Do you consider yourself to be representative of anything? any group?

I am a representative of people who live with mental illness. I do it for a living.

I represent all big and tall left handed smart ill people. myself. I don’t have a divine portfolio yet.

No, I don’t. XD

Depends on the context.

I feel I can generally represent GenX, Christians, Midwesterners, and ProLifers especially here where all those are underrepresented now. I understand many Republican beliefs because I share many of them and grew up in the middle of political fanatics of both parties.

When it comes to specifics, I wouldn’t speak for Jehovahs Witness or any beliefs I was unfamiliar with, of course.

I also HATE labels and broad generalizations but when applicable for intelligent conversations, it’s harmless.

Maybe I need to clarify: I don’t mean representing in the sense of being an agent for someone or a designated spokesperson, say for a client.

I mean in the sense that an individual is thought, with his words or deeds, to be a representative of an entire segment of society, whether he claims that role or not.

For example, an author may taken to be a representative of her sex, or a character in a movie is thought to be representative of his ethnicity. Let’s say you didn’t like the way the character behaved, and so you criticized the writer for making all Italians or all preachers or all Midwesterners “look bad.”

Or let’s say you hear a youngster make a rude remark in public. How does that generalize to an inference about young people as a group? Since when does any member of a group have to bear a public burden as “representative” of that group? Just asking.

I fit into many demographics, but I don’t see myself as holding a special charter to speak for any of them. I would never say “speaking as a woman” or “speaking as a college graduate” or “speaking as a pet owner.” I don’t speak as those things. I just speak for myself.

Do you think it’s fair for others to generalize to your identity groups from what they know about you?

I, for one, don’t designate anyone to speak for me, and it irks me when they do.

@Jeruba In that case a person would need to be elected to rep for a group yet they still would be limited to that organization, I’d think. That’s a big responsibility.

Bald headed ambidextrous.

Speaking as a gay man, I’ve never felt particularly representative of any group and I’ve decried efforts to put forth a palatable “image”. I’ve often heard disparagement of effeminate gay guys, things like “I have no problem with gay guys, I just don’t like those flaming fags.” It’s like, okay, so you only feel comfortable with a group of people if they conform to a specific image and set of behaviors that’s to your taste. I’ve heard it from within the gay community as well, things like “I try to be more straight-acting” (whatever that even means) or “Pride should be about changing homophobes’ minds” (that was never the function of Pride). There’s this idea that the entire sexual orientation, every single person who identifies as gay, should present a good image.

When dealing with a large group of people like a sexuality or an ethnicity, part of coming to terms with reality is realizing that there is going to be a wide variety of people in that group, they’re not all going to be “good representatives”, they’re not all going to fit your ideal image of that group or how you want to view that group, and you can’t judge the entire group by the actions of a few. Frankly, the people who say “well, I hate all Mexicans now because that one Mexican guy did a bad thing” are not the type of people we, with our many identities, should be catering to anyway.

@Jeruba I can honestly say I represent people with mental illness. I’m paid to do that. I am that representative, because I live with a mental illness and have recovered.

I work on many committees where the voice of the clients must be heard, and I am that voice. It is indeed a large responsibility. There are times I get tired of having to speak up, but I cannot be quiet. In order to assure my peers of the very best services, I must make sure I speak up loud and often.

My first reaction is no.

I do fit some stereotypes of some of the groups I can be put in or identify with, but I would never say I am representative of them. I guess mostly because I have no desire to be deemed as such, but also because too often I don’t quite line up with my groups.

I never think of a group of people as all thinking or being alike. It’s always just statistical majorities that you can make assumptions, but still the assumptions don’t work on 100% of the people. Sometimes not even a statistical majority, but rather a loud minority.

I would say my groups are female, American, married, and born in the late 60’s, but others might add Jewish, upper middle class, college degree, not sure what else.

Sorry for a second answer but I hope I understand the Q correctly. A lot of answers seem to be talking about representing a group rather than being representative of a group. Answers like being elected or some sort of spokesperson is throwing me off. I didn’t think that’s what you were asking.

I used to be representative of women who deliberately chose to be single mothers with the aid of sperm banks and sometimes living donors. By that I mean I was out there talking to press and physician’s groups, and sitting on discussion panels about alternative parenting choices.
But all that was thirty-some years ago, I can’t really say I am a representative of anything, now.

@JLeslie I took her correction to mean when would you be the spokesperson for a group. Like the Jewish community as a whole. What would it take for you to be comfortable with that.

@KNOWITALL Yeah, I’m just not sure I completely understood what exactly @Jeruba was looking for. Hopefully, she’ll come back and let us know if our posts help her answer what she is curious about.

She says she doesn’t want anyone to speak for her. This reminds me of the Washington Redskins situation. I really want to know what Native Americans think, and not just one of their leaders, and not just people who aren’t native who fell they know how Native Americans feel. I like to hear from the actual people, because there will be a variety of opinions probably, but also it matter what the overwhelming opinion is too. At the same time having one person who can communicate the position of the group makes sense and is efficient.

When someone “speaks for Jewish people” it usually doesn’t bother me if my opinion is different than theirs. I can’t see me speaking for an entire group, so I’m not sure what it would take. If I was pushed, speaking for Jews I think it would depend on the issue at hand. Politics would be really tough. Growing up Jewish maybe I could talk about that, but again lots of people grew up differently. I think being married maybe. Married people seem to think differently about relationships than single people.

I think the more you are a part of a group the more you realize that in the group there are a variety of opinions or a variety of personalities, and that awareness makes it hard to be representative or represent.

@JLeslie Agreed. The Redskins thing is so controversial in my area. I keep seeing memes about a Blackfeet designed it and approved it, so it’s not controversial. But with registered Cherokee in my family, I/we wouldn’t presume to speak for ALL Cherokee’s either. Difficult to navigate all these little PC situations in such a difficult period of our history. No wonder violence and suicide rates are rising.