The Intersectional Style of Free Love Rhetoric

Human Resource Development Quarterly, 2003

Journal of Gender Studies, 2007

Communication Theory: Racially Diverse and Inclusive Perspectives (First Edition), 2021

In this essay, I define womanist rhetorical theory in a textbook exploring racially diverse and inclusive perspectives of communication beyond the white normative cannon. In this expansive definition, I expand on my former published works to build a more specific frame to this theory and methodology and its usefulness in the discipline.

Feminist activism these last fifty years has been riven by disputes over the meaning of the concept WOMAN. To those who have participated in these movements, debates over the inclusion of trans women, lesbians, black women, and every other identity under the sun are painfully familiar. Yet many feminists believe that it is not a concept we can simply give up on; if we want to say that there is such a thing as sexism, that there are systematic patterns of discrimination against women, that we stand against these things wherever they exist – then we need WOMAN. It is our aim to show how WOMAN is still a concept we can organize around, a concept we can use to answer practical and political questions. But we do not propose some new definition to settle the various boundary disputes that have fractured feminist movements; rather, we propose a new structure for the concept. WOMAN is a multi-valued concept – to be more precise, it is what Mark Wilson calls a theory facade, a series of ideas that are closely connected with each other, yet which gives multiple answers to the question "Is this person a woman?" This idea allows us to simultaneously identify systematic patterns of discrimination and use WOMAN as an effective tool for political organization, while also recognizing that WOMAN is not one thing to all people. Rather than settling boundary disputes, we suggest that attention to the particular purposes we deploy WOMAN for help us tell where on the theory facade we are, and what particular prolongations of the concept are salient and useful. We begin (§2) with a brief history of the political use of WOMAN. Radical (white) feminism's break with the New Left in the years 1964-1972 reveals both the promise and the pitfalls of WOMAN as a tool for political organization. In §3, we discuss Sally Haslanger's recent attempts to avoid the problems of previous definitions of WOMAN, and show that while she avoids many of them, she nevertheless holds out hope for a definition of WOMAN which will settle border disputes, and do so prior to encountering particular political questions. While we take Haslanger's proposal to be the best possible version of such a monolithic definition of WOMAN, it nevertheless faces serious difficulties. In §4, we present Wilson's conception of a theory facade – a new philosophy of language which recognizes the complexities inherent in most actually existing concepts, a philosophy which can recognize the multi-valuedness of WOMAN. In §5, we provide some reasons to think that WOMAN forms a theory facade: disputed questions are not simply vague, not simply disputed, but rather reflect different reasons we might have for extending the concept WOMAN to such cases. We then (§6) consider some political applications of these ideas, including contemporary debates about women's colleges and women's athletic leagues. We conclude (§7) with some more speculative remarks about the implications of these ideas for theorizing and organizing around concepts like WOMAN.

Colloquium, Vol. 3 – Journal of the Arts Section, The Bhawanipur Education Society College (ISSN: 2350-1251), 2017

', which developed in the late twentieth century, is a concept which is celebrated by some and disliked by others (Genz and Brabon 2009: 1). It is a term used to refer to the cultural climate as well as young women since 1982 (Showden 2009: 168). In the 1980s, the media started labeling teenage girls and women in their twenties as the 'postfeminist' generation (Aronson 2033: 904). Postfeminism emerged in a number of academic, political and cultural contexts, from feminist analysis to media and popular journalism, neo-liberal discourse and postmodern theories (Genz and Brabon 2009: 1). The term postfeminism is sometimes used synonymously with terms and phrases such as backlash, new feminism, Girl Power, dome feminism and third wave feminism (ibid). Postfeminist discourse views women as autonomous, empowered agents but such claims have been challenged by various scholars. According to Kumar and Varghese, empowerment implies the transition from a state of enforced powerlessness to that of power (Kumar and Varghese, 2005: 55). This chapter explores the representation of women within the postfeminism context and its link to empowerment. Similar to the definition of feminism, which is categorized into different forms, it is not easy to provide a specific definition of postfeminism. Based on content analysis, Hall and Rodriguez in their analysis of postfeminism, identified that there has been a drastic reduction in the support for women's movement because some women : are becoming increasingly antifeminist; believe the movement to be irrelevant; have adopted a "no, but …" version of feminism (2003: 878). The "no, but…" version of feminism is described by Ouellette as women being "reluctant to define themselves with the feminist label, but they approve of and indeed demand equal pay, economic independence, sexual freedom, and reproductive choice" (Cited in Hall and Rodriguez 2003: 879). Further, postfeminists can be understood as a group of libertarian or individualistic feminists who strive towards the removal of state control from the personal sphere (Showden 2009: 169). Prominent postfeminists include Camille Paglia, Cathy Young and Rene Denfeld. On the cultural level, they act towards reviving traditional femininity and denounce the "victim feminism" of second wave feminism. According to the postfeminists, feminism has overemphasized on the victimization of women. They are of the opinion that women as a unit possess significant social power. The concept of "victim feminism" and "power feminism" was developed by Naomi Wolf in her book Fire with Fire (ibid169-172). According to her, victim feminism" "Urges women to identify with powerlessness even at the expense of taking responsibility for the power they do possess" (Wolf 1993: 148). Power feminism is depicted as a

Critical Times: Interventions in Global Critical Theory, 2022