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WOMEN'S STUDIES IN COMMUNICATION11 (Spring 1%8). 4-5 WHAT REALLY DISTINGUISHES ANDIOR OUGHT TODISTINGUISH FEMINIST SCHOLARSHIP INCOMMUNICATION STUDIES? Karlyn Kohrs Campbell Feminist scholarship is distinguishedby the systematic inclusion of women. byan absence of language andlor perspec-tive that degrades women or minorities.by rigorous testing of assumptions thathark back to stereotypes and socialmytholOQY. and by a concern to rectify theomissions. the degradation. and the er-rors of the past. Feminist research is not research bywomen. Feminist research need not beresearch solely about women. but it mustbe about women. Feminist scholarshiptreats women as full members of thehuman family who. as individuals or asmembers of groups. are to be takenseriously and treated with respect inresearch and writing. Because scholarship in our field hasnot been free of sexist biases. feministscholarship has specific goals in sub-areas of the field. In public address. forexample. we must recover the unpubIished andlor out-of-print speeches of wo-men of extraordinary rhetorical ability.and through critical analysis we mustshow how and why these works are elo-quent. that they are vital to our under-standing of rhetorical history and of howhumans have symbolized. Politically. wemust fight for the inclusion of such worksin courses in rhetoric and public addressso that we shall not raise up anothergeneration of professors ignorant of halfof human rhetorical history. We must alsotrain scholars who can teach the historyof the woman's rights, woman suffrage.and contemporary feminist movementsand support eftorts to have such courses Dr Empire" is Professor of Speech—Communication atthe University of Minnesota. offered at regular intervals in our our-riculum. Why? Because these were andare great social movements that pro-duced great speakers and writers andthat permit us to study the interrelation-ship of rhetoric and social changethrough time. and because womenstudents desperately need to recovertheir rhetorical past. In addition. weshould press for the inclusion ofspeeches by minority women (and men) inour courses. including those treating therhetoric of civil rights efforts of the pre-sent and the past. Feminist scholarship is better scholar-ship. Whatever prejudices or biases re-search diminishes its quality. When wo-men are omitted from research. the re-sults are inevitably partial and incom-plete. When differences in the behavior ofwomen subjects are ignored or dis-missed. the generalizations are unwar-ranted. When assumptions are madeabout the attitudes. behavior. or beliefsystems of women. and these are not sub-mitted to rigorous testing. the researchresults are built on the quicksand of stere-otypes. Good research vigorously exam-ines presuppositions. particularly whenthey are embodied in the society's mostcherished myths. Feminist critiques of re-search in psychology. sociology. philoso-phy. literary criticism. among others. havecontributed in maior ways to the improve-ment of scholarship in these disciplines.Feminist scholarship is steadily improv-ing research in communication studies. Feminist scholarship has desirable by-products. Women students are empow-ered because they discover their distin-guished rhetorical past. and they are en-couraged to re-examine and contestassumptions about females' behavior— ...

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5asking whether or not gender is a criticaloriginality and fresh theorizing. Waynevariable in styles of speaking, interaction,Booth, for example, concluded thatpersuasivelity, and so on. Finally, in thefeminist literary criticism, through theprocess of re-examining sexist assump-very process of plunging great but oftentions underlying past research, scholarssexist classics into controversy, hadare prompted to re-examine otherengendered fresh analysis and richerassumptions, a process that encouragesunderstanding of them....

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WOMEN'S STUDIES IN COMMUNICATION11 (Spring 1988), 9-11WHAT DISTINGUISHES FEMINIST SCHOLARSHIP INCOMMUNICATION STUDIES?Sonja K. Foss and Karen A. FossThe question that is the subject of thisprocess of interconnection rather thanprogram really could be considered twohierarchy, approximate descriptionsseparate questions: "What ought torather than absolute truth, and coopera-distinguish feminist scholarship in com-tion rather than competition.2 What doesmunication studies?" and "What present-distinguish feminist research, then, is notly distinguishes feminist scholarship inmethodology but the objective ofcommunication studies?" We argue thatresearch.two different responses must be given toThe distinguishing feature of feministthese questions. What feminist scholar-scholarship is the question it asks. -Itsship ought to be and what it is now arefocus is on how gender is constructednot one and the same. We first willthrough communication and how genderdiscuss the ideal-what ought toinforms communication. Thus, gender isbe-and then will examine the currentnot one of many variables studied by thestatus of feminist research.feminist scholar; it is the major elementstudied.What Ought to DistinguishThe central concern with the constructtion of gender means that feministFeminist Scholarship?scholars challenge the establishedresearch system in three basic ways.We do not see feminist scholarshipFirst, feminist research considersdistinguished by a unique set ofwomen's perceptions, meanings, and ex-methodological practices. Feministperiences as appropriate and importantresearch shares many assumptions anddata for analysis. Rather than generaliz-methods with "new-paradigm" scholars.ing from men to create an explanation forTaking the label from Thomas Kuhn'sthe experience of both men and women,work on how paradigm shifts occur in thefeminist inquiry incorporates the valuesscientific community, scholars who iden-and qualities that characterize women'stify with the new paradigm exhibit a col-experiences-qualities such as in-lective sense of dissatisfaction with theterdependence, emotionality, a sense ofdominant research paradigm; many ofself-questioning or vulnerability,them incorporate into their approaches towholeness, a focus on process ratherinquiry assumptions and methods consis-than product, multiplicity, and paradox.3tent with the qualities of women's ex-In the development of constructs andperiences that are fundamental to thetheories within the feminist perspective,feminist perspective. For example, boththe qualities of women's experiences arefeminist and new-paradigm scholars em-taken into account, taken seriously, andphasize wholes rather than parts, processvalued.rather than structure, knowledge as aA second way in which the feministperspective constitutes a challenge to theexisting research framework is in its for-mulation of new rules for how knowledgeDr. Sonja Foss is Associate Professor of Speech at theis constructed. Adoption of the feministUniversity of Oregon, and Dr. Karen Foss is Associateperspective does not mean simply graft-Professor of Speech Communication at Humboldt Stateing women's concerns onto the constructUniversity.tion and theories of men's knowledge that...

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10 are already in place. Rather1 feministscholars seek to change the rules for theconstruction of knowledge so they reflectwomen's experience and incorporatewomen's values. When qualities ofwomen's experiences such as self-questioning and multiplicity are used tocreate rules for the construction ofknowledge. very different kinds ofknowledge result. Roberts provides ex-amples of such different knowledge: But what if the rrlascullsl world view.which has depended on a logic of timelines. is erroneous? What if the most lun-oarnental ermr Is the search formono-causation" What it the world is real—ly a held of interconnecting events. ar-ranged If'l patterns of multiple meaning?What it the search tor srmpllstic"orderlrness" is. need. the commonproblem . 1"; Third. the feminist perspective has apractical. activist dimension that constitutes a challenge to the establishedresearch tradition as well. Adoption of afeminist perspective in research asks thatthe basic constructs of masculinity andfemininity be changed. Thus. the ultimateconsequence of research informed by afeminist perspective is social change. Incontrast to the current dominant researchparadigm. which seeks to predict humanbehaviorfthe feminist perspective seeksto understand human behavior andthrough that understanding. to changesocial life. Feminist scholars see howgender has been constructed to denigratewomen and seek to change that construc-tion. What Distinguishes FeministScholarship Now? What we have been describing are thefeatures of feminist scholarship as itideally should look. We do not believe.however. that most of what is labeledfeminist research looks like our descrip-tion. Rather. the distinguishing feature ofCurrent work is accommodation. A major obstacle to feminist research-ers in any field. including communication. is publishing the results of the re-search. But publication of feminist research is difficult because suchresearch constitutes a challenge to thedominant research mode. represented bythe accepted publishing outlets of thefield. Thus. a major dilemma facingfeminist researchers is how to challengeand simultaneously gain visibility andlegitimation for the feminist perspectivein the publications of our discipline.which may be unsupportive or unaware ofit. As a result of this dilemma facingfeminist scholars. they have had to try toadjust their work to the establishedresearch tradition. Thus. feminist work incommunication currently is characterizedby accommodation. To be published in amainstream journal. the reputation ofwhich is based on publication of researchderived from a non-feminist framewOrk. ascholar likely will have had to alter thepresentation of feminist notions. Accom-modation strategies include the use oftraditional. non-feminist approaches to astudy about gender5 or highlightingfeatures of women's experience in a tradi-tional studyfi Another strategy of accom-modation is the use of women's ex-periences as data—data connected towomen's lives but regarded as unimpor-tent in the traditional researchframework} Cir. feminist researchersmight cite non-gender research thatalready is accepted in the discipline ofcommunication as a backdrop for theirstudies.a Still another strategy of accom-modation includes using the Conclusionof an essay to highlight and raise issuesgermane to the feminist per'stlvtiictive.'5ll We argue. then. that at present. thedistinguishing feature of the feministperspective is accommodation. In orderto gain initial visibility and begin to beacknowledged as an alternative researchframe. the feminist perspective must findits way into publication. a process that re»quires adjustments to the expectations ofthe status quo. While we understand theneed for adaptation in order to succeed inmaking the feminist perspective an ac-cepted and valued research framewont.feminist scholars in communication nowneed to move beyond accommodation toa phase where the chalfenge of thefeminist perspective takes precedenceover accommodation. A plateau seems tohave been reached with the feministperspective; it is visible only when it ac- ...

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11commodates in major ways. In fact, we4Joan L. Roberts, "Pictures of Powermight argue that the accommodationsand Powerlessness: A Personal Syn-have become institutionalized patternsthesis," in Beyond Intellectual Sexism: Afor publishing feminist research. WeNew Woman, a New Reality, ed. Joan L.would like to see the feminist perspectiveRoberts (New York: David Mckay, 1976),move to the next stage of development soP. 46.that it can become a fully realized-rather5For an example of this strategy of ac-than just a partially expressed-voice incommodation, see Patricia Hayesthe discipline of communication.Bradley, "The Folk-Linguistics ofWomen's Speech: An Empirical Examina-Notestion," Communication Monographs, 48(March 1981), 73-90.6Sandra L. Ragan and Victoria Aarons1The new paradigm is not an iden-discuss silence, for example, intifiable and cohesive group of scholars"Women's Response to Men's Silence: Awho share a singular purpose andFictional Analysis," Women's Studies inmethodology. In fact, the movement isCommunication, 9 (Fall 1986), 67-75.multidisciplinary and manifest in a variety7Women's use of the telephone is anof formats and vocabularies. Cliffordexample of such data that is briefly dis-Geertz in anthropology, Rom Harre andcussed in Lana F. Rakow, "RethinkingKenneth Gergen in psychology, RichardGender Research in Communication,"Rorty in philosophy, and Peter Berger andJournal of Communication, 36 (AutumnThomas Luckmann in sociology are iden-1986), 11-26.tified with various aspects of new-8For an example of the use of thisparadigm thinking in the social sciences.strategy, see Martha Solomon, "The2These characteristics are adapted"Positive Woman's' Journey: A Mythicfrom Fritjof Capra, "The Concept ofAnalysis of the Rhetoric of STOP ERA,"Paradigm and Paradigm Shift," ReVision,Quarterly Journal of Speech, 65 (October9 (Summer/Fall 1986), 11-12.1979), 263-74. Solomon uses Northrop3These qualities are suggested in,Frye's notions of the mythoi of romanceamong other works, Gayle Kimball, ed.,to study the ERA.Women's Culture: The Women's9For an example of this strategy, seeRenaissance of the Seventies (Metuchen,Myra W. Isenhart, "An Investigation of theN.J.: Scarecrow, 1981) and Anne WilsonRelationship of Sex and Sex Role to theSchaeff Women's Reality: An EmergingAbility to Decode Nonverbal Cues,"Female System in the White Male SocietyHuman Communication Research, 6(Minneapolis: Winston, 1981).(Summer 1980), 316....

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CHAPTER 11 Contemporary Rhetoric III: Texts, Power, AlternathBS to reading certainly upset many traditionalists (and others), but it also has beenheralded as providing an important corrective to rigid readings that concentratepower in authors and their conscious control of texts. In this reSPeCt: dECOHStruc-tion is a counterpoint to the rhetorical tradition itself, 01': perhaps, the CUtting edgeof a new way in rhetoric. FEMINISM AND RHETORIC: CRITIQUE AND REFORM It is quite clear from the history of rhetoric that the vast majority of writers Whohave shaped this field of study were men. Recently, the problems for Womenthat emerge from a male rhetorical history have been pointed out by a numberof scholars, and their insight into the largely masculine history of rhetoric hasmade feminist criticism perhaps the most powerful recent movement in rhetoric.60Some of the same writers have also suggested that women have their own waysof speaking and of knowing, that is, their own rhetoric.61 Jana Sawicki notesthat "the work of Foucault has been of special interest to feminist social andpolitical theorists."62 His historical work has served to "free [his readers] for new possibilities of self-understanding, new modes of experience, new forms ofsubjectivity, authority, and political identity."3 The Loss of a Woman's Voice The feminist critique of rhetoric has been sweeping and powerful. Some feministcritics have identified rhetoric as a particularly destructive influence on thefortunes of women in the West. For example, Leslie Di Mare writes, "althoughother disciplines (history, philosophy, art, film, and so on) have been used by thepatriarchy to create the perception that women function best biologically, nonehas been used so effectively as the discipline of rhetoric."64 Sonja Foss writes that "two assumptions that connect gender with rhetoricundergird feminist criticism: (1) women's experiences are different from men's;and (2) women's voices are not heard in language?" Foss points out that "muchinquiry into rhetorical processes. . .is inquiry into men's experiences," which arein turn assumed to be "universal."66 But women's experience of the world, Shewrites, differs from that of men for a number of reasons. Biological differencesmay be obvious, but less obvious are the socialization processes that both 111511and women undergo, and that teach women to be quieter than men and to assumepositions of service. More to the point for rhetorical studies, women's "perceptions, expmeanings, practices, and values—are not incorporated into languag€-" Thui'women, as Foucault would argue, are denied a voice in Culture, because the"discourse has been excluded from the public realm.67 Moreover, they have, 28::denied access to power by being denied access to rhetoric. "Language, the": _ [:18asserts, "features men's perspectives and silences women's." Moreover, A'drlee isRich asserts that "in a world where language and naming are power, SllenCoppression, is violence."68 The exclusion of women from the rhetorical mainstream has result1055 of women's meanings, and thus, it is argued, in the loss of women t eriences, ed in the hernst'ilves ...

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Feminism and Rhetoric: Critique and Reform239as members of the social world. One critic writes, "[because] women have beenunable to give weight to their symbolic meanings they have been unable to passon a tradition of women's meanings to the world... they have been cut off fromthe mainstream of meaning and therefore have frequently been lost. "69 Anotherwrites of the "strong voices" of social leadership, that "when these strong voicesare feminine, the words are less often recorded and analyzed."70Victoria DeFrancisco and Marvin Jensen point out that speeches by women areinfrequently recorded and studied when compared to those by men." Such factsregarding systematic exclusion of women from the history of rhetoric and publicaddress are significant for a variety of reasons, but of perhaps the most immediateconcern is the role of women as contributors to a democratic society. "Women willnot be equal participants or successful negotiators," writes Sally Mcconnell-Ginet,"if the language code does not serve them equally."72A society's rhetorical practices are part of a larger language code. Somescholars contend that language itself, by its words and its structures, reflects amale view of the world." Moreover, students of language and culture, includingrhetorical critics, have not viewed women's rhetorical practices as significant.As a result, women have been left out of the history of rhetorical practice. Fosssuggests that feminist critics have sought to correct this error. "Rather thanassuming, for example, that significant rhetorical artifacts are speeches madein public contexts by famous rhetors... the feminist critic seeks out symbolicexpressions considered significant in women's lives in the context in which theyIstare likely to occur."74heghReconceptualizing RhetorictheneFoss suggests that the feminist perspective on rhetoric seeks nothing less thanthe reconceptualization of rhetorical theory." "Feminist criticism," she writes,whatric"does not simply involve the grafting on of women's perspectives to the existingn's;framework of rhetorical theory. Rather, it challenges the theoretical tenets ofwomenuchthe rhetorical tradition because they were developed without a considerationfeministsareof gender."/ This does not mean that feminist rhetoricians discard the history ofwant in redifiningshethetoric, though that history "was created largely by men to deal with their interestsncesand concerns." The feminist perspective, however, "encourages us to examine theRhetoricmenrhetorical tradition with a new consciousness of its less attractive features andumeimplications, and to create a new body of rhetorical theory that is more satisfyingto and reflects the perspectives of all people."76nces,Feminist rhetorical theorists have been interested in the rhetorical practices ofhus,carly feminist activists, and of groups who have systematically been denied accesstheirto rhetorical power. 77 Racial minorities, the illiterate, the poor, the disabled,beenand children have all been denied rhetorical access. The rhetorical techniquesFosswected to such groups might differ from those used to motivate empoweredriennegroups. Campbell comments, "Because oppressed groups tend to develop passivence ispersonality traits, consers, consciousness-raising is an attractive communication style toin thesople working for social change."78 Thus, the feminist perspective reflects anselvesnot be women.mcial and intellectual agenda that extends to the interests of persons who may...

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240CHAPTER 11 Contemporary Rhetoric III: Texts, Power, AlternativesConstructing Gender RhetoricallyOne rhetorical phenomenon of particular interest to feminist rhetoriciansis the construction of gender. "Feminist critics," writes Foss, "examine howmasculinity and femininity have been created and ask that these fundamentalconstructions of gender be changed" when they tend to silence or otherwisedegrade women. "Thus," Foss asserts, "feminist rhetorical criticism is activist-it is done not just about women but for women-it is designed to improvewomen's lives. "79Julia T. Wood has also pointed out the rhetorical nature of genderconstruction, noting that "social views of gender are passed on to individu-als through communication by parents, peers, and teachers. "80 Notions ofmasculinity and femininity are rhetorical in nature, symbolically constructedthrough numerous acts of persuasive communication. "For instance, in the early1800s, masculinity was equated with physical potency, but today masculinity istied to economic power and success." What accounts for this change? "Changessuch as these do not just happen. Instead, they grow out of rhetorical move-ments that alter cultural understandings of gender and, with that, the rights,privileges, and perceptions of women and men." Thus, Wood concludes, "anyeffort to understand relationships among gender, communication, and culturemust include an awareness of how rhetorical movements sculpt social meaningsof men and women."82Rhetoric as ConquestThe history of gender is, then, a rhetorical history that must be studied rhetorically.New methods of rhetorical criticism were needed to do justice to the study ofgender. Feminist critics writing during the past forty years have called in questionthe standard, male-dominated "history" of rhetoric. In a groundbreaking 1979essay, Sally Miller Gearhart argued that the history of rhetoric was a historyof male rhetorical theory and practice, and as such said little if anything aboutwomen's understanding of persuasion and symbol use generally."My indictment of our field of rhetoric springs from my belief that anyintent to persuade is an act of violence." Gearhart points out that men have"taken as given that it is a proper and even necessary function to attempt tochange others. "84 As a result, rhetoric "has spent whole eras examining andanalyzing its eloquence, learning how to incite the passions, move the will."She adds, "of all the human disciplines, it has gone about its task of educating others to violence with the most audacity. "85 Gearhart's principal concernwas with rhetoric's "intent to change people and things, [and] our attempt toeducate others in that skill."8 The rhetoric propounded by male theorists suchas Aristotle and Perelman, does not mind its own business, but rather mindsthe business of other people. In this office as meddler into the affairs of others,rhetoric is aggressive, violent.In his, The Art of Persuasion in Greece, George Kennedy wrote that "some ofthe Greek love of speech and argumentation is probably derived from a feeling thatoratory is a contest in which man exhibits something of his manliness. Phoenixtaught Achilles to be a doer of deeds and a speaker of words. Circumstances of a...

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Feminism and Rhetoric: Critique and Reform241less heroic age robbed many Greeks of the opportunity to be the former and thesemade up for it by exercise of the latter."/ Thus, oratory was a kind of battle usingwords rather than swords, one in which one man sought to defeat another by askill that drew applause rather than blood.Indeed, rhetoric-as-male-art was built on what Gearhart termed "the conquestmodel of human interaction" which finds its most egregious manifestation in"the conversion model of human interaction." The conversion model holds thatthe goal of rhetoric is to convert others to one's own views. Gearhart takes thisactivity to be fundamentally an act of violence not unlike rape. When I convertanother to my views, this critique affirms, I conquer the other under the justifica-tion that the conquest is actually good for the conquered, and is, in fact, what theconquered wanted. The rhetoric of the courtroom, the rhetoric of the legislature,and the rhetoric of the pulpit all "demonstrate precisely a violence not just ofconquest but also of conversion." Gearhart finds all such efforts at forceful changeto be fundamentally violent.Gearhart suggested an alternative, "non-persuasive notion of communication,"a theory of communication as information for or assistance to others."Communication can be a deliberate creation or co-creation of an atmosphere inwhich people or things, if and only if they have the internal basis for change, maychange themselves...." Encouragement, the recognition of differentness amongparticipants, enhancing the other's feeling of power, and a willingness to yield toothers all are important commitments of participants in such communication."Communication must be viewed as a "matrix" in which individuals are nurturedto become whole people. Such communication Gearhart describes as an"essentially . . . womanlike process," and the changes Gearhart calls for wouldbring about "the womanization of that discipline" of rhetoric." She concluded,"in order to be authentic, in order to be nonviolent communicators, we must allbecome more like women." 92Rhetoric as InvitationCan there be a non-persuasive practice of rhetoric, or does this question suggesta contradiction? Sonja Foss and Cindy Griffin have outlined what they term aninvitational rhetoric, one that does not require or assume intent to persuade on thepart of a source. "One manifestation of the patriarchal bias that characterizesmuch of rhetorical theorizing," they write, "is the definition of rhetoric aspersuasion." 4 Following Gearhart's analysis, these authors conclude that such aview of rhetoric and communication "disallow[s]... the possibility that audiencemembers are content with the belief systems they have developed, function happilywith them, and do not perceive a need to change."95Foss and Griffin's proposed solution to the received model centered onpersuasion, "is an invitation to understanding as a means to create a relationshiprooted in equality, immanent value, and self-determination." Rhetoric,understood in this way, seeks not to persuade, but rather to invite audiencemembers "to enter the rhetor's world, and see it as the rhetor does." Does suchThetoric seek change in the audience? Foss and Griffin suggest that "change may bethe result of invitational rhetoric, but change is not its purpose."98...

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CHAPTER 11 Contemporary Rhetoric III: Texts, Power, Alternatives242"Works," "Texts," and the Work of ReadingDiane Helene Miller has written that feminist scholars have "uncovered theoperation of patriarchal systems" that have functioned to exclude women fromlanguage-based disciplines such as rhetoric and literature. These same scholars have"chronicled the precise ways in which women's voices were suppressed or omittedfrom the historical record...." The critical task of discovering exactly whatchallenges women faced opened the way for developing a distinctly feminist theoryof rhetoric. Miller adds that in this way "the justification for feminist intervention"in telling rhetoric's story was "abundantly provided by observing that women hadbeen silenced and that, even when they found or created opportunities to speak,their words were largely erased from or hidden by history." She adds that feministrhetorical criticism has been "excavating and revaluing women's texts. "100However, this critical approach can become yet another way of marginalizingwomen by its tendency to demonstrate how the structures of Western intellectual inquiry left women out of the picture. Assembling the scattered evidences ofwomen's contributions does not affect the patriarchal structures themselves, doesnot reveal that "[women's] silencing is effected by configurations of gender that arebuilt into the very definition of rhetoric as it has been conceived in Western societyfrom the beginning."10 Another writer on women and rhetoric, Jane Sutton,arrives at a similar conclusion. She writes, "... I think we should abandon theseventy year old project of finding and recuperating rhetorical women for futureposterity. Rather, we need to figure out a way to recuperate women's rhetoricalexcellences while simultaneously altering the conditions that make her exclusionhappen again and again." New rhetorical structures are needed, ones "allowingthe full inclusion of women." 102Miller refers to the work of Roland Barthes in suggesting another trajectoryfor rhetorical investigations by feminist scholars. Barthes famously distinguisheda "work" from a "text"-referring by both terms to the same artifact. Findingrelatively fixed meanings suggests our approach to a literary "work," while afree or alternate interpretation suggests our approach to a "text." Miller writesthat for Barthes "language is viewed as 'polysemic' and unstable, comprised ofdominant meanings that can remain privileged only so long as they continuallysuppress alternate meanings." The work of the feminist rhetorician is to drawout these alternate meanings in such a way as to reveal the structures of maleprivilege hidden in texts.Textual deconstruction results in more than one reading of an artifact. Millerwrites, "deconstruction thereby introduces the possibility of reading a text both ina manner that exposes the workings of the dominant culture and for the purposeof generating resistant readings that oppose or modify that dominant meaning."The skilled work of the critic becomes paramount in approaching a "text." Powershifts from the author to the critic. Following this approach, even classic "works"such as Plato's dialogues may be read as "texts" that reveal hidden meanings andassumptions about rhetoric, the Western intellectual tradition, and the treatmentwomen have received from both. Critics find "language as the source of potentiallyempowering contradictions."105 "Ultimately," writes Miller, "it is not only theopportunity for critique but the potential for reinvention that provides the impetusfor a feminist engagement with the texts of the rhetorical tradition."106...

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Comparative Rhetoric243In proposing this approach, then, Miller advocates an alternative to priorfeminist scholarship that aimed at compiling catalogues of women's contributions.Such efforts may inadvertently create a false impression about social structuresthat worked systematically to exclude women's voices from the rhetorical domain,even as they occasionally allowed women themselves to speak in that domain.Feminism and the Ancient TraditionFeminist rhetorical theory represents both a break with and an interrogation ofmale-dominated rhetorics of the past. Nevertheless, some scholars have arguedrecently for connections between contemporary feminist rhetorical theory andrhetorical models originating in Greece and Rome. Antonio de Velasco, for instance,notes that Cicero's vision of the ideal orator, which joins the individual's moralvision with a life lived for the betterment of the community, has endured right downto the present. De Velasco discovers in Cicero a "fulfillment that shuffles betweenan inwardly personal and outwardly political sense of freedom and possibility." Atthis juncture, he asserts, there exists a connection between such ancient rhetoricaltheorists and contemporary feminist rhetoricians such as Bell Hooks.hooks and Cicero, writes Velasco, "share a vision of political agency whosefulfillment arises from the rhetorical and ethical exigencies of our experienceas individuals." hooks, like Cicero, "would also be an eloquent transgressor ofcontexts, one whose highest calling would be to bridge the critical, antihegemonicaims of transgression with the inventive, aesthetic aims of classical eloquence.This explicit attention to the subjectivity of the rhetorical critic marks a returnto rhetoric as a way of being and acting in the world, and not simply as a way ofknowing language." Teachers of rhetoric should emulate both Cicero and Hooks,and see themselves "as moved to create a certain kind of person."107...