New Rhetoric, Feminism, and Why I Don’t Care That I Care

I am going to take my final written test tomorrow for my comprehensive exams. I’ll let you know how I feel about it once I know that I’ve passed. In my reading for my tests, though, I found myself revisiting some composition theory and writings on rhetoric in an attempt to refresh my memory and prepare myself. What I found there was tiring, exhilarating, and reminded me why I loved comp theory so very, very, much.

Let me ‘splain. No, that will take too long; let me sum up:

I do not believe in transcendent truth or knowledge as it exists outside of language. Don’t confuse truth with knowledge in that previous sentence. I do believe the world (and universe) operates according to set of laws and that it will do so regardless of my awareness or explication of those laws. I do not, however, believe that I can speak or know those laws without language. Hence, knowledge does not exist outside of language. Truth I define as different from fact; the Earth (to the best of our human knowledge) revolves around the Sun and that is, therefore, a fact. It exists without any intervention by humans. That it is always wrong to hit a baby would be an example of transcendent truth; a truth is an abstract concept existing purely within the realm of human social constructions. I might agree that it is always wrong to hit a baby, but what if that baby was buried in Pet Cemetery and is now trying to kill you? That is why I don’t believe in transcendent truth.

Before we continue anyone who disagrees with my truth/knowledge construction should understand I am not proposing this construction as proper for everyone, but explicating what I believe. You can argue with it, therefore, (and I invite you to do so) but remember you are arguing with my world view from your world view, not disproving the conclusions I am about to reveal having come from said world view. We all still together?

Building from this there are a few main reasons I chose to communicate ideology that matters to me. 1) To explain why I believe what I believe and allow people to know me. My goals in these sorts of situation are not persuade but to share--a completely different urging. The hoped for outcome when I chose to explicate what I believe is for dialogue; I say I believe in X and someone else says “why is that?” or “I’m not sure I agree” and we talk about it. Perhaps we argue. Perhaps we throw things. But we dialogue about who believes what and why. 2) To debate with someone why I feel their particular ideology is flawed or to point out an error in some belief or conclusion they have reached. It should be known that in this case I am still interested in dialogue; regardless of whether persuasion happens, and I must be honest and admit that I hope it does, my goal is to share my conclusions about the subject and provide a different lens--not simply to convince.

The reason that I focus more on dialogue and less on convincing someone I’m right is because--going back to knowledge existing within language--I only feel someone knows what I know, critically and thoughtfully agrees with me, if they possess the language to encompass that knowledge as well. That means we must first dialogue before persuasion can happen; if agreement is accepted immediately nothing new has happened. A poorly understood idea has been exchanged for another poorly understood idea.

So, how does all of this fit in with feminism and why I don’t care that I care so much about feminism?

First, when I talk to people about gender issues (note the use of the word gender there please) I don’t want them to feel guilty, feel angry, or follow me blindly. When I talk about how women still connect their moral worth with their virginity, or wonder why it is all of my female friends feel intimidated to argue passionately with my male friends, or contemplate the implications of always being accused jokingly (except not) of being an irrational, emotional, over-zealous feminist--I want other people, hopefully those I’m talking to, to understand that none of that is okay. It might not be life threatening; it might not even be life shaking, but it’s not okay. In order for such a realization to happen the point must be for us to converse or share in dialogue, not persuade or convince.

Now despite the problems with allowing someone, anyone, to see that I care about gender issues, I do it anyway. Usually only in particular situations, but that I chose any situation outside of an enclosed gynocracy to do so could be considered silly by some and poor arguing by others. In particular there are those that would argue I am only causing myself more pain instead of empowerment by focusing on these issues. There are others that accuse me of losing the argument from the moment I show emotion (and there are probably at least three of you saying to yourself right now, “Crap--is this about me?” And it is, but there have been many, many more than only you three and there will be many, many more so don’t feel special or pointed out).

My response is this: based on the aforementioned premise that knowledge is only available through language I state that language about ideology is never impersonal for me. Therefore, I have to care. I can’t not care. If I don’t care then I don’t care about myself, my world, or all the myriad of factors that have created me. To not care is to pretend that every time I’ve felt inadequate because I wasn’t woman enough and every time I felt inadequate because I wasn’t man enough didn’t happen. It did happen. I got over it, but it happened. Part of the reason I got over it, too, is because I acknowledged that it happened, examined it, and created new knowledge, through language, about what it meant that it happened and what it was going to mean for me. I wouldn’t have gotten over it if I hadn’t cared; I would have repressed it. That’s not true for everyone, but it is true for me, and, judging by the wealth of literature available, it is true for a great many other people as well.

Secondly, if, as soon as I show emotion, someone judges me, stereotypes me, or stops listening to me, then they are not in a place to dialogue and our conversation becomes pointless. They don’t want to hear what I have to say, they want to argue, debate, or tear down. With a situation such as this I am not interested in any of those three things. That I’m passionate demonstrates that it matters, and that it matters should demonstrate that the person conversing with me should care. If my passion, emotion, “female irrationality,” etc. serves instead as a marker that I am vulnerable, weak, or irrational then I am attempting to converse with someone who is incapable of recognizing inherent gender stereotypes in their ideology. And that’s okay; they don’t have to recognize them, but it doesn’t mean that I’m going to dialogue with them. If I “convince” them of anything, it will only be that I’m a “cool” girl, or “just one of the boys,” but still somehow removed from all the other “crazy females” they’ve known. That’s not what I want to do. I don’t want to be the exceptional female. I just want to be me, and I am just a female in the same way that I am just a human being.

I want the ways in which I’m exceptional to have nothing to do with how I am not like a group that has been defined based on notions of power relations. I do not want to be exceptional in spite of my race, gender, or upbringing, and I don’t want to be exceptional because of those things. I want those things to be aspects that have shaped my world view and the lenses through which I have seen things others without those lenses have not. If I have to deny how I feel and what I am in order to persuade, then I am no longer arguing what I believe.

I care about the things that I feel shape and affect the world. I’m not limited by that, and I’m not ashamed of that.

This would be one of my truths, though not transcendental by any means.