The Feminization of Rhetoric and Composition Studies? Janice M. Lauer

    Yes, I know last week I wrote on Lauer's other article, but I am so fascinated by her writings.

    I enjoyed reading this article because it really talks about the struggles of Composition Studies in the beginning and continuing, plus it talks about why it may be considered "feminized." I find it so interesting how at the end of the article she goes into great deal how this field of study could be consider feminine. She talks about how she and colleagues would conduct summer rhetoric seminars and year-long NEH seminars, plus doctoral programs (which she felt was gutsy during this time due to them stepping out and saying that this is an okay area for graduate students to study in were "feminine" because "[they] helped[ing] to release in others unexplored resources and transformative powers." Earlier in the article she was talking about feminine traits and one caring for another's development. She even furthered the idea of this being women's work because rather it was a man or a woman overseeing program development, dissertation direction, and letters of recommendations pay raises or a lightened teaching load were very rare "rewards." Lauer goes on about other disciplinary acts that would continue the tale of feminization, such as bibliographic works and journal and encyclopedia editing, but yet these "feminine" acts are what shaped this field from the 1960's to the 1980's.

    This article really made me stop and think about why do I love the field of composition and why have I become so drawn to it? In some sense I wonder if it is the sense of "feminization" that is involved in this field. When I look at the list Lauer uses as feminine traits I very much see myself and it pushes that urge and desire even more within me to do my graduate work in this field because the idea of watching someone grow and change excites me, like it excited her. I like the statement she uses before the list, "…will foreground some "feminine" traits that have been 'deliberately chosen and enacted critically by women and men, not essentialized features derived from marginalization or oppression'." I find this statement incredibly important because so many people, especially women and extreme feminists feel that having feminine traits are oppression to women; however, if women will embrace this idea of feminine traits, it will not be oppression or something that holds us back. I also feel that if teachers and professors, especially women teachers and professors, take this into their classroom, their writing classrooms, they will find their peace and place. So many women teachers and professors have tried to become like the men that teach around them, but some students crave that feminization trait, that is how they are going to grow not only academically but also as a person.