Too often, identifying practices of silencing is a seemingly impossible exercise. Here I claim that attempting to give a conceptual reading of the epistemic violence present when silencing occurs can help distinguish the different ways members of oppressed groups are silenced with respect to testimony. I offer an account of epistemic violence as the failure, owing to pernicious ignorance, of hearers to meet the vulnerabilities of speakers in linguistic exchanges. Ultimately, I illustrate that by focusing on the ways (...) in which hearers fail to meet speaker dependency in a linguistic exchange, efforts can be made to demarcate the different types of silencing people face when attempting to testify from oppressed positions in society. (shrink)

In this paper I provide an account of two forms of intellectual arrogance which cause the epistemic practices of conversational turn-taking and assertion to malfunction. I detail some of the ethical and epistemic harms generated by intellectual arrogance, and explain its role in fostering the intellectual vices of timidity and servility in other agents. Finally, I show that arrogance produces ignorance by silencing others (both preventing them from speaking and causing their assertions to misfire) and by fostering self-delusion in (...) the arrogant themselves. (shrink)

A recurring concern within contemporary philosophy of language has been with the ways in which speakers can be illocutionarily silenced, i.e. hindered in their capacity to do things with words. Moving beyond the traditional conception of silencing as uptake failure, Mary Kate McGowan has recently claimed that silencing may also involve other forms of recognition failure. In this paper I first offer a supportive elaboration of McGowan’s claims by developing a social account of speech act performance, according to (...) which the success of an illocutionary act is not only a function of the intentions of and the conventions deployed by the speaker, but partly depends on how the act is recognized or taken up by the hearer. I then provide a comprehensive definition of illocutionary silencing and spell out what it means for it to occur in a systematic manner. (shrink)

This paper presents a feminist analysis of corporate social responsibility in a male-dominated industry within a developing country context. It seeks to raise awareness of the silencing of women’s voices in CSR reports produced by mining companies in Tanzania. Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in Africa, and women are often marginalised in employment and social policy considerations. Drawing on work by Hélène Cixous, a post-structuralist/radical feminist scholar, the paper challenges the masculinity of CSR discourses that have repeatedly (...) masked the voices and concerns of ‘other’ marginalised social groups, notably women. Using interpretative ethnographic case studies, the paper provides much-needed empirical evidence to show how gender imbalances remain prevalent in the Tanzanian mining sector. This evidence draws attention to the dynamics faced by many women working in or living around mining areas in Tanzania. The paper argues that CSR, a discourse enmeshed with the patriarchal logic of the contemporary capitalist system, is entangled with tensions, class conflicts and struggles which need to be unpacked and acknowledged. The paper considers the possibility of policy reforms in order to promote gender balance in the Tanzanian mining sector and create a platform for women’s concerns to be voiced. (shrink)

Catharine MacKinnon has pioneered a new brand of anti-pornography argument. In particular, MacKinnon claims that pornography silences women in a way that violates their right to free speech. In what follows, we focus on a certain account of silencing put forward by Jennifer Hornsby and Rae Langton, and we defend that account against two important objections. The first objection contends that this account makes a crucial but false assumption about the necessary role of hearer recognition in successful speech acts. (...) In response, we argue that, as silencing primarily concerns communication, Hornsby and Langton are perfectly correct to treat hearer recognition as they do. The second objection contends that their particular account of silencing has the unacceptable result of undermining the responsibility of rapists. We here argue that no such result follows from their account. (shrink)

The socialisation of women into self-silencing by religion has complicated pastoral care interventions for the victims of domestic violence, particularly within the context of marriage. This article is written from an intercultural approach to pastoral care and applies the theory on silence. The aim of this article is to explore the way pastoral caregivers can extend caregiving to the victims of marital domestic violence who have silenced the self. The article draws from qualitative data that were collected through autobiographical (...) narratives, in-depth interviews and observations, and analysed through thematic analysis. The findings indicate that women are forced to silence the self in contexts of domestic violence by not speaking about the abuse that takes place in marriage. The self-silencing is justified by those who interpret Biblical texts that address marriage naively; in this case one of the two women who participated in this study confirmed that Proverbs 21:9 is used to justify self-silencing. Thus, the article concludes that pastoral care interventions in such contexts should include a circle of the significant others that women interact with such as the perpetrator and the broader community, including her social networks. (shrink)

Notch signaling plays an essential role in the processes of embryogenesis and cellular differentiation, and it is believed that the oncogenic effects of dysregulated Notch signaling are an anomalous reflection of the normal functions of this cascade. Nonetheless, the cellular events associated with oncogenic Notch signaling have thus far remained elusive. In a recent report, Ferres‐Marco et al.1 described how they used the Drosphila eye as a model system and found that elevated Notch signaling in combination with activation of components (...) of the Polycomb complex of transcriptional repressors led to metastatic growth of tumors through epigenetic silencing of the Rbf gene. Rbf is the Drosophila homologue of the retinoblastoma tumor‐suppressor gene (Rb), thus it represents a novel link between Notch signaling, tumor growth and metastasis. BioEssays 28: 692–695, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The RNAi machinery is not only involved with post‐transcriptional degradation of messenger RNAs, but also used for targeting of chromatin changes associated with transcriptional silencing. Two recent papers determine the global patterns of gene expression and chromatin modifications produced by the RNAi machinery in fission yeast.(9, 10) The major sites include the outer centromere repeats, the mating‐type locus and subtelomeric regions. By comparison, studies of Arabidopsis heterochromatin also implicate transposons as a major target for silencing. Analyses of siRNA (...) libraries from Drosophila, nematodes and Arabidopsis indicate that major repeats at centromeres, telomeres and transposable elements are likely targets of RNAi. Also, intergenic regions are implicated as targets in Arabidopsis. BioEssays 27:1209–1212, 2005. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Eukaryotes organize certain chromosomal intervals into domains capable of si lencing most genes. Examples of silencing domains include the HML/HMR loci and subtelomeric chromatin in yeast, the Barr body X chromosome in mammals, and the pericentric heterochromatin of Drosophila. Silencing chromatin is often correlated with more regularized nucleosomal array than that found in active chromatin, and transcriptional activators appear to be missing from their target sites in silent chromatin. In Drosophila, gene silencing by heterochromatin is often variegated, (...) indicating that a gene may escape silencing in some cells. In a recent study, Ahmad and Henikoff(1) show that a yeast activator can compete successfully with Drosophila heterochromatic silencing factors for target sites in DNA. This competition, together with developmental change in the stability of heterochromatin itself, decides the transcriptional state for a gene subject to heterochromatin repression. BioEssays 23:767–771, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

The coordinated expression of the Hox gene family encoding transcription factors is critical for proper embryonic development and patterning. Major efforts have thus been dedicated to understanding mechanisms controlling Hox expression. In addition to the temporal and spatial sequential activation of Hox genes, proper embryonic development requires that Hox genes get differentially silenced in a cell‐type specific manner as development proceeds. Factors contributing to Hox silencing include the polycomb repressive complexes (PRCs), which control gene expression through epigenetic modifications. This (...) review focuses on PRC‐dependent regulation of the Hox genes and is aimed at integrating the growing complexity of PRC functional properties in the context of Hox regulation. In particular, mechanisms underlying PRC binding dynamics as well as a series of studies that have revealed the impact of PRC on the 3D organization of the genome is discussed, which has a significant role on Hox regulation during development. (shrink)

This comprehensive educational history of public schools in Hawai'i shows and analyzes how dominant cultural and educational policy have affected the education experiences of Native Hawaiians. Drawing on institutional theory as a scholarly lens, the authors focus on four historical cases representing over 150 years of contact with the West. They carefully link historical events, significant people, educational policy, and law to cultural and social consequences for Native Hawaiian children and youth. The authors argue that since the early 1800s, educational (...) policy in Hawai'i emphasizing efficiency has resulted in institutional structures that have degenerated Hawaiian culture, self-image, and sovereignty. Native Hawaiians have often been denied equal access to quality schools and resulting increased economic and social status. These policies were often overtly, or covertly, racist and reflected wider cultural views prevalent across the United States regarding the assimilation of groups into the American mainstream culture. The case of education in Hawai'i is used to initiate a broader discussion of similar historical trends in assimilating children of different backgrounds into the American system of education. The scholarly analysis presented in this book draws out historical, political, cultural, and organizational implications that can be employed to understand other Native and non-Native contexts. Given the increasing cultural diversity of the United States and the perceived failure of the American educational system in light of these changes, this book provides an exceptionally appropriate starting point to begin a discussion about past, present, and future schooling for our nation's children. Because it is written and comes from a Native perspective, the value of the "insider" view is illuminated. This underlying reminder of the Native eye is woven throughout the book in _Ha'awina No'ono'o_--the sharing of thoughts from the Native Hawaiian author. With its primary focus on the education of native groups, this book is an extraordinary and useful work for scholars, thoughtful practitioners, policymakers, and those interested in Hawai'i, Hawaiian education, and educational policy and theory. (shrink)

This paper examines an application of epistemic injustice not fully explored in the literature. How does epistemic injustice function in broader contexts of relationships within countries between colonizers and colonized? More specifically, what can be learned about the ongoing structural aspects of hermeneutical injustice in Canada’s settler history of the forced assimilation of Indigenous peoples and the resultant erasing and marginalizing of Indigenous histories, languages, laws, traditions, and practices? In this paper, I use insights from Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (...) report to challenge dominant understandings of reconciliation, reciprocity, respect for agency, and the rule of law in settler nations. In its retrieval of the richness and diversity of Indigenous collective interpretive resources, both past and present, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission draws on a broad and full account of relationships that have shaped Indigenous lives and communities, non-Indigenous lives and communities, the interactions of Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples and communities, and the relationships of all of these to and through the state. (shrink)

Constitutional law in the United States is, for most practical purposes, the product of ‘judicial review’, the power of judges to disallow policy choices made by other officials or institutions of government, ostensibly because those choices are prohibited by the Constitution. This extraordinary and unprecedented power, America's dubious contribution to the science of government, has made American judges the most powerful in the world, not only legislators but super-legislators, legislators with virtually the last word. Because lawmaking power divorced from popular (...) will is tyranny, most states have attempted to reconcile the lawmaking power of judges with representative self-government by subjecting all or some judges to some form of popular election. In all but four such states, judges, encouraged and supported by their fellow lawyers in the organized bar—would-be judges and beneficiaries of judicial power—have responded by adopting codes of judicial ethics that limit what candidates for election to judicial office are permitted to say. The effect is to undermine elections as a control on judicial power by limiting criticism of judicial activism, the misuse of judicial power. (shrink)

This chapter aims to show that prospective parents are not bound in their reproductive decision making by a principle of procreative beneficence. That is, they have no obligation (as Julian Savulescu, the principle’s originator, famously thinks they have) to choose the possible child, from a range of possible children they might have, who is likely to lead the best life. I will summarise and clarify the content of previous papers of mine, in which I argue that since the sorts of (...) considerations that underlie the principle of procreative beneficence do not constitute reasons when viewed from a perspective that it is fitting and appropriate for a prospective parent to take up, there can be no requirement for prospective parents to be moved by those considerations. (shrink)

Theories of assertion must explain how silencing is possible. This chapter defends an account of assertion in terms of normative commitments on the grounds that it provides the most plausible analysis of how individuals might be silenced when attempting to make assertions. The chapter first offers an account of the nature of silencing and defends the view that it can occur even in contexts where speakers’ communicative intentions are understood by their audience. Second, it outlines some of the (...) normative commitments characteristic of assertion when used in the speech act of telling;. This commitment view of assertion is then used to explain silencing as a matter of being deprived of the ability to make some of the commitments one is trying to acquire. Finally, the main rivals of the commitment view of assertion endorsed here are shown to be unable to account for silencing, at least when they are considered in their purest form. (shrink)

China’s recent engagement with Africa has attracted a significant amount of attention among United States (US) policymakers, academics, journalists and think tanks. By exploring this commentary through an emerging dominant discourse on China’s engagement in Africa, this article argues that it is interwoven with a discourse on US engagement in Africa, performing a Manichean dynamics that reflects analysis of China’s engagement in Africa through a US lens. As a result, alternative discourses and insights are silenced as China’s engagement in Africa (...) is interpreted through issues counterpoised to those with which the US distinguishes itself. In establishing this dynamics in the dominant discourse, its rhetorical nature is further demonstrated through alternative discourses on the effects of US and Chinese engagement in Africa. Using alternative discourses to de-center the rhetoric in dominant discourses on the benefits of free markets and the disadvantages of state led development, the US and China become perceived as both engaging in Africa through existing economic and political structures in a shared pursuit of markets and resources. The effects of US and Chinese engagement are discussed in regards to these pursuits. Giving voice to alternative discourses reveals the rhetorical nature of the dominant discourses that reflect more about US values than the implications of China’s engagement in Africa. (shrink)

Silencing is usually explained in terms of conventionalism about the nature of speech acts. More recently, theorists have tried to develop intentionalist theories of the phenomenon. I argue, however, that if intentionalists are to accommodate the conventionalists' main insight, namely that silencing can be so extreme as to render certain types of speech act completely unavailable to victims, they must take two assumptions on board. First, it must be possible that speakers' communicative intentions are opaque to the speakers (...) themselves. Secondly, it needs to be assumed that structural oppression can have hidden psychological effects on its victims. Since both assumptions can be motivated independently, I argue that silencing can be fully understood without appealing to linguistic conventions. (shrink)

It seems plausible that visual experiences of darkness have perceptual phenomenal content that clearly differentiates them from absences of visual experiences. I argue, relying on psychological results concerning auditory attention, that the analogous claim is true about auditory experiences of silence. More specifically, I propose that experiences of silence present empty spatial directions like ‘right’ or ‘left’, and so have egocentric spatial content. Furthermore, I claim that such content is genuinely auditory and phenomenal in the sense that one can, in (...) principle, recognize that one is experiencing silence. This position is far from obvious, as the majority of theories concerning silence perception do not ascribe perceptual phenomenal content to experiences of silence. (shrink)

This article emphasizes the need for silence to become transformed from the death oriented Dasein of Heidegger to the life oriented Dasein of Karl Rahner. In between this article makes a case for Shakta worship to be taken as the loci for Hindu-Christian interreligious dialogue.

Who is recognised as a philosopher and what counts as philosophy influence both the content of a philosophical education and academic philosophy’s continuing demographic skew. The “philosophical who” and the “philosophical what” themselves are a partial function of matters that have been passed over in collective silence, even if that now feels to some like a silence belonging to the distant past. This paper discusses some philosophical silences regarding race, gender, and disability in the context of reflection on philosophical education (...) and on philosophical practice in the public sphere. It focuses on Charles Mills’ writings on race, Susan Babbitt’s on race and gender, and on more collaboratively-generated work on eugenics and disability. (shrink)

RESUMEN Este trabajo reivindica el interés teórico de los relatos de empleados en el sector servicios, donde exponen el sufrimiento y malestar que conllevan las condiciones laborales a las que están sometidos. En conexión con este fenómeno, se somete a crítica un modelo de Estado que permanece indiferente al sufrimiento de los cuerpos laborantes, al identificar lo que acontece en el ámbito profesional como un asunto privado, en una línea próxima a la distinción entre lo público y lo privado de (...) Hannah Arendt. Así mismo, se presenta la necesidad de cuestionar el neoliberalismo, desde la confianza en la validez de las instituciones republicanas, con vistas a objetivar el dolor y el sufrimiento en el ámbito laboral, que no deberían ser considerados como meros sentimientos subjetivos. Este cuestionamiento se asume como una tarea necesaria para fomentar nuevos modelos sostenibles de subjetividad. ABSTRACT The article affirms the theoretical interest of the narratives of employees in the services sector, in which they express the suffering and dissatisfaction caused by their labor conditions. With respect to this phenomenon, the paper carries out a critique of a model of State that is indifferent to the suffering of working bodies by considering that what takes place in the professional field is a private matter. Likewise, it states the importance of questioning neoliberalism from the perspective of confidence in the validity of republican institutions, in order to objectivize pain and suffering in the work environment, feelings that should not be construed as merely subjective. This questioning is taken as a necessary task in order to foster sustainable models of subjectivity. (shrink)

_Silence in Philosophy, Literature, and Art_ demonstrates how silence as a form of indirect discourse provides us with access to hitherto inaccessible aspects of human experience.

This open-access editorial discusses confronting silences in different disciplinary contexts, such as science and technology studies, cultural anthropology, and philosophy. It has a focus on race and concludes with thoughts about Indigenous expertise, the Australian referendum on the Indigenous Voice, to parliament, and racism.

Various philosophers discuss perlocutionary silencing, but none defend an account of perlocutionary silencing. This gap may exist because perlocutionary success depends on extralinguistic effects, whereas silencing interrupts speech, leaving theorists to rely on extemporary accounts when they discuss perlocutionary silencing. Consequently, scholars assume perlocutionary silencing occurs but neglect to explain how perlocutionary silencing harms speakers as speakers. In relation to that shortcoming, I defend a novel account of perlocutionary silencing. I argue that speakers (...) experience perlocutionary silencing when they are illegitimately deprived of perlocutionary influence on a conversation in which they are active participants, where perlocutionary influence on the conversation relates to speech-related perlocutionary goals meant to influence the conversation or conversational direction. Thus, this account grounds perlocutionary silencing in linguistic phenomena and characterizes perlocutionary silencing in a way that explains why those who experience perlocutionary silencing are harmed as speakers. Moreover, this account explains how perlocutionary silencing harms speakers as conversational participants in a way that cannot be captured by illocutionary or locutionary silencing, for a speaker may be perlocutionarily silenced despite illocutionary success. Consequently, the account explains why “All Lives Matter” silences Black Lives Matter and “Not All Men” silences women sharing experiences of sexual harassment. (shrink)

Perceptual illusions have often served as an important tool in the study of perceptual experience. In this paper I argue that a recently discovered set of visual illusions sheds new light on the nature of time consciousness. I suggest the study of these silencing illusions as a tool kit for any philosopher interested in the experience of time and show how to better understand time consciousness by combining detailed empirical investigations with a detailed philosophical analysis. In addition, and more (...) specifically, I argue against an initially plausible range of views that assume a close match between the temporal content of visual experience and the temporal layout of experience itself. Against such a widely held structural matching thesis I argue that which temporal changes we are experiencing bears no close relation to how our experience itself is changing over time. Explanations of the silencing illusions that are compatible with the structural matching thesis fail. (shrink)

Silence et sagesse montre combien les innombrables expériences et ascèses du silence, à travers la littérature ou les arts aussi bien que la philosophie ou la théologie, ont contribué à la constitution de la culture des hommes et de leur hominisation, au-delà ou en deça du logos et de son primat.

BackgroundWorkplace silence behavior is a social collective phenomenon. It refers to nurses choosing to withhold their ideas, opinions and concerns about critical issues in their workplace. Workpla...

Silence, Implicite et Non-Dit chez Rousseau/Silence, the Implicit, and the Unspoken in Rousseau prend acte d'un grand nombre de publications ayant trait à l'analyse par Rousseau des langues et du langage, de la parole par rapport à l'écriture, de la voix (y compris la voix de la nature). Mais ce volume se consacre tout particulièrement au fonctionnement et aux effets du silence, de l'implicite et du non-dit dans la pensée de Rousseau. Son approche est à la fois polyvalente et cohérente, (...) et ses réflexions sur le silence sont associées à d'autres préoccupations esthétiques, politiques, et morales de son œuvre. Silence, Implicite et Non-Dit chez Rousseau/Silence, the Implicit, and the Unspoken in Rousseau capitalizes on a great number of publications dealing with Rousseau's analysis of languages and language, speech versus writing, of voice (including the voice of nature). But this volume is particularly dedicated to the study of the functioning and the effects of silence, the implicit and the unspoken in Rousseau's thought. His approach is both polyvalent and consistent, and his reflections on silence are associated with other aesthetic, political, and moral concerns in his work. (shrink)

The growth of individuals and society heavily relies on education. Certain hindrances may prompt some students to halt their academic pursuits temporarily. This is known as "Balik-aral." The exploration of the quality of life, lived experiences, and challenges of grade 12 Balik-aral students was undertaken by the authors to break their silence and help them by developing recommendations that could be presented to the school's key stakeholders. A phenomenological approach was used to understand the phenomenon in a study involving five (...) grade 12 balik-aral students from different strands currently enrolled in a public school in Cebu City, Philippines. A structured interview was used to collect data, and significant themes emerged during data analysis using Colaizzi's method. The study revealed several sub-themes, including age disparities and pressure to obtain the diploma while maintaining quality of life. Additionally, key informants emphasized the sense of community and an immersive learning environment in their lived experiences as balik-aral students. Finally, competing priorities and scarcity of resources emerged as significant challenges for those involved in the study. Consequently, the investigation has determined that balik-aral students must be treated equitably to foster their engagement with their peers and enhance their self-assurance, ultimately leading to academic success. (shrink)

This book analyzes Søren Kierkegaard’s message about the ethical necessity of silence in the context of our current information age flooded with sound and words. The author investigates the question of how being silent can make us more ethical.

In an overlooked section of his influential book What We Owe to Each Other Thomas Scanlon advances an argument against the desire-model of practical reasoning. In Scanlon’s view the model gives a distorted picture of the structure of our practical thinking. His idea is that there is an alternative to the “weighing behavior” of reasons, a particular way in which reasons can relate to each other. This phenomenon, which the paper calls “silencing”, is not something that the desire-model can (...) accommodate, or so Scanlon argues. The paper first presents and interprets Scanlon’s challenge. After this, the paper argues, through the examination of three responses, that Scanlon is right in claiming that the model cannot accommodate the phenomenon as he describes it. However, the paper further argues that there is no need to accept Scanlon’s depiction of silencing: advocates of the model can give an alternative account of what happens in cases of silencing that is just as plausible as Scanlon’s own. Scanlon’s challenge is thus, the paper concludes, illegitimate. (shrink)

This paper identifies three claims that feature prominently in recent discussions concerning the experience of silence: that experiences of silence are the most “negative” of perceptions, that we do not hear silences because those silences cause our experiences of silence, and that to hear silence is to hear a temporal region devoid of sound. The principal proponents of this approach are Phillips and Soteriou, and here I present a series of objections to common elements of their attempts to place these (...) three claims within an account of experience of silence. The final section of the paper returns to the first of the three claims and argues that, in fact, there is no good reason to accept it as initially formulated. However, when properly formulated, the claim ceases to offer support for Phillips’s and Soteriou’s approach to experience of silence. (shrink)

Instances of epistemic injustice elicit resistance, anger, despair, frustration or cognate emotional responses from their victims. This sort of response to the epistemic injustices that accompanied historical systems of oppression such as colonialism, for example, is normal. However, if their victims have internalised these oppressive situations, we could get the counterintuitive response of appreciation. In this paper, I argue for the phenomenon of appreciative silencing to make sense of instances like this. This is a form of epistemic silencing (...) that happens when the accepted hegemonic intuitions of the oppressed are formed/influenced by the ideologies of the oppressors over time. Here, we have a resilient, oppressive and hegemonic epistemic system. Put together, it creates a variant of epistemic injustice and silencing that is obscure since its victims are neither resistant nor aware of the injustice they face but are appreciative. (shrink)

Silence often plays a significant role in Christian experience and practice. However, the varieties of silence and the effects of silence for good and. bad merit examination. It is important to distinguish between physical, auditory, and metaphorical silence, and bet- ween experiencing silence as "quiet" and experiencing silence as keeping quiet . Silence can be an instrumental good as well as an expressive good, a concomitant good, or a constitutive good. Christian monks, theologians, and other thinkers sometimes identify experiences of (...) silence, for example, as light or dark, as spatially vast or enclosed, and as temporal or atemporal. Practices of silence can bring persons closer to God, though a kenotic spirituality; of silence and a stress on solitude create perils for some members of religious orders, such as Carthusians. The chief aim of this article is to show, with philosophical techniques, how silence .can be good in manifold ways and even, perhaps, an ideal. (shrink)

The Indian-America philosopher Sri Chinmoy Ghose has distinguished between outer silence, inner silence, and innermost silence. In this paper I explore these distinctions and their educational relevance. My main conclusions are that (a) a deep inner silence, undistracted by questions or other thoughts, is at the root of one paradigm kind of good listening in education, and (b) what Chinmoy refers to as “innermost silence” is the moral virtue of receptivity to others that sustains inner silence, even under challenging conditions, (...) a virtue of importance in teaching and in learning from others. (shrink)

The notion of ‘illocutionary silencing’ has been given a key role in defining the harms of pornography by several feminist philosophers. Though the literature on silencing focuses almost exclusively on the speech act of sexual refusal, oddly enough, it lacks a thorough analysis of that very act. My first aim is to fill this theoretical gap. I claim that refusals are “second-turn illocutions”: they cannot be accomplished in absence of a previous interrogative (or open) call by the hearer. (...) Furthermore, I maintain that refusals constitute authoritative illocutions only when preceded by requests for permission. The secondary goal of my paper is to assess Mary Kate McGowan’s (2009) account of silencing as authority denial. Despite its virtues, I argue that ultimately it should be rejected on two grounds: (i) it entails an objectification of female sexuality; (ii) if sexual advances are requests for permission (as McGowan implies), a man who asks a woman for sex cannot fail to ratify her authority over her own body. I conclude by sketching an alternative explanation for the failure of women’s refusals, according to which women may be unable to refuse sex for their interlocutors’ advances are intended as imperative (or closed) calls. (shrink)