Chapter 13: Feminist Criticism

Communications 225 with Dfa at Wake Forest University

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By: Cassidy Forman
Created: 2011-04-30
Size: 14 flashcards
Views: 5

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Feminist Perspectives

Many viewpoints and definitions

victim feminism: innocent and powerless

power feminism: identify together

hedonestic feminism: past feminism to fun

Feminist Question

1. How do rhetorical texts become gendered?

2. How does that process blind audience to some realities and open them up to others?

Feminist Assumptions

1. Rhetorical acts are androcentric - dominated by men

2. Rhetorical texts are androcentric

3. traditional criticism is androcentric

rhetorical acts, texts and criticism is androcentric

Androcentric acts

men naturally get to speak and speak about men

to call those practices into question is a critical act in itself

Androcentric texts

text promoting human values or just male values

is what is good in the text good for everyone or just males

androcentric criticism

traditional criticism only takes things that are inherently male seriously

criticism favors abstraction over lived experiences, sets up dualities: male/good v. female/bad

Conventions to Critique

1. Intellectual - problematic because endorse duty over lived experience and cite males with good, females with evil

2. Mythic - tales of passive women dead until hero arrives

3. Role - who is recognized as authroity (role of authority is male) and how does one get heard, roles of women are demeaning so affect how men see women and how women see themselves

Policy Critique

FCs challenge how public policy has reflected a masculinist view of the world

how does a woman get taken seriously as a speaker/leader

call for invitational rhetoric - discourse with principles of equality, self-determination, feminist values

Hill/Thomas Hearings, 1991

Hill/Thomas Hearings

Anita Hill was an assistant for Supreme Court Justice nominee Clarence Thomas and said he sexually harassed her

He was able to keep his private life while hers was fair game

asymmetry of power thru gender

procedural claims aided him - used democratic governance as a scapegoat, blamed political process rather than condeming sexual harrassment

Logic of freedom v. Logic of Power - people with lof asked why Hill would contnue to work for Thomas after being treated that way, people with LOP

Hill/Thomas outcome

did publicize problem of public harrassment but shows the difficulties and embarrassment one can face by accusing a man in a position of power

Narrative Critique

FC is an act of resistence because much literature urges women to identify against themselves

multiple modes of expression: letters, plays, books, poetry show a different perspective on what is real

Representational Critique

how does media treat or present women? focus on how social policies are advanced or disadvanced by these portrayals

"male gaze" - women are the object, eye-candy, not a real person - camera, actor and spectator - women being taught to identify against themselves

In horror films women are punished for their gaze, powerless creature

Hollywood's options for women: bandit, property, or predator

Performative Critique

Gender socially taught by society, performative RC studies the embodiment of gender through written analysis, stage productions, and enactments of the two

Roles for the female comic:

the kid: gender-neutral

the bawd- keys on sex

the bitch- keys on dominance

the reporter - wry

the whiner- puts self down for femaleness

all 5 types perform marginality - ingriate, intimidate, supplicate - like everyday life

Corporeal Critique - subset of representational critique

focuses on bodily differences in gender and their implications for messages

culture messages rhetorically urge normalizing (meet the standard of beauty and femeninity) and homegenization (tells all women to look the same)

society teaches women how to see and evaluate their bodies

language of consumerism and culture of physicalism - tells women they're defective and insecure to make them buy products

About this deck

By: Cassidy Forman
Created: 2011-04-30
Size: 14 flashcards
Views: 5

About StudyBlue

“I have been getting MUCH better grades on all my tests for school. Flash cards, notes, and quizzes are great on here. Thanks!”
Kathy