post #1 Feminist Rhetoric

Overall I am still having a lot of trouble understanding what I am supposed to be learning about. I almost feel as if I am reading a broad history book with no specific names or details. I think I fell this way because we have mostly been reading introductions. Part 1 of the book Feminist Rhetorical Practices is no exception and might be the most frustrating thing I have read so far.  The first 12 pages were personal bios about each of the authors. Why am I reading about this? What does it have to do with me learning about rhetoric? How can this help me improve my own rhetoric?

Frustrated, I moved on to the next half of part one. Some hope came for me to finally learn a trick or technique to improve my rhetoric or even a technique someone used in the past. This hope came in the form of the Authors outlining the first two of the 4 critical tasks to understand after you have read Feminist Rhetorical Practices. Those tips were 1. Delineate rhetorical inquiry (know techniques that changed rhetoric in the past) 2. See how specifically feminist have changed the rhetorical past. So at this point in my reading I am almost excited because I am going to learn a trick or even a historical figure with revolutionary rhetorical skills. But oh how I was wrong.

The chapter goes on to say that the main goal of the book is to get the feminist rhetoric tradition recognized and regularly studied when anyone thinks of rhetoric. Who are the groundbreakers of feminist rhetoric? What are the main techniques that set it apart from regular rhetoric? These questions need to be answered and are danced around for the rest of part 1. For example on page 22 “recognizing what was made possible for us as feminist  scholars through other women’s work, how their efforts have enabled us to stand where we are today.” Who’s effort? What women’s works are influential? What makes them have good rhetoric? Do we use any of these women’s tricks today in modern rhetoric? This reading was so broad it made the page more flat then it already is.

I cant just end my post on a negative note, complaining the whole time. I need to do some critical thinking of my own. I need to find out who was the Godfather of Feminist Rhetoric, I guess it would be Godmother.  It happens to be Gertrude Buck and one of her most famous contribution to Feminist Rhetoric is called “Real Grammar”

 Gertrude’s writings were thought to be the beginning of Feminist Rhetoric. 

“Buck rejected "mechanical" methods of teaching "make-believe grammar"--meaningless drills and exercises that divorce language from life. Instead she encouraged the teaching of a "real grammar" based on English speech and informed by the scientific study of language. Only then, she believed, would grammar instruction deserve a place in the curriculum.” (http://grammar.about.com/od/readingsonlanguage/a/Make-Believe-Grammar-By-Gertrude-Buck.htm )