New Rhetoric for Women

Long after Astell, we hear two women’s voices talking about rhetoric again. Both Anzaldua and Campbell are concerned about women’s liberation and find new directions for rhetoric.

Revealing the conflicts existing in the female role, Campbell aims to define women’s liberation as “a unified, separate genre of rhetoric with distinctive substantive-stylistic features” (132). Since Plato and Aristotle, this is an important attempt I see to establish a genre of rhetoric especially for women. Astell, as one of the few female pioneers, argues for women’s right to study and practice rhetoric. But in her time, women were still subordinate to men. And in Astell’s view, the most appropriate space for women to practice rhetoric is domestic sphere while being a good rhetorician means being a good Christian first. Different from traditional rhetoric, the genre of rhetoric Campell tries to locate is very radical, transcending the division between the private and the public and pointing out the moral conflicts underlying women’s roles. Women’s personal experiences, used for consciousness raising (130), also become public and political (“The interrelationship between the personal and the political is central to a conception of women’s liberation as a genre of rhetoric”132) and more importantly, the genre of rhetoric Campbell attempts to define is anti-rhetorical, which “violate[s] the reality structure” (130) and challenges conventional definition of femininity. Thus, if we can call Astell’s rhetoric a revision, Campbell’s new rhetoric for women is a revolution, demanding that men and women have equal rights.

In a different situation, Anzaldua tries to create a new type of rhetoric, a mestiza rhetoric, on the basis of hybridity in her Borderlands/ La frontera. If the rhetoric Campbell defines is for all the women oppressed in a patriarchal society, Anzaldua’s rhetoric focuses on a particular group of women born between two or three cultures (though it is still useful for all women). This focus inevitably leads to an exploration of languages. As we can see, Anzaldua crosses over the boundary frequently in Borderlands/ La frontera, which becomes a mixture of different languages. Anzaldua’s examination of her own situation and the languages she uses is her special contribution to the study of rhetoric. Though Gates reveals the complex relationship between Black English and Standard English by analyzing the function of signifying in Black English, showing that language can be used in a subversive way by a particular people, both Black English and Standard English belong to one system – at least they share similar signs. Anzaldua and people like her live between two or several languages, with intense conflicts in values. The oppression from languages is multifold. First, Anzaldua believes that “language is a male discourse” (1586). To a great extent, women are traditionally silenced. Moreover, when one language is valued and other languages are devalued according to a particular hierarchy, it is difficult for people like Anzaldua who speak several languages to fit in (“Linguistic Terrorism” (1588)). However, Anzaldua is able to finally transcend duality and turn to multiplicity and inclusivity. She realizes that when the borderland consists of conflicts and ambivalence, it is also a place for transformation and liberation. The secret is “remaining flexible” and keeping “a plural personality” (1598) to create “a new value system” (1599). (Here her idea is similar to Burke’s in that her emphasis on a tolerance for ambiguity for transformation (1598).) She also goes back to tribal cultures and values picture language. “An image is a bridge between evoked emotion and conscious knowledge; words are the cables that hold up the bridge.” (1594) According to what I know, what Anzaldua has done here is original. Other rhetoricians we have talked about, including Richards, Weaver, and Burke, seem to be only concerned about one language and its function. Anzaldua’s examination of several languages and cultures apparently complicate all the issues those rhetoricians discussed. Anzaldua proves that in reality – no simply in the dominant culture – things are not that simple. For example, now we need to reconsider Richards’ triangle of symbol, thought (reference), and thing (referent). When a person uses several languages, there are more than one triangle existing. The same thing (referent) is related to several symbols and thoughts, with possible conflicts in values inherent in those thoughts. In this sense, Anzaldua radically changes the map of rhetoric, and a new land is exposed to us now.

    

Finally, though Campbell is more interested in a genre while Anzaldua is more concerned about languages, both of them find a new area for the study of rhetoric: the inner space, the struggling self. When redefining rhetoric, Burke already realizes the possible inner struggle for a person and points out the rhetoric addressed to the individual soul (1335). However, it is not related to gender and multiple cultures. Both Campbell and Anzaldua are sensitive to the conflicts in identity. Campbell believes that “What each women shares, however, is the paradox of having ‘to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.’” (134) Anzaldua also notes that “la mestiza undergoes a struggle of flesh, a struggle of borders, an inner war” (1597). They find that women in general and women like Anzaldua internalize conflicts, which leads to a struggle of identity. Though Campbell focuses on women oppressed by their gender roles in one system while Anzaldua examines women’s complex cultural identities between several systems, both of them contribute to the discovery of a new rhetorical space.