Feminist research methodologies. Who has the right way?

From the '70's forward feminists and a few men have discoursed and sometimes argued about the correct methodologies to recover or revise the past in order to rediscover women who rightly should be recognized as rhetorics along side the men who have been noted as the rhetorics of history.

I am not clear yet what the different methods are to do research but I shall make a prediction. two familiar names are Patricia Bizzell and Andrea Lunsford among dozens of others who are leaders in this journey to discover the truth about female leaders in rhetoric of their time. In doping research says Bizzell is to do research on lives and theories and show some of their work, must show evidence and analysis to seek proof of objective Truth. Objective is the key word.

In doing this recovery work some feminist researchers have been admittedly subjective about their work as they are emotionally involved. Surprisingly Bizzell says in this case researchers recovering silent voices of women writers who have not been placed in history must approach differently ; that is they must have emotional involvement; they cannot be neutral in this case.

Still othes tried to play down the subjectivity and emotionin order to elevate and justify their argument. In some cases women were preachers , used language publicly and in other situations they were silenced, unrecognized along with the men orators of their time.

There are many unsolved debates about how this recovery should happen. For example should there be a separate female history or should women who were discovered be incorporated along with the men already know as rhetorics of the time. Some women were silenced by the use of penname and some women were silenced by playing the good (quiet) girl, high achieving but lacking an authoritative voice.

Karlyn Kohrs Campbell discovered and wrote about female rhetors from the 19th century who wrote about grievances and trying to justify their right to speak in public. With her discovery of audience awareness and persuasion Campbell could use these voices to instruct contemporary feminist theory.

As I spoke of, when discussing Lunsford "history of rhetoric class"including both genders, feminist researchers this time Bizzell and Herzbergs wrote an anthology including historic female speakers along side and in the same context as themales. from Aspasia to Christine de Pazan rather then creating one for women only.

No we already know that everything is an argument so the feminist rhetors had their version of Elbow and Bartholomae. If the men differ why should not the women have a pubic conflict? This famous debate was between Biesecker and Campbell from 1992-1993. Biesecker critiques feminist research that mimics the traditional mainstream ( male dominated). In doing so she was attacking Cambell a representative of feminists who Bieseckers accuse of reinforcing hierarchies and an causing the oppressed to be silenced. Campbell answered saying it was Biesecker approach that silenced women, by stating that all women have equal rhetorical ability.Bieker states that the problem is the canon needs to be modified to be more feminist.

Then Lunsford helped out the cause by creating a huge anthology of feminist writers that adhere to "forms, strategies and goals." They had different methologies but this diversity made it stronger.Lunsford also co- authored an article called "Border Crossings.: Intersection of Rhetoric and Feminism." Cheryl Glenn also wrote a single author book to study female rhetoric from the classical period. Her methodology was remapping rhetorical history by combining historiograpahy ( here ' s where I am lost) and recovery.

One of my questions is , If women were non citizens it would be difficult for their voice to be heard publicly but worse women were denied education. I suppose women could have been orators , preachers but there could not have been compositionists.

By 1999 the voices of African American and Native American voices were heard. the article tells of of one more debate between feminists. Xin Liu Gale argues that feminists have moved too far away from mainstream academics and cannot be trusted to be scholarly or truthful. The point she did not get was that postmodern historiography does not attempt to do away with notion of truth but attempts to think of truth differently.

The voice of reason : Bizzell says that gale is uncomfortable with the personal involvement of much feministic research and remember, Bizzell says this subjective approach is necessary. The writing of feminists grew after 2002-3 , and the rhetorical canon became open to debate.
Bizzell states that the canon should be "updated" and of course that was the beginning of another argument. Chicano feminists finally joined the discourse. By now in the 21st century the feminist rhetoric is considered mainsteam and is guided by paradigms of recovery and revision, flexible and individual for each researcher.