Standpoint Theory Essay Example

“Standpoint theory explains how membership in particular social groups influences people’s experiences and their ways of interpreting those experiences (Wood pg. 50).” Over the course of my life, there have been several different social groups that have influenced the way I think, and standpoint theory can be applied to my life in many ways. The one social group that sticks out most prominently to me is competition cheerleading. All throughout childhood my father required both me and my brother to participate in at least one sport. I started dancing at the age of three and continued on until I was fourteen. This then lead into competitive cheerleading throughout my high school career. There were many things I learned from competitive cheerleading,

Before participating in competition cheer, I knew that the general aspect of teamwork was to work together as a whole in order to benefit a group, but I had never really applied that to my life in any defining way. When I began cheer I was very shy and it was hard for me to communicate with others what I thought needed to be done. I soon realized that if I did not speak up, I would never feel confident in my abilities, and I also would not feel confident in my team. Cheerleading showed me that teamwork is essential when working as a group, and once you start to communicate freely with one another, you can then work as a team. Woods says that, “a communication culture exists when a group of people understand goals and styles of talk in ways not shared by those outside the group (pg. 51).” This communication culture that Woods discusses definitely played a large role in our connotation, and even denotation, of what it meant to work as a team. Teamwork came to mean something much more than working together. It means communicating, listening to peoples opinions and suggestions, and also sharing your own thoughts as well. When your on a team you communicate in a way that only your teammates can really understand. Also, teamwork means having a general respect and understanding for one another, despite the negativity that can occasionally occur. Cheerleading helped me to broaden my understandings about what it really meant to work as a