ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory » March 21st: Feminist Rhetoric(s)

March 21st: Feminist Rhetoric(s)

What ailment do horses fear most? Hay fever!

Feminist Rhetorics

This article on ThoughtCo. from Richard Nordquist might be helpful in understanding the ways scholars are approaching feminisms and rhetorics (notice the plural usage).

Some Ideas about Gender and, of course, Language

We act out gender roles from a continuum of masculine and feminine characteristics; we are therefore gendered and we are involved in the process of our own gendering and the gendering of others throughout our lives. In the field of gender and language use, this performance of gender is referred to as ‘doing gender.’ In many ways we are rehearsed into our gender roles, like being prepared for a part in a play: gender is something we do, not something we are (Bergvall, 1999; Butler, 1990). Over our lives and particularly in our early formative years, we are conditioned, prompted and prodded to behave in acceptable ways so that our gender, and our community’s acceptance of it, aligns with our ascribed sex. “[S]ome scholars in the field question the distinction that sex is a biological property and gender is a cultural construct, and both terms continue to be contested…

Julé, Allyson. A Beginner’s Guide to Language and Gender. Multilingual Matters, 2008.

In the first phase of language/gender research, Many of us were eager to piece together an overall portrayal of differences in the speech of women and men. We invented notions like ‘genderlect’ to provide overall characterizations of sex differences in speech (Kramer, 1974b; Thorne and Henley, 1975). The ‘genderlect’ portrayal now seems too abstract and overdrawn, implying that there are differences in the basic codes used by women and men, rather than variably occurring differences, and similarities.

Barrie Thorne, Cheris Kramarae, and Nancy Henley in Mary Crawford’s Talking Difference: On Gender and Language. SAGE, 1995.

The above quotations come from the ThoughtCo. webpage on “Language and Gender.”

Aristotelian Review

Before getting into Poirot’s article, let’s return to some basic Aristotelian concepts of ethos, pathos, and logos:

  • Ethos: “[There is persuasion] through character whenever the speech is spoken in such a way as to make the speaker worthy of credence; for we believe fair-minded people to a greater extent and more quickly [than we do others] on all subjects in general and completely so in cases where there is not exact knowledge but room for doubt.” (Aristotle 1.2.4, Kennedy p. 38; Part 2, para. 3 Online)
  • Pathos (Aristotle 1.2.5, Kennedy p. 39; Part 2, para. 4 Online; Chapter 2-[1356a]): “[There is persuasion] through the hearers when they are led to feel emotion [pathos] by the speech.”
  • Logos (Aristotle 1.2.6, Kennedy p. 39; Part 2, para. 5 Online; Chapter 2-[1356b]): “Persuasion occurs through the arguments [logoi] when we show the truth or the apparent truth from whatever is persuasive in each case.”

Aristotle probably assumed an audience made up all, half, some, or none of their minds prior to a speech, but, as we learned, he placed an emphasis on the ways audiences were moved during a speech. It’s hard to believe that no one has an opinion about a common topic beforehand. Also, it’s rare that someone actually has an opinion about everything…anyway, in your analyses, it’s best to consider a type of persuasive approach rather than get bogged down in the infinite number of ways a message could be conveyed.

We have to draw boundaries when we present a topic in writing or speaking to attempt a coherent argument. One of the goals of academic projects is to not “bite off more than you can chew.” When you discover the secret of how to avoid attempting too much in your initial go at a project, please let me know your secret!

Other Ways to Define the Three Modes of Persuasion

Aristotle defined these terms about 2500 years ago, so we should consider a few updates. Although rhetoricians might not all agree with the expanded definitions below, if they don’t recognize the instability of meaning, they’re not recognizing fundamental etymological transitions.

  • Ethos:
    1) the presentation of or appeal to one’s character
    2) the characterization of a document or speaker (consider this to be the “look and feel” of a document, its attributes)
    Notice the two parts of this definition…be able to analyze a document from both parts separately.
  • Pathos: not really any change I can think of
    1) appeal to emotions
    2) but scrutinize “feel” vs “feeling”
  • Logos:
    1) appeal to logic; explicit or implicit deductive arguments
    2) stating assumed facts (e.g., statistics, addresses, date/time)

Remember, we often describe emotions (anger, happiness, sadness, etc.) as our “feelings.” However, be aware of an oversight we often have with the word “feel.”* One can feel good** in terms of emotion, but one can also feel something is right, wrong, common, typical of a group, etc. In that sense, “feel” is synonymous with “think” or “believe,” and it shouldn’t be immediately associated with emotions (or pathos). Consider the phrase the “look and feel” of the something. That phrase refers to the attributes of something: it could be physical as in the “look and feel of pinecone,” or it could be more abstract as in “the look and feel of a city,” which means the attributes of that city. This comes up when people say a place is a character in a film or TV show (i.e., the character of Baltimore in The Wire).

Consider the “look and feel,” the ethos, of the following webpages:

*Grammar/usage fun: Can you feel bad, or do you feel badly?
**Of course, if the rhythm feels good to you…

These terms–ethos, pathos, and logos–may be important for your Rhetoric/al Project, so please, please, please ask questions if the terms are confusing. If we have time tonight, though, we’re going to go over assumptions based on experience, bias, conventional wisdom, etc. One type of rhetorical analysis, and I argue Poirot is doing this, compares similarities in discourse. What might we say about a group of designs for pizza places…

Hawthorne’s Pizza can be said to have a “contemporary” design. What other page does it look like? You probably visit this page a lot! Here’s another Italian-style restaurant, Mamma Ricotta’s.

While we’re on the subject of restaurants…

Kristan Poirot’s “Domesticating the Liberated Woman”

Now that we’re all wanting pizza…let’s dive into the reading! Kristan Poirot is an Associate Professor in Communication at Texas A&M. Let’s consider these areas of the text:

  • p. 264: “[Poirot] read[s] woman-identification rhetorics in terms of broader discursive efforts to manufacture “woman” in a way to meet various movements’ demands.”
  • p. 265: Main thesis–“woman-identification’s ultimate rhetorical failure might not be its expulsion of certain kinds of women (i.e., heterosexual ) from feminism, but its commitment to liberation that necessarily entailed a rhetoric of confinement and containment, domesticating woman and feminism.”
  • What does Poirot mean about “domesticating “woman and feminism”?
  • p. 266: “containment rhetorics…attempt to tame the threat of alternative views through discipline and confinement, clearly articulating the other as outside of the dominant values and structures of U.S. culture.”
    • “dissent was domesticated when the press and administration success fully redirected the agitator’s energy into a much more palatable and culture affirming activity–voter registration.”
    • Obviously, voter registration and voting rights have been fully establish today and aren’t contested…
  • p. 267: Via Murphy–“domestication” had the goal “to strengthen the status quo, minimizing the damage that alternative rhetorics and/or social dissent could inflict on dominant values and meanings.”
    • “social movements themselves participate in modes of containment and/or domestication.”
  • pp. 267-268: “identity political movements are prohibitatory,* demanding that subjects conform to predetermined (recognizable) definitions and, sometimes, politically viable identifications.”
    *Why you ought to be more generous and forgiving when using [sic] in quotations from other sources…
  • p. 268: “identifications create disciplinary and boundaried locales. These locales normalize and strengthen a supposed border between the movement’s claims to radical authenticity and the status quo.”
  • p. 269: Media…part of the solution or the problem?
  • p. 270: Betty Friedan on the “lavender menace”
  • p. 271: “the mainstream press demonized feminism through its coverage of unpalatable radical elements and the inauguration of reluctant leaders.”
  • p. 272: Radical feminists wanted to explode hierarchies and assumptions of traditional social relationships.
  • p. 273: Woman must free themselves first before a revolution can occur.
    • What might Wollstonecraft think?
  • p. 275: Quoting Tate (2005)–“”W-I-W” ‘provided a rhetorical site of revolutionary identity, a constitutive rhetoric marked with the telos of liberation from male tyranny,’ positioning ‘lesbian feminists at the center of feminist identity’.”
  • p. 299, n5: “constitutive rhetoric” as “a discourse that constitutes an identity that presumes to be both pre-given and ‘natural.'”

Ronisha Browdy’s “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s)” (2021)

Although Browdy’s wants “‘Black Women’s Rhetoric(s)’ [to have] its own clearly identifiable seat at the rhetorical studies table”(9), she’s careful to not overclaim any universality of Black women’s experiences–inside or outside of the academy. As with most “towards” articles, she is advocating to make a topic realizable. Black Women’s Rhetoric(s) exists but not as an official name or discursive space. Notice how she specifies that

naming of “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s)” opens up the possibility for broader recognition of this subject areas in the form of book collections, special issues, conferences, core and elective course(s) in undergraduate and graduate department curricula, a specialization for graduate students, and specifically identified area of research interest in job advertisements for the hiring of faculty.

Browdy, Ronisha. Black Women’s Rhetoric(s): A Conversation Starter for Naming and Claiming a Field of Study. Peitho, Vol. 23, No. 4, Summer 2021, p. 6. CFSHRC.

Note: The page numbers refer to the pages on the PDF I generated and put on Canvas. The original is on the Peitho website.

  • p. 1: citing Wilson Logan on how to identify these rhetorical acts and situations, “I identify common practices across rhetorical acts that were molded and constrained by prevailing conventions and traditions. (Wilson Logan xiv; emphasis added)”
  • p. 2: “Speaking from my own personal experience…”
    • Notice how she conveys ethos through invoking the personal.
    • She isn’t following the ineffective phrasing of “In my opinion…,” “I believe this…,” etc.
    • Later on, she is more specific, “As a student of ‘Black Women’s Rhetoric(s),’ and still now as a junior faculty who identifies myself as a part of this community, I desire…” (4)
  • p. 2 Carmen Kynard’s multi-modal course and pedagogical space called “The Black Women’s Rhetoric Project”
  • p. 2: “…rhetorical scholarship that emphasizing Black women’s subjectivities, unique practices, and thinking…and avoiding intentional and unintentional acts of erasure of Black women’s knowledge and labor.”
  • p. 3: “…a deserted cemetery filled with the remains of dead White men.”
  • p. 4: “And like family, it is necessary to come together. To unite under a collective banner, not to erase our differences, but to embrace them, and offer spaces of support and solidarity across differences.”
    • Notice the family-collective metaphors throughout the article. Oftentimes, the prevailing goal of Western rhetoric is to privilege the individual over the collective (although we collectively support the capitalist system, idling in the Chick-Fil-a drive thru line).
  • p. 5: “Self-definition is a literacy with strong connections to Black women’s ways of being….Self-definition and self-determination are also intimately linked to Black feminist theory.”
    • Drawing on Patricia Hill Collins, “self-definition is not just about a person defining themselves. Instead, it is an interrogation of power—the possession of power and authority to interpret one’s own reality.
  • p. 6: “[Deborah Atwater’s] interpretations of African American women’s rhetoric emphasizes ethos, particularly how the women in her study, as well as how she as a researcher and teacher of this scholarship, present, represent, and describe African American women.”
  • p. 7: Atwater “[points] to the similarities in each rhetor’s rhetorical practices and choices despite differences.”
    • Although one can’t capture a universal identity, prevailing similarities and other patterns emerge.
    • However, maybe we (humanities scholars) create the patterns unconsciously by looking for them. If you only have a hammer, all problems look like nails…
      If you only have words, all topics are rhetorical…
  • p. 7: “Kynard’s description and dynamic image of “Black Women’s Rhetoric” is one that situates this discourse that has an embodied, multi-vocal, political and personal legacy that can, and must, be seen (and re-seen), heard (and re-heard), and felt (over and over again).”
    • heteroglossia: from Mikhail Bakhtin in the 1930s (Ken Hirschkop), “inner stratification of a single national language into social dialects, group mannerisms, professional jargons, generic languages, the languages of generations and age-groups.”
    • Specifically, “heteroglossia was a subaltern practice, concentrated in a number of cultural forms, all of which took a parodic, ironizing stance in relation to the official literary language that dominated them.”
    • This seems particularly relevant for today’s discussion.
  • p. 8: “…claim their authority as rhetorical subjects and makers of knowledge.”
  • p. 8: “…calling for a labeling of both a cultural and disciplinary community, and therefore, grouping individual scholars and their research within a category…”
    • “This is unlike the contentious relationship that Black women for decades have had with the word feminism,” opting out of such labeling of their writings, stories, music, and other modes of expression and communication as “feminist” because of its connection to white feminism.”
    • Unlike because why…
  • p. 9: “Black women’s daily realities. This includes everyday experiences of micro-aggressions, coping with trauma including physical violence (and threats of violence), and systemic racism and sexism.”
  • p. 10: “…Black women’s struggle for freedom includes being free from stereotypes and controlling images that undermine Black women and Black womanhood on a daily basis.”
  • p. 10: The activist stance within–“fighting for freedom, respect, and equality, all means are necessary.”

Some Questions to Ask about Academic Identity/ies

  • The act of naming gives us power over a concept, allowing us to use it to move forward. What does Collins mean by “…the act of insisting on Black female self-definitions validates Black women’s power as human subjects (125-126)” (p. 5 in Browdy)?
  • What more can we say about ethos (6) in the context of Browdy’s article?

The Life of Brian (1979) “So funny it was banned in Norway”

Here are some clips that require a caveat because they’re a bit dated on the humor. However, I think you’ll find that the parody might reflect the infighting that Poirot brings up in her article.

Be on the lookout for texts you can use to construct an argument about rhetoric, meaning making, or discourse in general. Any ideas for your Rhetoric/al Project?

Next Week

We’re back to a more normal reading load next week. You’ll have Ch. 3 from Knoblauch along with an article on Canvas: Glen McClish’s “The Instrumental and Constitutive Rhetoric of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Frederick Douglass.” Also, I added Judith Butler’s very quick read “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution”; Angela McRobbie’s “Feminism, Postmodernism, and the ‘Real Me'”; and Adrienne Rich’s “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Experience” (cited by Poirot) for those wanting to explore today’s discussion further. These aren’t required reading.

Although this is more appropriate for a class one cultural studies, you might want to explore a discussion from a past New Media class: Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality and McRobbie and Rich. Again, these aren’t required but are possibly helpful, so enjoy!