I found the essay Women’s Speaking Justified, Proved, and
Allowed by Fell very interesting. The evidence provided to justify and
prove the righteousness of women’s speaking is from the Bible. I almost find
this funny. Is this weird? Fell gives all these examples from genesis all the
way to Jesus on how women are treated fairly and the times in the bible where
males oppress them. The funny part is that Fell is acting like the Bible is 100
percent fact. I guess I am looking at this from a modern view but that would be
just asinine in the present day. But looking back at Fell I believe it is one
of her best rhetorical techniques.
Fell is relating her audience to a topic, and persuading them
along side Religion who had been persuading the masses for decades. The Bible
gives countless examples of moral lessons: don’t steal, don’t commit adultery,
don’t murder, etc.. All these lessons are then in turn obeyed because God told
you to. If you don’t follow God then you will go to Hell.
Fell uses this technique by pointing
out examples of women being treated equal. Perhaps the best example is Mary
Magdalene and Jesus. Jesus treated her equal even thought she was outcaste by
society. Jesus gave her equal love
and treated her equal (almost better). So why cant any women in
the time period get up and talk in church? I know I keep coming back to the term
Hermeneutics but this is by far the best example of it. Fell examines the
Bible’s text, puts it in historical context, and tries to persuade the
audience.
I am not sure how affective Fell was but
another rhetorical technique that this makes me think about is courage. Not
every rhetorician necessarily has to have it but Fell does. Along side wisdom,
courage might be one of the most important traits to have as a rhetorician.
Fell for example wrote this in a time of unequal rights for women. Fell had the
courage to stand up and say something. This holds true with people such as
Cicero, Martin Luther King, and all Feminist Rhetoricians as a whole. Another example
of courage could be Ramus and his ideas to challenge the works of Quintillian.
In my opinion to be a great Rhetorician you have to have to courage to stand up
against the norm. No one is ever satisfied so taking up a cause and speaking
against the norm, gets the audience’s attention.
Hey Austin, I'm curious about the importance of courage to rhetoric. Through all the writings we have read, they don't mention once anything about courage and rhetoric, or if they did it was a side-note, clumped with being moral. However, all the rhetors that are famous and immortalized are the ones that had this courage to say something different. This immortalization can sometimes be just by chance or lack of knowledge, such as the influence of Cicero on the medieval rhetors. But other times it can be because the topic is controversial, such as Fell or Martin Luther King Jr.
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