To have agency

bala1312

New Member
spanish
When a person has agency over something it means that they have a right to do it, they have the ability to take action or to choose what action to take.
For instance, some women might be upset with male participation on the front line of feminist protests because that substracts agency to women's voices, or some argue that the word racism should only be used to denominate the oppression of whites against blacks, given that if used in other situations, it would subtract the agency that black people have over that word in the sense that it is linked to a historical struggle and not recognize their particular oppression.
So, without positioning myself regarding the sentences that I used to explain the word agency, how can that be translated to Spanish?
Voluntad es lo que me sale en la RAE pero no corresponde. ¿Alguna idea?
Agency (philosophy) - Wikipedia
 
Last edited:
  • Welcome to the forums.
    Please give us one specific, complete sentence in English as an example of how the phrase is being used and explain the situation.
    Thank you.
     
    The protest gave us a sense of agency, a sense of our own power to make a difference.
    When the legal system acquitted these women on the grounds of insanity it denied their agency.
     
    Last edited by a moderator:
    WR has an entry for this already:

    agency nuncountable (ability to act)voluntad nf
    The strict rules made Sarah feel as though she had no agency of her own.
    Las reglas estrictas hacían sentir a Sarah que no tenía voluntad.
     
    Para la segunda frase "voluntad" funciona fenomenal, en mi opinión. La primera parece significar algo más parecido a "empoderamiento".
     
    Back
    Top