I would like to comment on: “we
take note that women are indeed being more systematically included as a normal
part of the rhetorical-studies landscape.” (131) I guess I have a question
before I make the point I was originally going to: the writer here says “being
more” and it makes me wonder is Jackie and Gesa are implying that studies in
woman’s rhetoric are now being given the proper attention. Whereas in the past
women were seldom associated with rhetorical practices. And I tend to think
that is correct based on what we have discussed in class.
But back to the original quote,
which goes on to define where women are receiving recognition: textually and
contextually. The term textually refers
to the range of texts being produced that are considered worth recognition. I
feel that the types of texts women were allowed or able to produces were very
limited. Thus making it easier to systematically include them in rhetorical
studies. From the texts we have read in class I have found than women generally
did not write, and if they did it much of their text revolved around religion. Contextually
refers to the context of the women who wrote the piece; the social circle they
operate in, or how they practice discourse. Take for example Aspasia, whom was not
of true Greek decent, rumored to be a prostitute, and none of her works has
survived to provide proof of her rhetorical abilities. Many people have been
skeptical of Aspasia’s work and thus not placed a high level of significance on
her work. However more significance should be awarded. It is noted several
times that Aspasia helped teach Socrates what is now know as the Socratic
method. I believe that more or equal significance should be placed on Aspasia’s
work, since we heavily rely on Socrates for understanding rhetorical practices.
Later on Jackie and Gesa are
discussing the evidence-rich approach and something interesting is said: “Thus,
we make rhetoric, rather than just women’s rhetorics, visible as a
multisensible, multidimensional action affected by sociopersonal decision
making within sociopolitical context.” (135) I agree that Jackie and Gesa
strongly care about women’s rhetoric, however I believe that Jackie and Gesa
love and care about all rhetoric. Also after reading this sentence I felt that
male rhetoric, but lets just call that rhetoric, enhances feminist rhetorical
practices. By having rhetoric it allows for a standard to be based off of. Women’s
rhetoric is now, more than ever, being held up and compared to traditional
rhetoric. I could be wrong but I feel as if less significance is being placed
on the gender of the writer than the actual written document.
I wouldn't say that Jackie and Gesa believe feminist rhetorical studies is currently being given the attention that it deserves. From the chapters that we read last week, I got the idea that they were aware that the field is growing, but that it still has much more growth ahead.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that, in today's world, the author is usually not considered as significant as the text that she or he produces. To me, that is a good thing. Texts should be valued according to content, not according to the author. In todays digital and multimodal setting, authors are becoming extremely insignificant, and even almost anonymous as compared to their highly accessible texts.
However, I didn't get the feeling that Jackie was concerning herself with contemporary work and authors. I thought she was concerned with changing the history of the rhetorical tradition by including rhetoricians who were not white, male, and elite. It's certainly true that the gender of the author did matter until relatively recently. So Jackie is concerned with finding those women's texts that could add to/change/alter the history of rhetoric, and the boundaries of it in a positive way to promote inclusiveness and tolerance, in order to enhance rhetoric as an entire completed field.
I think one of the reasons you are trying to distinguish the connection between women and mens rhetoric is because there is no such thing as either. I guess you could say that there are men that write rhetoric and women that write rhetoric and then categorize them as such. Feminist rhetoric is not all made up of females. The definition of feminism is the theory of the political, economic, and social equalities of the sexes. I am sure there are many rhetorical essays based on feminism that are made by men. So to make it easier I would suggest you look at feminist rhetoric as just a branch of rhetoric, just like would you look at classical rhetoric. It makes it extremely tough, at least for me, if you look at feminist rhetoric vs the rest or rhetorical study.
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