As three million more Epstein files are released, I’m thinking today about all the girls and women whose testimony was disbelieved for so long, and all of those who are still being disbelieved to this day.

I’m also thinking back to when #metoo – started by Tarana Burke in 2006 – went viral in 2017, and how many millions of disclosures of sexual abuse have followed, and how often they are discounted, questioned, and the survivor victim-blamed or shamed or otherwise painted as an unreliable knower of their own lived experience.

I’m thinking too of all the writers and commentators currently saying to white America, in the wake of events in Minnesota and elsewhere, We tried to tell you what America is and you wouldn’t listen! Now will you believe us? (Here’s a brilliant article on this by Dr. Stacey Patton.)

There is, and has been since empire took hold, a deep and pervasive pattern to who gets believed and who doesn’t, a pattern which has devastating and complex consequences, not just for the individuals involved, but for whole groups of people, and ultimately, for the world.

For millennia, philosophers have been asking questions about what knowledge is, what it is to know something rather than just believing it, what truth is, and so on. (This branch of philosophy is known as epistemology.) In the twentieth century, feminist philosophers, philosophers of colour, and other scholars and activists began to examine the role power dynamics (political power, wealth, social power) play in all of this.

These scholars broke down the notion that the white, male, cis-gendered, heterosexual, able-bodied perspective is somehow objective, neutral, or normal. Standpoint epistemologists argue that knowledge is socially situated, and that people from marginalised groups have access to knowledge that is not shared by those dominantly situated. The dominantly situated don’t need to know about the worlds or knowledge of those marginalised, and in fact dominant culture requires their ignorance in order to continue to divide, conquer and profit. People in marginalised groups, however, have to understand dominant culture in order to survive, and that knowing is deeply embodied.

All of this matters, in all kinds of ways. Who gets counted as a reliable knower or conveyor of knowledge? Whose testimony is deemed to be trustworthy, and whose is not? Who is taken to be a dependable source of information? Who, in short, is believed, and who is not?

Philosophers (including Professor Kristie Dotson, whose work I highly recommend for a deeper dive) coined the term epistemic oppression to describe all the injustices that arise when someone is not perceived as a reliable knower on the basis of their belonging to a marginalised group.

None of us are reliable knowers in every circumstance, and there can be valid reasons why our testimony is – and should be – questioned or disregarded. For example, if I began writing about quantum mechanics, readers with any relevant knowledge would know immediately that my testimony was unreliable, because I have never studied the subject.

However, rejecting or ignoring someone’s testimony or knowing solely on the basis of their membership of a marginalised group is epistemic oppression, and gives rise to a number of harmful epistemic injustices.

In less academic language, epistemic injustice occurs whenever a man’s word is privileged over a woman’s for no other reason than gender; whenever white people are believed more readily than people of colour; whenever the wealthy are perceived as more reliable knowers than the poor, and so on.

For example, every time a black or brown person’s account of their experience of racism is denied or doubted; every time a trans person is taken to be an unreliable knower of their own body; every time a girl’s account of sexual abuse is disbelieved and dismissed, their audience is, in effect, saying, “I/we do not trust or believe your testimony of your lived experience and/or acquired knowledge because of who you are, and for no other reason than that.”

Such audiences display what philosophers call pernicious or wilful ignorance. In other words, they are completely closed to the idea that they might have something to learn, and are determined to remain ignorant of the lived experience and knowing of the other. They react defensively, unwilling to countenance knowledge from a standpoint different to their own. They close down, gaslight, mock, numb, discredit.

Of course, epistemic oppression is intersectional (as with all oppression) and complex, depending on the context. Race, gender, class, disability, religion, sexuality, accent, and other socioeconomic and cultural signifiers all play a part. It is also ingrained and systemic – this is not solely a matter of individuals perpetrating epistemic injustice, but of the whole system of imperialist-white supremacist-capitalist-cis-hetero-patriarchy maintaining its own status quo.

Maintaining this system requires the epistemic trustworthiness of the powerful to be over-inflated – for them to be given undue and totally unwarranted credibility solely because of their social status. Princes, billionaires, politicians, entertainers, gurus, priests; their power, wealth, fame, and social or religious or royal status used and abused in order to undermine the credibility of their victims.

Those of us who are none of the above also benefit from epistemic privilege depending on how we are socially situated. I am taken to be a reliable knower partly on the basis of unearned factors – being white, being an older woman, having the accent that I do, being able-bodied, cis-gendered and straight-appearing.

In dominant society, it can often be risky to share about race, rape, abortion, trans issues, sexual abuse, queer sexualities, domestic violence, and disability (not an exhaustive list). Those who speak out on such topics are frequently harmed psychologically, physically, socially or politically.

No wonder it takes years for people to disclose, and no wonder many choose not to, because they know their position in the epistemic pecking order. They know that the ordeal they’ve already gone through may well be compounded by not being believed, by having their reliability and credibility cruelly and relentlessly smeared, by having their reputation and worth picked over in the most shaming of ways. Thus, a kind of coerced silencing happens, on the basis of self-protection. (Professor Dotson refers to this as testimonial smothering.)

Not being believed, and having one’s credibility doubted or outright dismissed, is profoundly impactful. It is hard to hold onto our knowing when our truth is consistently denied. I mourn for the many millions of voices that have been annihilated or curtailed, the embodied wisdom that has been lost down the generations because people were prevented from speaking out or sharing their testimony. Epistemic oppression is another form of dehumanisation.

But all that has been silenced or disparaged doesn’t go away. It lives in the cracks and the shadows, in the cells and the fascia. And when it surfaces, it calls the narratives of the status quo into question, and confronts the very basis of the power structure. It rightly raises collective doubts about the ways in which we are governed and policed, and the fitness of the political, financial, social and religious regimes which hold power. We are in the midst of such a reckoning right now, and we can clearly see how viciously the old order is fighting to maintain itself.

Such revelations are essential in order for change to happen. The mighty can and are falling, but there is a long way to go yet. And it is those who are the most marginalised who see the truth most clearly because they are the ones who benefit least from the system, and to whom it consistently reveals its true nature. They are the people to whom we need to listen most diligently.

It is up to us – especially where we are dominant – to pay attention to our epistemic behaviour and actions with humility and a willingness to learn from those whom we may have previously dismissed as knowers. Here are some questions I’m finding useful. (Please feel free to suggest others.)

Who am I giving credence to, and why?

Who am I listening to, and who am I not listening to?

Whose knowing have I numbed myself to?

Whose work do I share or cite, and why?

Am I willing to countenance my own ignorance even when that’s painful?

Am I willing to have my self-image as ‘good’ or ‘right’ challenged?

What has it been convenient or comfortable for me to not know?

Do I have the courage to unlearn all that I have been taught by empire?

How might I take responsibility for seeing the gaps in my knowledge so that they do not harm others?

How might I engage in embodied learning without exploiting others?