c Aichinger 1

S. R. Aichinger

Dr. Latchaw

English 8800: Feminist Rhetoric

Wednesday, 22 September 2010

Weekly Reflection

Perhaps because of the brief discussion at the beginning of last week·s class in which I

(perhaps heavy-handedly) tried to explain, define, and defend feminism from my perspective, I

have been particularly sensitive to things in texts that try to achieve this same goal. In fact I

found it quite heartening that in both of Campbell·s articles (´Introduction to u


 

£ and ´The Rhetoric of Women·s Liberation: and Oxymoron£), I found many lines that

support and justify my brand of feminism. I say ´justify£ because as a man who considers

himself a feminist, I frequently encounter skepticism and varying levels of hostility from what

I·ll fall ´feminist purists£ that is, female feminists who believe that feminism is a women-only

club. I·ll even be so bold as to applaud Campbell for her inclusion and acknowledgment of men

in Women·s Liberation (´Introduction£ 8); it can be discouraging to feel passionately about a

thing for which one·s efforts, whether successful or not, go unrecognized.

I tend to agree with Campbell·s assessment of Women·s Liberation as a ´·state of mind·

rather than a movement£ (´Rhetoric£ 74); I fear the term ´movement£ carries with it

unnecessary pressures of great sweeping success and swift social change. Furthermore,

´movement£ sounds like a job or a duty, a thing with structure that someone puts a certain

amount of her or his time into, only to abandon on weekends and while at home Campbell

notes in ´The Rhetoric of Women·s Liberation£ how Sally Kempton·s feminism affected her

marriage (80). Thus, I think ´state of mind£ is a better angle from which to approach feminism
c Aichinger 2

and Women·s Liberation « that it is a way of living life, treating oneself, others, the world and

one·s role in it.

Karlyn Kohrs Campbell·s ´Introduction to u


 

£ reminds me of a

question I asked in a paper last semester which looked at the so-called feminism of Edward

Ballamy and his novel  
    (1888). The novel is about a man, Julian

West, who relies upon hypnosis-induced comas in order to sleep. One night his trance goes

uninterrupted and he sleeps for more than a century and wakes in the year 2000. Bellamy·s

point of the novel is, I suppose, to glorify a socialist government, but he states (sans evidence)

that the plight of women is erased, that they are happy, and the barriers that separate men from

women are, at long last, gone (184).

Because of his novel and his position as a socialist, he was considered to be part of a

group of male feminists, but as I argued in the paper, he was in fact just a man whose political

beliefs required that women achieve the same social and economic standing as men. That is, he

supported Woman·s Suffrage not for the sake of Woman, but for the sake of the success of his

political goals. I do not mean to imply that such a position is in any way negative; different

people have different political motives, but to use a label like


 so liberally as to ignore

one·s motives is to undermine the integrity of the efforts of those whose motives are more

accurately described as feminist.

My overarching question was something like   


 or   
 


 Is it merely the support and effort to further the social position of women regardless

of the  
or is it more complicated? And if the reason for such a political position matters,

 do motives and personal goals factor in the accurate application of such a label? To be

honest, it was a 10-12-page conference paper, and it was clear upon completion that took on a

project bigger than 12 pages would allow.  , my interest in the question remains, and as
c Aichinger 3

a man who considers himself a feminist, the 
 of asking and exploring the question

remains just as urgent.

If feminism were simply the task of righting the wrongs of legal inequities, it would be

left to lawyers and public servants, for I believe that today those issues go largely uncontested.

That is, though there are still men in the United States who believe women do not deserve

equal social and economic standing, the prevailing unpopularity of such a position would make

arguing such a case dangerous to his career (and safety).  , because it is not simply a

legal issue, but one of righting the wrongs of deeply-rooted social perceptions and behaviors,

more than just participants of the legal professions must work diligently to erase the ´notion

that ¶men are male !
 whereas women are human

 ",·£ to go unaffected by their

individual successes, and at long last be more than the wives of men (´Rhetoric£ 77).
c Aichinger 4

Works Cited

Bellamy, Edward.  
   #. (1888) New York: Penguin Books, 1986.

Print.

Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs. ´Introduction to u


 

.£  " 

$ " 


%
&
  ' (

 . Eds. Lindal Buchanan and

Kathleen J. Ryan. West Lafayette: Parlor Press, 2010. 7-18. Print.

Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs. ´The Rhetoric of Women·s Liberation: an Oxymoron.£ )! "(

*!
"
 59.1 (1973): 74-86. Print.