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Despite the fact that Allen's essay was not personal testimony per se, I still had the feeling Kauffman described of having all authority taken away through Allen's description of her work with the Keres tribe.
Not even just with the tribe aspect of the essay, it felt like she sucked all authority of knowing what a feminist was with her critique of the Kochinnenako story. I guess once I had an uneasy footing on the subject of the Keres tribe and I realized how much more schooling Gunn has had than me, I lost all authority on every subject she brought up. I can't help but wonder if her essay would have been more powerful/persuasive/engaging if she had refrained from ever using "I."

To respond more to Kauffman's idea that all we are made up of is our actions and reactions to all aspects of society:
Like I said in class, I agree that we are all made up of what we have experienced throughout our lives (how could it be otherwise?). Yet, I'm not convinced that thinking that we are nevertheless individuals, because that is how society has taught us to think of ourselves, devalues our seemingly inherent feelings that we are unique. That is to say, we are unique and individuals because we want to be and the reasons for why we want to be as such are inconsequential. It shouldn't bother us that we are products of society, but it should bother us if we give up on a sense of self just because we recognize that we have internalized our interactions with the world.