics. Political Behavior 44(4): 1583–1609.

11.

Armaly

Enders

(2024) Who supports political violence? Perspectives on Politics 22(2): 427–444.

12.

Banet-Weiser

(2021) ‘Ruined’ lives: Mediated white male victimhood. European Journal of Cultural Studies 24(1): 60–80.

13.

Brown

(1995) States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

14.

Brown

(2022) Theorizing powers: Response to critics. Polity 54(3): 617–631.

15.

Bruni

(2024) The Age of Grievance. New York: Avid Reader Press.

16.

Butler

(2009) Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? London: Verso Books.

17.

Campbell

Manning

(2014) Microaggression and moral cultures. Comparative Sociology 13(6): 692–726.

18.

Campbell

Manning

(2018) The Rise of Victimhood Culture: Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and the New Culture Wars. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

19.

Chouliaraki

(2021) Victimhood: The affective politics of vulnerability. European Journal of Cultural Studies 24(1): 10–27.

20.

Chouliaraki

Banet-Weiser

(2021) Introduction to special issue: The logic of victimhood. European Journal of Cultural Studies 24(1): 3–9.

21.

Cole

(2016) All of us are vulnerable, but some are more vulnerable than others: The political ambiguity of vulnerability studies, an ambivalent critique. Critical Horizons 17(2): 260–277.

22.

Cole

(2007) The Cult of True Victimhood: From the War on Welfare to the War on Terror. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

23.

Collins

(1986) Learning from the outsider within: The sociological significance of black feminist thought. Social Problems 33(6): s14–s32.

24.

De Guissmé

Licata

(2017) Competition over collective victimhood recognition: When perceived lack of recognition for past victimization is associated with negative attitudes towards another victimized group. European Journal of Social Psychology 47(2): 148–166.

25.

Denfeld

(1995) The New Victorians: A Young Woman’s Challenge to the Old Feminist Order. New York: Warner Books.

26.

Dror

(2023) Is there an epistemic advantage to being oppressed? Noûs 57(3): 618–640.

27.

Eroukhmanoff

Wedderburn

(2022) Introduction: Constructing and contesting victimhood in global politics. Polity 54(4): 841–848.

28.

Fricker

(2007) Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

29.

Fukuyama

(2018) Against identity politics: The new tribalism and the crisis of democracy. Foreign Affairs 97(5): 90–115.

30.

Gilson

(2014) The Ethics of Vulnerability: A Feminist Analysis of Social Life and Practice, 1st ed. New York: Routledge.

31.

Gilson

(2016) Vulnerability and victimization: Rethinking key concepts in feminist discourses on sexual violence. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 42(1): 71–98.

32.

Hancock

(2011) Solidarity Politics for Millennials: A Guide to Ending the Oppression Olympics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

33.

Harding

(1993) Rethinking standpoint epistemology: What is ‘strong objectivity’? In: Alcoff

Potter

(eds) Feminist Epistemologies. New York: Routledge, pp.49–82.

34.

Harding

(2004) The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader: Intellectual and Political Controversies. New York: Routledge.

35.

Hartsock

NCM

(1983) Money, Sex, and Power: Toward a Feminist Historical Materialism. New York: Longman.

36.

Hay

(2011) The obligation to resist oppression. Journal of Social Philosophy 42(1): 21–45.

37.

Hayward

(2020) Disruption: What is it good for? The Journal of Politics 82(2): 448–459.

38.

Hekman

(1997) Truth and method: Feminist standpoint theory revisited. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 22(2): 341–365.

39.

Hirschmann

(2009) The Subject of Liberty: Toward a Feminist Theory of Freedom. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

40.

Hoff

(1990) Battered Women as Survivors. London: Routledge.

41.

hooks

(1986) Sisterhood: Political solidarity between women. Feminist Review 23: 125–138.

42.

Horwitz

(2018) Politics as victimhood, victimhood as politics. Journal of Policy History 30(3): 552–574.

43.

JTBC News (2022) 이준석 vs 전장연 박경석 ‘장애인 이동권’ 토론 4월 13일 (수) 특집 썰전라이브 풀영상 / JTBC News [Lee Junseok vs. SADD, Park Kyoungseok, “Disability Mobility Rights” Debate Full Live Special from Wednesday, 13 April / JTBC News]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEhqfGYLh-o (accessed 18 July 2024).

44.

Kim

N-Y

(2022) Disabled advocacy group resumes daily rush-hour subway protests. Yonhap News Agency, 21 April 2022. https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20220421004600315.

45.

Loytomaki

(2012) Law and memory: The politics of victimhood. Griffith Law Review 21(1): 1–22.

46.

Mackenzie

Rogers

Dodds

(2014) Introduction: What is vulnerability and why does it matter for moral theory. In: Mackenzie

Rogers

Dodds

(eds) Vulnerability: New Essays in Ethics and Feminist Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.1–29.

47.

Manne

(2017) Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny. New York: Oxford University Press.

48.

Meister

(2002) Human rights and the politics of victimhood. Ethics & International Affairs 16(2): 91–108.

49.

Orgad

(2009) The survivor in contemporary culture and public discourse: A genealogy. The Communication Review 12(2): 132–161.

50.

Pollino

(2023) Turning points from victim to survivor: An examination of sexual violence narratives. Feminist Media Studies 23(5): 1995–2010.

51.

Ross

(2022) The survivor imperative: Sexual violence, victimhood, and neoliberalism. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 48(1): 51–75.

52.

Schori-Eyal

Klar

Ben-Ami

(2017) Perpetual ingroup victimhood as a distorted Lens: Effects on attribution and categorization. European Journal of Social Psychology 47(2): 180–194.

53.

Shelby

(2007) Justice, deviance, and the dark ghetto. Philosophy & Public Affairs 35(2): 126–160.

54.

Silvermint

(2013) Resistance and well-being. Journal of Political Philosophy 21(4): 405–425.

55.

Smith

(1974) Women’s perspective as a radical critique of sociology. Sociological Inquiry 44(1): 7–13.

56.

Song

(2022) [Planning] Awareness of protests for mobility rights for the disabled. 한국리서치 여론 속의 여론. 6 July 2022. https://hrcopinion.co.kr/archives/23500.

57.

Stringer

(2014) Knowing Victims: Feminism, Agency and Victim Politics in Neoliberal Times. London: Routledge.

58.

Sullivan

(2023) Gay rights and the limits of liberalism. The Weekly Dish, 23 June 2023. https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/gay-rights-and-the-limits-of-liberalism-be4.

59.

Truccone-Borgogno

(2024) Responding to historical injustices: Collective inheritance and the moral irrelevance of group identity. European Journal of Political Theory 23(1): 65–84.

60.

Vasanthakumar

(2018) Epistemic privilege and victims’ duties to resist their oppression. Journal of Applied Philosophy 35(3): 465–480.

61.

Wolf

(1993) Fire with Fire: The New Female Power and How It Will Change the 21st Century. New York: Random House.

62.

Wylie

(2003) Why standpoint matters. In: Figueroa

Harding

(eds) Science and Other Cultures: Issues in Philosophies of Science and Technology. New York: Routledge, pp.26–69.