8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 1/23
Feminism in Composition: Inclusion, Metonymy, and DisruptionAuthor(s): Joy Ritchie and Kathleen BoardmanSource: College Composition and Communication, Vol. 50, No. 4, A Usable Past: CCC at 50: Part2 (Jun., 1999), pp. 585-606Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/358482 .
Accessed: 02/12/2013 03:08
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
.
National Council of Teachers of English is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
College Composition and Communication.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 2/23
JoyRitchieand
KathleenBoardman
Feminism in Composition:Inclusion, Metonymy, and
Disruption
t a time when composition is engaged in
clarifying its theoretical, political, andL pedagogicalhistories, it is appropriateto
construct a story of feminism's involvement in the disciplinaryconversa-
tions. Despite the recent burgeoning of feminist perspectives in our disci-
pline, it is not easy to delineate how feminism has functioned over the pastthree decades to shape and critiqueour understandingsof the genderedna-
ture of writing, teaching, and institutions. Although some accounts suggest
that feminism, until recently, has been absent or at least late-blooming inthe field, we find a more complex relationship in our rereading of essaysand books in composition written from a feminist perspective-in particu-lar, the many accounts of personal experience in the field written by femi-
nists and by women since the 1970s. In this essay we look, and look again,at the few articles and notes that appeared in CCC,CollegeEnglish,and
EnglishJournal n the early 1970s. We also focus on feminist retrospectiveaccounts-re-visions of composition written since the mid-1980s.
In writing this brief criticalhistorical survey, we have found ourselves
working from various impulses. First,we want to document and celebratethe vitality of feminism in composition, from its early manifestations in
the small scattering of essays published in the 1970s (some of them fre-
quently cited, others forgotten) to the explosion of feminist theory and
JoyRitchie s an associate professor of English and Women's Studies and Co-coordinatorof
Compositionat the Universityof Nebraska-Lincoln.KathyBoardmans an associateprofessorof
English and Director of the CoreWriting Programat the Universityof Nevada,Reno. This es-
say emerged from ten years of conversations and collaborative conference papers in which
we've explored the implications of feminist theory for our teaching and research. These in-clude presentationson feminist ethics and qualitativeresearch,feminist issues in the teachingof rhetoric, and ethical and pedagogical problems connected with impersonation n teach-
ing. Our work also reflects our shared history as women in composition and rhetoric, as sec-
ondary Englishteachers, and as college teachers of writing, autobiography,and the rhetoricofwomen writers.
CCC50.4/June 1999 585
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 3/23
586 CCC 0/June 1999
well-documented feminist practiceof the last decade.We wish to point out
that much early feminist work in composition is not documented in our
officialpublications, having
occurred in informalconversations,
in class-
rooms, and in committee meetings. At the same time, we want to suggest
ways to examine and theorize experiential accounts--both published and
unpublished-of feminism in composition. We must also consider serious-
ly the causes and consequences of the delay in feminism's emergence in
the published forums of our discipline and the extent to which feminism,
despite its recent vitality,has remained contained or marginalizedin com-
position. Finally,we hope to speculate on the positive and negative poten-tial of inclusive, metonymic, and disruptive strategies for feminism's
contribution to composition'snarratives.In the past decade, feminists have been visibly active in our discipline.
They have examined the subjectivityof the gendered student and the posi-tion of women writers in the profession. Questioning assumptions about
genre, form, and style, they have provided an impetus to seek alternative
writing practices.Feministperspectiveshave producedanalyses of the gen-dered nature of the classroom, the feminization of English teaching, the
working conditions for female teachers, and the implications of feminist
theory for scholarship.Feminist scholars like Andrea Lunsfordand Cheryl
Glenn have begun rewritingthe rhetorical traditionby reclaiming, refigur-ing, and regendering Rhetorica. They are also critiquingearlier construc-
tions of history and scholarship in composition. And from a different
direction, scholars are drawing upon feminist, AfricanAmerican, lesbian,Native American, and class-based examinations of difference in order to
complicatedefinitionsof diversitywithin composition.Two recent essay col-
lections, SusanJarrattand LynnWorsham'sFeminism ndCompositiontudies:
In OtherWords, nd Louise Phelps and Janet Emig'sFemininePrinciples nd
WomensExperiencen AmericanCompositionndRhetoric,specially highlightthe strengthof feminism(s) in composition and show how importantfemi-
nism has been in shaping women's definitions of themselves, their work,and their commitment to pursuingquestions of equity in the field.
Yet in the 1970s, while the work of composition as an emerging dis-
cipline was occurring right next door to, down the hall from, or in the
basement under the work of feminist linguists and literaryscholars, com-
position's officialpublished discussionswere largelysilent on issues of gen-der. There is little explicit evidence of systematic theorizing about genderfrom the 1950s to the late 1980s. As late as 1988, Elizabeth
Flynncould
write, Forthe most part...the fields of feminist studies and compositionstudies have not engaged each other in a serious or systematicway (425).Indeed, when we began this study, we framed it as a paradox:priorto the
mid-1980s, feminism seemed absent from composition but present among
compositionists. From those early investigations we pulled one useful re-
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 4/23
RitchieandBoardman/Feminismn Composition87
minder: that the connections of composition and feminism have not been
an inevitable result of the presence of so many women in the field. But
subsequent conversations with a numberof
longtimeteachers and schol-
ars,who spoke to us about their own feminist beliefs and activitiesin com-
position dating back to the 1960s, reminded us that the near-absence of
feminism from our publicationsdoes not constitute absence from the field.
The absence-presence binaryalso did not help us explain our own histo-
ry as feminists in composition. As secondary English teachers, teachingwomen's literature and applying our feminist perspectives to high school
courses in the 1970s, we moved into graduatecourses and tenure track obsin composition in the late 1980s and 1990s. Reflectingon our own experi-
ence, we recognizedthat much of the creativefeminist energy in composi-tion's history is not visible in the publicationswe searched:it appearedin
informal conversations, in basement classrooms, and in committees on
which women served. This energy might be viewed as ephemeral, yet we
can testify, along with others, that it createdsolidarityamong women, influ-
enced students and colleagues, and helped form an epistemology on which
later feminist work could grow. Sharon Crowley reminds us further that
composition allowed and acknowledged women's participation n teachingand scholarshipbefore many other disciplinesbegan to do so-as we see
from the important work of Josephine Miles, WinifredHorner,Ann Ber-thoff, Janet Emig and others. Still, Theresa Enos' collection of anecdotes
from women in the field over the last several decades cautions us that the
job conditionsand securityformany of these practitionerswere terrible.
Crowley's and Enos' different perspectives point again to a history of
women and feminism in composition that cannot be constructed in a tidynarrative. In the documents and accounts we have read and heard, we
find three overlapping tropes that shed light on the roles feminism has
played in composition and in the strategies women have used to gain a
place in its conversations: (1) Following the pattern of developing feminist
thought in the 1970s and 1980s, many early feminist accounts in compo-sition sought inclusionand equality for women. (2) More recent accounts
like those of Louise Phelps and Janet Emig posit feminism as a subterra-
nean unspoken presence (xv), and Susan Jarrattand LauraBradysuggestthe metonymy r contiguity of feminism and composition. (3) Also devel-
oping during this time has been what feminist postmodernists define as
disruptionand critique of hegemonic narratives-resistance, interruption,and
finallyredirection of
composition'sbusiness as usual.
While it's tempting to posit this as a linear, evolutionary set of tropes-that women have grown out of and into as we've matured theoretically-we find it too restrictive o do so. These narrativescoexist and have multiplefunctions, often dependingon the historical or theoreticalcontext in which
they are read. For example, some early attempts at inclusion, based on
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 5/23
588 CCC50/June 1999
experiential accounts, function also as disruptivenarratives,and a number
of very recent accounts might be characterizedas primarily metonymicnarratives.
Furthermore,each of these
tropeshas both
advantagesand dis-
advantagesfor feminism in composition:for example, a narrative aimed at
includingwomen may also function to containfeminism within narrow
boundaries. We also emphasize that we are not interested in categorizingnarratives(and narrators)as inclusionist, disruptionist, nd so on. Rath-
er we hope to tease out the tropes, show how these narratives can be re-
read in multiple ways, and suggest how each one enacts one or more
epistemological positions with respect to women's experience, identity,and difference.
As we reread for these rhetorical strategies, we find that the concep-tions of experience in each of these sets of narratives also require exami-
nation. Most of the feminist writing in composition is grounded in
accounts of personal experience. For example, many women have told
powerful stories of their firstrecognition of their marginalityin a field theyhad previously thought of as theirs. We must beware of reading these
moving accounts too transparentlyand untheoretically. In her essay Ex-
perience, Joan W. Scott offers a useful caution:
Whenexperiences takenasthe originofknowledge, he visionof the indi-vidualsubject the personwho hadthe experienceor thehistorianwho re-
counts t)becomes hebedrock f evidenceuponwhichexplanations built.
Questionsabout the constructed atureof experience,abouthow subjectsare constitutedas different n the firstplace, abouthow one's vision is
structured-aboutanguage or discourse) ndhistory-are left aside.(25)
Scott reminds us that narratives of experience should be encountered not
as uncontested truth but as catalysts for further analysis of the conditions
that shape experience.We want to be clear about our view of experience: we are not dismiss-
ing such accounts but only suggesting ways to read and listen to them. The
problemis not that these narratives are personal or that they are experien-tial, but that they are often untheorized. In understanding both the value
and the limitations of feminist uses of experience in our field, we have
found the work of Scott and of Rosemary Hennessy particularly useful.
Both address experience as a construct and show ways to continue to
value women'sexperiences
as sources ofknowledge;
butthey
alsosuggestways to theorize experience to make it a more criticalrhetorical tool. Scott
advises us to keep in mind that experience is at once always already an
interpretationand is in need of interpretation.What counts as experienceis neither self-evident nor straightforward; t is always contested, alwaystherefore political (37). Hennessy views experience as a critical tool for
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 6/23
Ritchie ndBoardman/Feminismn Composition89
examining the values and ideologies used to construct women's experi-ences, but she adds an important qualificationfor ensuring that women's
experience is not narrowlyread. Any criticaltheorizing of women's experi-ence must be undertakenin the context of a continual re-contextualization
of the relationshipbetween personal and group history and political prior-ities (Minnie Bruce Pratt, qtd in Hennessy 99) and in relation to the
counterhegemonic discourses of others (99). We have found that by at-
tending to certain feminist tropes in our discipline, we can not only beginto tease out the relationshipsbetween composition and feminism, but also
gain a better sense of the importantdialecticalrelationshipsbetween expe-rience and theory.
Adding Women: Narratives Aimed at Inclusion
Correctingthe long absence of women from intellectual and political land-
scapes, insertingwomen's perspectivesinto contexts dominated by patriar-
chy, and giving women equal status with men have constituted one of the
central feminist projects-that of inclusion.This effort to add women has
been criticizedretrospectivelyas ineffective because it arises from Enlight-enment conceptions of individualautonomy and the unquestioned truth
of individualexperience. Discussions of inclusion of women as women mayreinforce essentialist or biological definitions of gender, and they often ne-
glect to theorize the discoursesthat keep women and minorities marginal-ized. Most critically,many attempts to include women in the conversations
of the field have in fact added only white, middle-class,heterosexual wom-
en. Despite these criticisms,we need to reread these attempts from their
cultural context and for their first steps toward gender awareness. As Su-
zanne Clarkreminds us, feministschallenging a certain kind of feminism
in composition represent a luxury: women now have a sufficient number
to play out [their] anxieties of influence (94). Our analyses need to take
into account cultural and historical contexts out of which women were
working that made these assumptionsviable at the time.
Some of the first published evidence of the initiative to add women to
the conversation came in NCTEpublications aimed primarilyat secondaryteachers. The March 1972 EnglishJournalprinted The Undiscovered,RobertA. Bennett's NCTEpresidentialaddress of the previous November.In highlighting theundiscovered human resources of our professional or-
ganization (352),Bennett
includes girls and women among those peo-ples of American society who have not yet been allowed to make their
fullest contribution :
The talents of the great number of women teachers who are today still non-
members of the Council or who are inactive in Council affairs, provide
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 7/23
590 CCC50/June 1999
anotherundiscovered esource.As a professionalorganization,we must
reachout to these womenandencouragehem... to becomefullpartnersn
our commoneffort. 353)
After urging the organization to examine wage and promotion policies,document discriminatorypractices,and work for recognition of women in
curriculumand pedagogy, Bennett declares, NCTEmust take a stand for
recognition of the contribution of women to society and to our profession.We have not done it. Let'sget at it (353).
Two months later,EnglishJournalcarried a short OpenLetterfrom Ja-
net Emig, Chairwoman,NCTECommittee on the Role and Image of Wom-
en, asking the membership to nominate committee members and to sendinformation about any instancesof discriminationagainst women in the
profession, either in the form of a brief narrativeor, if you are the woman
involved, as a signed or as an anonymous case history (710). A directre-
sult of NCTE'snew commitment to include women, Emig'scommittee was
soliciting stories that would potentially disrupt business-as-usual in the
profession, (a practicethat TheresaEnos repeated more than 20 years later
for Gender Roles and Faculty Lives in Rhetoric and Composition). The CCCC
Committee on the Status of Women also continues to solicit narratives,in
various forums, in order to ascertainmore clearly the status of women in
the field.
While a review of CCCrom the late 1960s through the late 1980s un-
covers few essays or other documents that would indicate a gendered fem-
inist consciousness in composition, two landmark special issues of College
English, n 1971 and 1972, report on the newly formed MLACommission
on the Statusof Women in the Professionand document courses designed
by feminists in English to reshape the curriculum from the standpoint of
womenstudents. The narratives in these special issues set the pattern forthe impulse a decade or more later in composition to add women to its
perspectives. Arising from the writers' own consciousness-raising experi-ences, the narratives articulate the potential for student and teacher sub-
jectivities that are not neutral or universal but uniquely influenced by the
textual, social, and political context of gender. Florence Howe's impas-sioned 1971 essay, in which she inserts her own personal account of
discrimination,reports the inequities in women's status she uncovered as
chair of the MLA commission. In addition to these firstattempts to address
women's low status in the profession, Howe and Elaine Showalter both il-lustrate their efforts to rectify the lack of women's texts and perspectivesin English courses. Showalter describes her newly organized course, The
Educated Woman in Literature, n practicalterms, and Howe presents a
writing course she designed to help women alter their self-image from
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 8/23
RitchieandBoardman/Feminismn Composition91
centuries of belief n their inferiority,as well as from male-dominated and
controlled institutions (863). A second special issue of CollegeEnglish (Oc-
tober 1972) contains important essays concerning women's inclusion inthe discipline of English, among them Tillie Olsen's Women Who are
Writersin Our Century:One Out of Twelve and Adrienne Rich's When
We Dead Awaken: Writingas Re-vision. Each of these essays seeks to in-
sert women-their perspectives, their writing, their lived experiences-into a disciplinefrom which they had been excluded.
In TakingWomen Students Seriously, her important 1978 essay em-
phasizing the necessity of including women's perspectives in education,Adrienne Rich describedhow the experience of changing from one teach-
ing context to another allowed her to translate the criticalquestions sheasked as a writing instructor of minority students into parallel questionsshe needed to ask about women students:
How does a womangaina sense of her selfin a system...whichdevalues
workdoneby women,denies the importance f femaleexperience,and is
physically iolent towardwomen?... Howdowe, aswomen,teach women
studentsa canonofliteraturewhichhasconsistentlyxcludedordepreciatedfemaleexperience? 239)
These early essays set a pattern for subsequent inclusive questions that
women in composition began asking. Beginning by describingtheir own
consciousness-raising experiences in their essays, the writers moved on to
document the concrete changes in teaching and criticalperspectives theyadvocated.What are women's experiences in classrooms, in institutions?
How do women use language? How are women writers different from
male writers? Questions like these included women in ways that had not
beenpossible
in agender-blind
ield ofcomposition; they
set thestagefor writers in the 1980s like Pamela Annas and ElizabethFlynn to engage
them further in work that again sought women's inclusion in the field and
sparkedfeminist discussions for a newer generation of women.1In the late 70s, the trope of inclusion appearedin essays applying femi-
nist language researchto compositionby investigatingclaims made by Rob-in Lakoff n her 1975 Language nd Woman's lace-that women, by using a
ladylike middle-class language, contributed to their own oppression. La-
koff's argument reflected the dominance approachto women's language
use that was prominent among feminists of the 70s: attributinggender dif-ferences in language mainly to social oppression of women. Joan Bolker's1979 CollegeEnglisharticle, TeachingGriseldato Write, s a practitioner'saccount of her experience strugglingwith the absence of voice and author-
ity in the work of good-girl student writers. The many citations of this
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 9/23
592 CCC50/June 1999
short article in the past 19 years suggest that it has resonated with feminists
in composition. In 1978, two articles examining women's different tyle
appearedin CCC.n The Feminine Style:Theory and Fact, Mary P.Hiattdiscussesher study of the stylistic features of women's and men's writing.She reports clearevidence of a feminine style... [that] is in fact rather dif-
ferent from the common assumptions about it (226). Contraryto Lakoff's
generalizations about women's oral language, women's written style, ac-
cording to Hiatt, has no excesses of length or complexity or emotion
(226). In Womenin a Double-Bind: Hazardsof the Argumentative Edge,Sheila OrtizTaylordraws composition instructors'attention to the invisi-
ble, though real, disadvantage hat women students face in writing cours-
es because both the methods and the goals of such classes are alien tothem (385). She arguesthat the competitive, impersonalstyle of tradition-
al argument alienates women; she urges instructors to validate conversa-
tional tone, dramatictechnique, and intimate reader involvement (389).
Among the first composition articlesto train the spotlight on women's
language experiences, these essayshighlight deficiency. (Ironically,as in La-
koff's book, an essentialized woman is both includedand foundlacking.)Bolker,Taylor,and Hiattresponddifferently o the idea thatwomen students
must have specialproblemsbecause a feminine style representsdeficiency.
Tayloruses the language of victimization to describe the woman student:She must feel that something is wrong with her, a self-destructivedisap-
proval common enough in women.... of course, much of the damage has
been done by the time our students reach us. They have been taught a spe-cial language (385). But Tayloradds that a feminine style of argument is
only deficient because society has refused to validate it. Bolker believes
thatwith more self-esteem and voice, the good girlcan be a contender in the
arena of the dominant discourse. Hiattimplies that readers need to be more
discerningabout the genderdifferencesthey think hey see. None of these ar-
ticles is heavily theorized;with the possible exception of Hiatt's,they arise
from and return directlyto classroomexperience. Because they do not at-
tend closely to larger systemic issues of power and discourse, these studies
also make it possiblefor feminist concerns to be contained, encapsulated,or
dismissed as women's issues. Yetessays like these deserve creditfor chal-
lenging the field'sgender-blindness by insisting that women be included in
narrativesof classroomwriting practices.Theyhave contributedto a sense of
intuitive connection between composition and those who ask, at least im-
plicitly,Whatdifference
mightit make if the student
(orteacher)is
female?
Making Intuitive Connections: Narratives of Metonymic Relationship
In their introduction to TeachingWriting: edagogy,Gender,ndEquity,one of
the first books to connect writing and feminism in composition, Cynthia
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 10/23
Ritchie ndBoardman/Feminismn Composition93
Caywood and Gillian Overing say that despite the absence of explicit dis-
cussion, they had experienced as practitionersan intuitiveunderstandingof a fundamental connection between feminism and revisionist
writingtheory.While highlightingan absence of attention to gender, they also pos-it a more complicated readingof this absence by pointing to the nearly par-allel lives of composition and feminist theory. Accordingto this story, the
two have run for years in the same direction, along close trajectories;to
bring the fields together it is necessary only to notice the shared goals and
common directions, and to make connections more visible and explicit.
Caywood and Overingask, Atwhat point did our parallelinterests in fem-
inism and revisionist writing theory converge? (xi). More recently Susan
Jarratt,LauraBrady,JanetEmig,and LouisePhelpshave suggestedthat theboundaries have been permeablebetween feminist work in literarystudies,the social sciences, and composition. Thisresonates with our own sense, as
practitionersin the 70s, that boundaries between feminism and composi-tion were often markedby unarticulatedoverlapsand crossovers. Thisper-
meability may have been partlythe result of the interdisciplinarynature of
composition, which drew for its theoreticalsubstancefrom linguistics, cog-nitive and developmental psychology, and literarycriticism. But while this
intuitive connection may have created alliances among women in compo-
sition and feminists in other fields, it may also have delayed the emergenceof feminist theory and continued its marginalization n the field.
Various actorsaccount for the intuitive sense of connection that many of
us have experienced and narrated. First, emerging pedagogical theories
spoke a languagethat resonated with feminism's concerns of the time: com-
ing to voice and consciousness, illuminating experience and its relationshipto individualidentity, playing the believing game ratherthan the doubting
game, collaboratingrather than competing, subverting hierarchy in the
classroom. These watchwords characterizedcomposition'slink to liberalpo-liticaland socialagendassharedby feminist scholars in other disciplinesand
aimed at challenging establishedtraditions,epistemologies,and practicesof
the academy.2Sharon Crowley explicitly connects Dewey's progressivismwith Janet Emig's development of processpedagogies, arguing that this
link between progressivismand process pedagogieswas vitally importantin
reconceptualizing composition as an art rather than a course, and be-
cause its theorists discovered a way to talk about student writing that
authorizedteachersto think of themselves as researchers 17). Thisrecon-
ceptualizationresonatedfor feminists
theoreticallyand
politically.Secondly, at that time many women in the profession were doing dou-
ble-duty as composition and literature teachers. Among the CollegeEnglishauthors represented in the special issues we have pointed out, Florence
Howe taught composition and wrote about how her course focused on
women, and Adrienne Rich taught writing with Mina Shaughnessy in the
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 11/23
594 CCC50/June 1999
SEEKprogram at CCNY.Many feminist composition instructors, comingfrom literarycriticalbackgrounds,continued readingin their fields and ap-
propriatingwhatever feminist approaches seemed useful-much as com-positionists of the 80s and 90s have appropriatedthe work of Belenky,
Clinchy, Goldberger,and Tarule and poststructuralistfeminists.
The material conditions surrounding women in composition have also
contributed to a felt sense of the feminist connections to our work. Com-
position was and still is constructed as women's work, and the majorityof
workers were women; many of us teaching writing or working on compo-sition degrees during the 70s and 80s were newly arrived from secondary
teaching. Surrounded by colleagues with similar career patterns, we en-
tered conversations that enacted an interplay between our lives and ourprofessional work. The drawbacksof the feminization of the field were
not theorized until several years later.
Finally, as the field developed in the 1970s, although journal editors
and the professional hierarchy were primarilymale, the names of women
were also moving into prominent places: Mina Shaughnessy, Janet Emig,Ann Berthoff, Sondra Perl, Anne Gere, LillianBridwell-Bowles, and oth-
ers were writing many of the important articles and books we studied.
Many feminists referwith appreciationto the foremothers, irst for their
presence as models, and secondly for their ideas which, though not articu-
lated in terms of gender, are often read, in retrospect, as consistent with
feminist practice. In many cases, these ideas have to do with nurturing,collaboration,revisioning, and decentering.
Some retrospective accounts use theory to make the composition-feminism connections less intuitive, more explicit. Turning from fore-
mothers to midwives, CarolynEricksen Hill uses feminist theory to read
composition history through the gendering of practices,of theories, and of
thefield itself.3 She reads the label midwives back onto male compositiontheorists active in the 60s and early 70s: PeterElbow, Ken Macrorie,John
Schultz, and WilliamColes, Jr.Without necessarily claiming them as femi-
nists, she can, with the aid of postmodern theory, gender their approachas
feminine and place their work in a certain feminist context: they helpedbirth he experiential self. The expressivist/nurturing feminist connec-
tion has often been made in passing, but Hill's label midwives claims
these key composition figuresforfeministtheorizing-and also marginalizesthem. In the 1990s, Hillargues, these four expressivist igureshave been
pushed to the edge of a newly theorized and professionalizedfield; theirgender-blindness and humanistic model of the autonomous self have had
to make way for gender difference and shifting subjectpositions, powerfulconstructs for feminist analysis. Hill sees in the compartmentalization-rather than dynamic rereading-of the four men's so-called expressivisma
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 12/23
Ritchie ndBoardman/Feminismn Composition95
parallelwith the othering of woman, and of feminism, that continues
to occur.
The rereadingof foremothers -or even midwives -as feminist pre-cursorsmay also be problematicif it ignores context and complexity, as we
see from a few examples of foremothers who resist labeling. In the late
1970s, Ann Berthoff roundly rejected the gendering of logic and the ei-
ther/or-ism of all discussions of women's ways of knowing; she reaffirmed
this rejection at the 1998 CCCCconvention. Still, the foremother figurescan both exemplify and disruptthe notion of the feminization of the field.
As foremothers hey are both marginalized and typically characterized as
nurturers. But insofar as they are envisioned as foremothers,as founders,
they are not feminized but rather constructed in a traditionallymasculine
position.Evidence that storiesof connection continue to resonate with us may be
found in Jan Zlotnik Schmidt's introduction to Women/Writing/Teaching,1998 collection of essays by women writers and teachers. Schmidt empha-sizes the importance of women's experience in making writing-teachingconnections and expresses her hope that readers will also explore their
own life stories, their development of selfhood, their multiple identities as
writers, teachers,and
writingteachers
(xii). Retrospectivenarratives that
create foremothers, midwives, connections, and nurturing community in
composition's history foreground the double potential of the metonymic
relationshipbetween feminism and composition. This intuitive connection
helps to create a sense of solidarityand vitality. But it may also reinforce
the very structures that keep feminist perspectivescontained in a separate,
benign category rather than giving feminist analysis a central place, or at
least keeping it insistently, vocally disruptiveof the discipline'smetanarra-
tives. For example, some feminist practitionershave told powerful stories
about replacing hierarchical, agonistic classroom environments with de-centered, nurturing classrooms based on an ethic of care. But, as Eileen
Schell argues, femininistpedagogy, although compelling, may reinforce
rather than critique or transform patriarchal structures by reinscribingwhat MagdaLewis calls the 'woman as caretaker deology' ( TheCost 74,our italics).
Grantingfeminism's intuitive connections with a discipline that chal-
lenged current-traditionalconceptions of language and introduced new
decentered writing pedagogies, it is also important to recognize that some
feminist agendaswere more likely to disruptthan to aid composition's ear-ly progresstoward full disciplinarystatus. Compositionneeded to build in-
stitutional legitimacy in the traditional academy; a fundamental feminist
goal was to disruptrather than extend patriarchaldiscoursesand their as-
sumptions about knowledge. Composition sought a single theory of the
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 13/23
596 CCC0/June1999
writing process and the writing subject; feminist theorists challenged no-
tions of a singularuniversal concept of truth. The trope of metonymy may
have difficultyexpanding to cover some of these adversarialrelationships.
Feminist Disruptions
Composition has many narratives of feminist disruptionwhich emphasizeneither inclusion nor intuitive connection but rather represent some form
of feminism (newly experienced or theorized) reaching back to rereadand
even reconfigurepast experience and practice.We see increasing numbers
of current feminists drawing on postmodern theories to analyze and cri-
tique the basic process narrativesof composition's first 20 years, to raisequestions about difference(s), and to critique disciplinary practices and
structures that have shaped composition. Disruption is often linked to
postmodern theories of power, discourse,and ideology rather than to con-
sciousness-raising sessions, discussions of pedagogy, or attempts to create
equitableand inclusive conditions for women. In orderto intervene signif-
icantly in power structuresthat keep women subordinate, feminists inves-
tigate and uncover the contradictions in those dominant structures. The
feminist narrativeswe have reread remind us, however, that efforts at in-
clusion, connection, and disruption often work synthetically rather thanas adversaries or as unequal partners. As Theresa Enos says, her book's
mostpowerful use of 'data'is the narrative,in the stories that help us de-fine our places in academia so that we can better trace our future (1).
The explicit recognition of composition's lack of attention to women'smaterial lives has led women in anger, frustration,and recognition to tellthe stories of their coming to awareness. A classicfeminist narrative of the
early 70s is the story of a goodgirl, silenced by her compulsion to please,
whose recognition of her oppression releases an anger strong enough toovercome politeness and fear;thus she finds both her voice and an agendafor change. The consciousness-raisingsessions of the late 60s and early 70s
provideda model for this narrative,as didthe two specialwomen's issues of
CollegeEnglish, 1971-72, that we have mentioned. In When We Dead
Awaken, Richtold her own story of frustrationat the demands that she be
good at all the roles women were supposedto play, while Howe, afternar-
rating how she had acquiesced in years of inequitable treatment, wrote,
Eighteenmonths as commission Chairwoman [of the MLA Commission
on the Status of Women] has eroded that wry smile. I feel now a growinganger as I come to realize that...I am not alone in my state (849).
Many of today's feminist accounts of the 60s and 70s follow a similar
pattern. Lynn Z. Bloom's essay, TeachingCollege English as a Woman
(1992), is a scathing look at the bad old days in college English, when a
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 14/23
Ritchie ndBoardman/Feminismn Composition97
woman in the field-whether student or teacher-would be exploited ifshe did not get angry and speak up. Bloom recalls a conversion experience
when, as a part-time composition instructor,she finally was able to obtainoffice space:in a basement room full of desks, on the floor under the stairs,next to the kitty litter. Surveying these wretched conditions, she told her-
self, IfI ever agree to do this again, I deserve what I get (821). Separated
by more than 20 years, Bloom's and Howe's angryaccounts illustratewhat
we might call individual, liberal disruption:the idea that once a woman
sees clearly, her life is changed, and she is thus empowered to become
effectively active for change and reform. These accounts show the re-
visioning that feminist thinking has enabled individual women to do. We
read these accounts as disruptivebecause in addition to realizing that theliberal Enlightenment agenda hasn't included her,each of these women
also recognizes that she must take action to disruptand change the struc-
tures that have kept her subordinate.
Other women who are currently doing feminist work in compositionstudies have provided similartestimonies of naive compliance, oppressedsilence, eventual recognition,and new outspokenness.4That we now have
so many such narrativesmay mean that women in composition today are
finally in a position to claim the authority of the autobiographical; t mayalso mean that, largelydue to feminist efforts,the conventions of scholarlydiscoursehave expanded to include the personal narrative as a way of sit-
uating oneself in one's scholarship.But perhapsthe personal testimony re-
mains an effective-and still necessary-tool of disruption. Many of thesestories are disruptivebecause they expose the pattern of well-rewarded,male supervision of under-rewarded, female workers that has existed in
composition and isentrenched in our whole culture (Enos vii). The dis-
ruption that is so central to the consciousness-raising narrative itself also
highlights gapsin our
readingof our
pastand of business as usual. Reread-
ing the consciousness-raising essays that have recurred in compositionover the past 25 years can show us more sites where women have been si-lent but where feminists want to rupturethat silence.
Many narratives deal with experiences in teaching and departmentpol-itics, but a 1993 retrospective account by Nancy McCracken,Lois Green,and ClaudiaGreenwood tells how they acquiesced as researchersto a fieldcharacterizedby apersistent silence on the subjectof gender in its land-mark research studies on writing development and writing processes
(352). Now writing collaboratively, they return to studies of teacher re-sponses to student writing that they had published earlier (and separate-ly), reinterpreting those studies in terms of gender differences. Theseauthors emphasize that until the late 80s the climate in composition stud-
ies had made it difficultto notice or report gender differences in empirical
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 15/23
598 CCC50/June 1999
studies: None of us went looking for gender differences. When the data
began to speak of gender, we dared not listen (356). They recount their
worries about being accused of biological determinism, about seeming toexclude men, about appearing unprofessional, and about callingattention
to themselves as women. Now, they say, they feel empowered not only to
note gender difference but to insist on it. Theirs is not a story of breakingsilence by themselves. Instead, the current research environment in
which it is both important and safe to study the interplay between stu-
dents' gender and their development as writers (354) has made it possibleto revise their findings.Theirstory is not about singularheroism but about
collaboration, in a network of mutual support, in a research/scholarlyen-
vironment that has made discursive structures more visible. Their story isnot about going solo against a hostile discipline but about rereading the
field and their own complicity.Theirreading disrupts, among other things,their ownresearch,by requiringthat they return to it and revise it.
Some of the early disruptivenarratives we have mentioned are reform-
ist, and they may even be read as attemptsat inclusion as well as disruption.Another form of disruptivenarrative is less grounded in the impulse for in-
dividualdisruptionand change,but seeks wider considerationof difference.
Such critiquesoften createconflictand may evoke more resistancebecause
they demand changes in institutional and epistemological structures thatconflict with composition's continuing need to establish legitimacy. They
support the emergence of different perspectives rather than suppressingthem. In these accounts differenceis expanded from the single male/female
binaryto differences,takinginto account multiple inflections of social class,sexual orientation,and race.Forexample, HarrietMalinowitz'sstudy of les-
bian and gay students in writing classesand ShirleyWilson Logan'swritingon the confluence of race and gender in composition both attempt to ex-
pandour
understandingof what differencescan mean in
compositionclass-
rooms. They articulate the connections among differencesas well as show
the privilegingor erasure of some categoriesby others. Writingout of her
own experience as a Chinese student speakingseverallanguages,Min-Zhan
Lu has drawn upon third-world and minority feminisms as well as other
cultural theorists to disruptcomposition teachers'view of the conflictsstu-
dents face in negotiating the political, linguistic, and rhetorical border-
lands between home and school. She reopens a debateabout the processesof acculturationand accommodationat work in writing classrooms,partic-
ularly those that serve minority and immigrant students. In doing so, sherereads the work of Mina Shaughnessy,Thomas Farrell,Kenneth Bruffee,and others in light of currentcontexts in orderto critiquethe wider publicdebates about literacyand to highlight the cultural conflicts and necessaryresistances of today'sstudents on the margins.
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 16/23
RitchieandBoardman/Feminismn Composition99
At times these disruptions can create tension and anger even amongfeminists, highlighting the way feminism itself is shaped by and embedded
in existing hierarchical discourses. This conflict may seem to undermineany sense of solidaritythat existed when feminism appearedin a more in-
tuitive rather than carefully articulated and scrutinizedform. But in fact,such conflictmay produce one of feminism's most importantbenefits-the
proliferation of differences. Nedra Reynolds argues: Feministsdaring to
criticize other feminists have opened up spaces for analyzing difference;
they interruptedthe discourses of feminism in the singularto make possi-ble feminism in the plural (66). Other disruptive narratives of difference
are only now emerging and await further exploration. Constructslike Glo-
ria Anzaldua's mestiza,TrinhT. Minh-ha's subject-in-the-making, Donna
Haraway'scyborg, and Judith Butler's performer of gender extend post-modern notions of difference in disruptive directions with their advocacyof multiplicity,fluidity, hybridity,and indeterminacy.
Feminists in composition in the past decade have used postmodern the-
ories to reread the feminization and the femininization of composition as
problematic and to seek to revise institutional frameworks. The prepon-derance of women in composition has not led inevitably to the triumph of
feminist interests and values in the field. For example, Susan Miller tells
the story of the sadwomen in the basement and describes feminization
as the female coding of the ideologicallyconstructed identity for the
teacher of composition (123); it involves constructing composition as
women's work. Feminization refers to the gendering of the entire field
of composition and of various activities that have taken place within it
(nonhierarchical pedagogy, the writing process movement, romantic
philosophies, nurturing of writers). For Miller, feminization points to the
devaluation of the composition instructor,and the subordination of com-
position to literature, throughout the history of the field. For RhondaGregoand Nancy Thompson, compositionists still reside within our gen-dered roles, but we are not limited to a traditional wifely role because
the field has lately been developingterms and methods through which to
name our work at least to ourselves, if not yet fully to the ruling apparatusof the academic system (68). In GypsyAcademics nd MotherTeachers,Eileen Schell combines materialist feminist and postmodern perspectives,labor and institutional history,and the personal narratives of women non-
tenure-track teachers to analyze the gendered division of labor in compo-
sition and to critique femininization-the coopting of the ethic of care.She also provides strategiesfor coalition-buildingand tangible plans of ac-
tion for reconceptualizing women's positions and reshaping institutional
structures.Feminization narratives like these work disruptivelyin two di-
rections: their analysis foregrounds the political position of composition
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 17/23
600 CCC50/June 1999
within institutional structures,but it also highlights tensions within wom-
en's roles and interests in composition.
Finally,disruptivenarrativesin
compositionhave
begunto
analyzethe
established narratives of the discipline and the agency of students and
teachers constructed by those narratives.They explore the ideologies un-
derlying the discourses where composition has been situated, includingthose espoused by feminists, to underscore the contradictionsand dangersthat those create for women as well as forthe field in general. An early ex-
ample is Susan Jarratt'srereading of Peter Elbow's work and of the ten-
dency in feminism and expressivism to suppress conflict and promoteconsensus.5 She argues that such a stance fails to arm women students
and teachers with the tools to confront the power relations inherent intheir positions. An important recent example of disruption is Nedra Rey-nolds' rereadingof several majornarratives in the field. Reynolds empha-sizes that interruption-talking back, forcibly breaking into the prevailingdiscourseof a field-is a way to createagency: Agencyis not simply about
finding one's own voice but also about intervening in discoursesof the ev-
eryday [thiswould include personal experience narratives]and cultivatingrhetorical tactics that make interruption and resistance an important partof any conversation (59). She points out the tendency of some of the
most important voices in composition today... to ignore work in feminismthat might complement or complicate their ideas (66). She not only
interrupts ome of the major cultural studies theorists but also analyzesthe conceptions of subjectivity and agency in the work of James Berlin,John Trimbur,and Lester Faigley. She criticizes the dominant narrative's
tendency to compartmentalize interruptersand disruptersas rude wom-
en, thereby denying them agency. As part of the evidence for her argu-ment, she tells stories about a cultural studies conference where bell hooks
and other women participants analyzed the terror of the typical white
supremacisthierarchy (65). Reynolds urges women to develop strategiesfor interruptingdominant discourses in composition and challenges them
to offer their students the means to resist rigidforms of discourse.
Conclusion: In Excess
These three different but also converging narrativesof feminism suggest a
rich tradition of feminist thought and activity in composition: pushing for
admission, working intuitively alongside,and
interruptingthe conversa-
tion. We believe these three tropes may help us read and revise feminism's
evolving place in the narrativesof composition; they provide useful insightfor feminists about existing tensions in the relationship of theory to expe-rience and practice;and they point to strategiesfeminists may seek to pro-mote or avoid in the future.
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 18/23
Ritchie ndBoardman/Feminismn Composition01
In composition'slast three decades, the impulse has been toward legiti-mation, theory-building,and consolidation. The disruptionand the asser-
tion of difference that feministsand othersrepresent
have comeslowly
and
with struggle;they have been delayed and even suppressedby the need to
build a more unified disciplinarydiscourse.In severalrecent metanarratives
that assess where compositionhas come from and where it is going, we find
traces of these three lines of feminist thought that may help us see where
feminism might most usefully lead composition and where they might go
together. These recent commentaries demonstrate that tropes of inclusion
and metonymic connection stilldefine feminism'srelationshipto the field.
In Fragments f Rationality, esterFaigleypracticesinclusion as he credits
feminism for its efforts to theorize a postmodern subject with agency; healso cites the contributions of feminists in foregrounding important ped-
agogical and political questions. James Berlin's Rhetorics, oetics,Cultures
does not mention feminism, but this book, like Faigley's,does cite several
postmodern feminists' effortsto theorize subjectivityand difference. In Jo-
seph Harris'A Teaching ubject:Compositionince1966, the connections be-
tween women practitioners, feminism, and the teaching subject are
neither articulatednor connected;they remain an unspoken presence. Like
Berlin, Sharon Crowley argues in Compositionn the Universityhat despite
its progressover the past 30 years, composition has remained a conserva-tive discipline, still trapped in current-traditionalism,still shackled to the
service role of Freshman English, and still bound to the limitations of hu-
manism in English departments. Unlike Berlin, she looks to feminist
thought for its disruptive power, as one of several theoretical perspectivesthat might help dislodge composition from narrow disciplinaryconfines.
The representation of feminist perspectives in these recent commentar-
ies suggests that in the future these relationshipswill persist-with unspo-ken alliances between feminist thought and composition, and inclusive
reliance on postmodern feminism(s) where they advance the general ar-
gument. But it is to the disruptivestrategy, ramedin dialoguewith inclusiv-
ity and metonymy, that we return. It is tempting to see disruptionas the
newest and best hope for feminism and to privilege theorizing as the most
worthwhile activity for feminism and composition. But it's also clear that
different emphases may be more effective as rhetorical contexts shift and
historicalmoments change.While efforts at inclusion suffer fromthe limita-
tions we've outlined, and untheorized or unarticulatedpracticesalso createrisks of
marginalizationand erasure,
disruptive strategies, bythemselves,
also have limitations. The historyof feminism suggeststhat it is necessaryto
do more than interrupta disciplinaryconversation.Disruption may be only
temporary,and as Reynoldsand otherspoint out, it'seasy to push disruptersto the sidelines, to stop listening to them and to marginalize them once
again.In addition,the taskof disruptionrequiresrhetoricalskill. Those who
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 19/23
602 CCC50/June 1999
interruptmay gain momentary attention, but those who can't sustain the
conversation, hold up the argument, or tell an absorbingstory will soon
drop-or be dropped-from the discussion.Certainlyfeminists in composition have provided the field with models
for persuasive and beautiful writing that tells and disruptsstories of expe-rience. (LynnWorsham's AfterWords: A Choice of Words Remains is a
recent example.) If theorizing and disruption are detached from lived ex-
perience and material history, they may remain irrelevant. And if disrup-tion only fracturesand doesn't again create connection, a sense of an even
tentatively inclusive agenda, it will lack the vital energy and supportiveal-
liances to sustain its own taxing work. Over the last 30 years, feminists
have demonstrated that critique and disruption are never finished andthat coalition-buildingand collaborationare vital for change.
Ourrereadingof 30 years of feminist writing suggests that in both earlyand more recent work, feminism has been most challenging and disrup-tive and also provided a sense of alliance and inclusion when it has main-
tained a dialogicalrelationshipbetween theory and experience. Despite its
short history,feminist work in composition can certainly provide many re-
vitalizing demonstrations of this dialogicalrelationshipas one of its contri-
butions to academic feminism. Virtually all the feminist work we've
reviewed and see emerging has, at least in part, claimed, interpreted, and
revised accounts of experience and history: the personal history of one's
life as a woman, the practiceof the teacher, or the experience of the schol-
ar. As Suzanne Clarkpoints out, narratives of experience theorized be-
come possible sites of agency: At the same time that stories of personal
experience invoke and re-cite determinant categories of identity...suchstories also produce an excess not easily retrofitted as the norm (98).Rather than dismissing stories of experience, Clarksuggests that we look
at them for what is excessive, that is, for parts of the narrative that donot fit our current explanations: What refuses, despite the sometimes
daunting applications of straitjacket pseudo-sciences, to be contained?
(98). One of feminism's most potentially powerful tools is the deploymentof what is excessive, what is other. Difference, otherness, disrupts, as
Rosemary Hennessy argues, because the gaps, contradictions, aporiasthat otherness creates force dominant perspectives into crisismanagementto sealover or manage the contradictions.... But they also serve as the in-
augural space for critique (92).
Many gaps remain for feminists to explore in composition and in its re-lationship to English and the broader culture. Although researchershave
now examined from a feminist perspectivethe status of women in compo-sition and the feminized status of composition within English studies,
many women still teach composition in the basement, and the wider in-
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 20/23
RitchieandBoardman/Feminismn Composition03
stitutional, economic, and cultural conditions continue to create barriers
against improving their status. Although women and men in our field
have considered how class, gender and racemay shape their pedagogy,wehave not thoroughly come to terms with students' or teachers' gendered,classed, or raced position in the academy-or the continuing failure to
provide a viable education for many minority students or encouragementfor minority colleagues in our field. Although various critics have high-
lighted the gender blindness of liberatoryand criticalpedagogies, we have
not thoroughly consideredhow such theories and pedagogies stop short of
realizing their goals where women students, minorities, and gay and lesbi-
an students are concerned. Although we have a body of metacommentary
on researchmethodologies and ethical representation of researchsubjects,we have only begun to explore effective ways to connect our research to
wider public concerns and debates about literacy.Our own interest in diversity and multiplicity makes us curious about
the possible uses of excess as a trope for feminists in composition of the
present and future. Already we are exploring feminist or diverse dis-
courses, which are in excess of what a singularlinear argument requires.We are pushing for notions and accounts of agency that exceed limited
ideas of the determined subject. Might the re-visionary stories of the next
generation refer to greedy visions of moreas well as angry recognitions of
lack?Can we envision narrativesof a disruptive practice that overflows as
well as challenges? Excess might be proposed as inclusion with a differ-
ence: uncontained and without limits.
At this time when composition is reviewing its past and seeking to chart
new directions,a glance beyond the academysuggeststhatpoliticaland eco-
nomic conditions will create continuing intellectual and practical strait-
jackets n composition'snext 50 years.The energy of feminists will be vital
to the disruptionof restrictivetheory and practice.This energy will be im-portant for sustainingcoalitionsfor change; it is our best hope for inclusion
and proliferationof difference,multiplicity,and uncontainable excess.
Notes
1. In two recent collections of essays on
composition, Villanueva's Cross-Talkn CompTheory,nd Bloom, Daiker,and White's Com-
position n the Twenty-First entury,he onlyessay specificallyfrom a feminist perspective
is Flynn's 1988 Composingas a Woman.The frequent inclusion of this essay suggeststhe impact it has had; the fact that it is the
only one included suggests that, in somevenues at least, it has been used to containfeminism at the same time.
2. For example, the February1970 issueof CCC ontains articles by Donald Murrayand by William Coles articulatingmany ofthe crucial progressive assumptions emerg-ing in composition: the value of individual
students'writingas an articulationof agencyand selfhood ratherthan merely as an objectof diagnosisand correction.The CCCjournalsof thatyearalso contain severalproposalsforalternative freshman Englishcourses for mi-
nority students, and the October 1972 issue
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 21/23
604 CCC50/June 1999
contains the CCCC Executive Committee's
Resolution, TheStudent'sRightto His Own
Language. Although they remain steadfast-
ly gender-blind,essayslike these attest to theprofession's increasing attempts in the late60s and 70s to redefine writing and writinginstruction. These disciplinarycalls for cul-tural diversityin the curriculum and for thestudents' rights to their own languagecaused a greatdeal of ferment in the profes-sion and foregrounded issues of difference,
yet they still did not open a discursivespacefor women to speak as women writers andteachers or to consider the gendered implica-tions of Coles'goal for writing: to allow the
student to put himself together (28).3. Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and
Tarule are noted for their use of midwifein their discussion of educators who pro-mote constructed knowledge. But the termwas appliedto writing instructorsmuch ear-lier. In 1970, Stephen Judy wrote in EnglishJournal (which he was later to edit): Weneed to discard the structure of the compo-sition teacher as one who passes on knowl-
edge about writing, makes assignments,andcorrects errors on themes. A more
appropri-ate role can be describedas that of coach or
catalyst, or one that I prefer, that of mid-wife: one who assistsin the processof bring-ing something forth but does not participatein the process himself (217). This passagesuggests possibilities for metonymy; themasculine pronoun may simply illustrate
composition's gender-blindness, but it mayalso be a trace of the gender-shifting thatHill does twenty years later. Judy adds, Itwould be difficult for a midwife to do her ob
adequately if the expectant mother knewshe were going to be graded on the results
(217, italicsours).
4. Wendy- Bishop, Lillian Bridwell-Bowles, LouisePhelps, and Nancy Sommersarejust a few of the women who have writ-ten personal narratives that practice andreflect on disruptionof a statusquo. Jacque-line Jones Royster writes, I have been
compelledon too many occasionsto count tosit as a well-mannered Other (30). TheresaEnos' GenderRolesandFacultyLives n RhetoricandCompositionontainsa number of anony-mous stories from women in composition,along with her narrative of her own experi-
ence as an academicallybattered woman(ix). Gesa Kirsch's nterviews with women invarious academicdisciplinesexplore their in-
terpretationsof their experiences as writersand raise questionsof gender and language,women's participation in public discourse,and women's 'waysof writing' (xvii).A new
collection, Women/Writing/Teaching,dited byJan Zlotnik Schmidtpresents ten previouslypublishedand ten new essays by women thatexamine their personal experiences as writ-ers and teachers.
5. We could cite numerous other exam-
ples: PatriciaSullivan'srereadingof StephenNorth's TheMakingof Knowledgen Composi-tion;Nancy Welch's use of feminist theoryand her own experience to reread Lacanandother theorists and to disrupt composition'sconceptualization of revision; and the
important work of increasing numbers offeministsrereadingand regenderingthe rhe-torical tradition fromAspasiato Ida B. Wells,from GertrudeBuck to ToniMorrison.
Works Cited
Annas, Pamela J. Styleas Politics:A Femi-nist Approachto the Teachingof Writing.College nglish47 (1985): 360-71.
Belenky, MaryField,Blythe McVicker
Clinchy, Nancy Rule Goldberger,and JillMattuckTarule.WomensWays fKnowing:TheDevelopmentf Self,Voice,ndMind.NewYork:Basic, 1986.
Bennett, RobertA. NCTE residentialAd-dress: The Undiscovered. EnglishJournal61 (1972): 351-57.
Berlin, James. Rhetorics,oetics ndCultures: efiguringCollege nglishStudies.Urbana:NCTE,1996.
Berthoff,Ann E. RhetoricasHermeneutic.CCC2 (1991): 279-87.
Bishop, Wendy. LearningOurOwn Waysto Situate Composition and FeministStudies in the EnglishDepartment.JournalofAdvancedComposition0 (1990):339-55.
Bloom, LynnZ. TeachingCollegeEnglishas a Woman. College nglish54 (1992):818-825.
Bloom, LynnZ., Donald A. Daiker,and Ed-ward M. White, eds. Compositionn the
vWenty-Firstentury: risis nd Change.Car-bondale: Southern Illinois UP,1996.
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 22/23
RitchieandBoardman/Feminismn Composition05
Bolker,Joan. TeachingGriselda o Write.
College nglish40 (1979): 906-08.
Brady,Laura. TheReproductionof Other-
ing. Jarrattand Worsham21-44.Bridwell-Bowles,Lillian. Freedom,Form,
Function: Varietiesof Academic Dis-course. CCC 6 (1995): 46-61.
Caywood, Cynthia,and GillianOvering,eds.
TeachingWriting: edagogy, ender,ndEqui-
ty.Albany:State U of New YorkP,1987.
Clark,Suzanne. Argumentand Composi-tion. Jarrattand Worsham 94-99.
Coles, William,Jr. TheSense of Nonsenseas a Design for Sequential WritingAssign-ments. CCC 1 (1970): 27-34.
Crowley,Sharon. Compositionn the Universi-
ty:Historicalnd Polemical ssays.PittsburghSeries in Composition,Literacy,and Cul-ture. Pittsburgh:U of PittsburghP, 1998.
Enos, Theresa. GenderRolesandFacultyLives
in Rhetoric ndComposition.arbondale:Southern IllinoisUP,1996.
Faigley,Lester.FragmentsfRationality:ost-
modernitynd theSubject f Composition.itts-
burghSeriesin Composition,Literacy,andCulture.Pittsburgh,U of PittsburghP,1992.
Flynn, ElizabethA. Composingas a Wom-an. CCC39 (1988) : 423-35.
Fontaine, SherylI., and Susan Hunter,eds.
WritingOurselvesntotheStory:UnheardVoic-
esfromCompositiontudies.Carbondale:Southern Illinois UP, 1993. 1-17.
Grego,Rhonda, and Nancy Thompson. Re-
positioning Remediation:RenegotiatingComposition'sWork n the Academy. CCC47 (1996): 62-84.
Harris,Joseph.A Teachingubject: ompositionSince1966.UpperSaddle River:Prentice,
1997.
Hennessy, Rosemary.Materialist eminismandthe Politics fDiscourse. hinkingGender Series. New York: Routledge,1992.
Hiatt,MaryP. TheFeminine Style: Theoryand Fact. CCC29 (1978): 222-26.
Hill, CarolynEricksen.WritingromtheMar-
gins:PowerandPedagogyor TeachersfCom-
position.New York:OxfordUP,1990.
Howe, Florence. A Report on Women and
the Profession. College nglish32 (1971):847-54.
- . Identityand Expression:A WritingCoursefor Women. College nglish32
(1971): 863-871.
Jarratt,Susan C. Feminismand Composi-tion: The CaseforConflict. Contendingith
Words: ompositionndRhetoricn a Postmod-
ernAge.Ed. PatriciaHarkinand John
Schilb. New York:MLA,1991. 105-23.
Jarratt,Susan C.,andLynnWorsham,eds.Feminism ndCompositiontudies:n Other
Words.New York:MLA, 1998.
Judy, Stephen. TheSearchforStructures n
the Teachingof Composition. EnglishJournal59 (1970): 213-218.
Kirsch,Gesa E. WomenWritingheAcademy:Audience,Authority,nd Transformation.Studies in Writingand Rhetoric. Carbon-
dale: Southern IllinoisUP,1992.
Kirsch,GesaE., and PatriciaA. Sullivan,eds. Methods ndMethodologyn CompositionResearch. arbondale:Southern IllinoisUP,1992.
Lakoff,Robin.Language nd WomansPlace.
New York: Harper, 1975.
Logan, Shirley W., ed. WithPen and Voice:The
RhetoricfNineteenthCentury frican-Ameri-can Women.Carbondale:Southern Illinois
UP, 1995.
Lu,Min-Zhan. Conflictand Struggle:The
Enemies or Preconditionsof Basic Writ-
ing? College nglish54 (1992): 887-913.
-. FromSilence to Words:WritingasStruggle. Perl 165-176.
Malinowitz,Harriet. TextualOrientations:es-
bian and GayStudents nd theMakingofDis-courseCommunities.ortsmouth:Boynton,Heinemann, 1995.
McCracken,Nancy,LoisGreen,and Claudia
Greenwood. Gender n CompositionRe-
search:A StrangeSilence. Fontaine andHunter 352-73.
Miller,Susan. TextualCarnivals: hePolitics fComposition.arbondale:Southern Illinois
UP, 1991.
Murray,Donald M. TheInterior View: OneWriter'sPhilosophy of Composition. CCC21 (1970): 21-26.
Olsen, Tillie. WomenWho Are Writers n
OurCentury:One Out of Twelve. CollegeEnglish34 (1972): 6-17.
Open Letter from Janet Emig, Chairwoman,
NCTECommitteeon the Role and ImageofWomen. English ournal61 (1972): 710.
Perl, Sondra,ed. Landmark ssayson WritingProcess. andmarkEssaysSeries 7. Davis:
Hermagoras,1994.
Phelps,LouiseW. Becominga Warrior:Les-sons of the Feminist Workplace. Phelpsand Emig289-339.
Phelps,LouiseW.,and JanetEmig,eds. Femi-ninePrinciplesnd WomensExperiencen
This content downloaded from 132.248.9.8 on Mon, 2 Dec 2013 03:08:09 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8/13/2019 Feminism in Composition Inclusion, Metonymy, And Disruption Joy Ritchie and Kathleen Boardman
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/feminism-in-composition-inclusion-metonymy-and-disruption-joy-ritchie-and 23/23
606 CCC50/June 1999
AmericanCompositionnd Rhetoric. itts-
burgh Series n Composition,Literacy,andCulture.Pittsburgh:U of PittsburghP,1995.
Reynolds,Nedra. InterruptingOurWaytoAgency:Feminist CulturalStudies and
Composition. arrattand Worsham 58-73.
Rich,Adrienne. When We Dead Awaken:
Writingas Re-vision. College nglish34
(1972): 18-25.
-. TakingWomen Students Serious-
ly. OnLies,Secrets,ndSilence: elected rose1966-1978.New York:Norton, 1979.237-245.
Royster, JacquelineJones. When the FirstVoice You Hear Is Not YourOwn. CCC7
(1996): 29-40.
Schell,Eileen. GypsyAcademicsndMother-Teachers:ender, ontingentabor, ndWrit-
ingInstruction. ortsmouth:Boynton, 1998.
-. TheCostsof Caring: Feminism'and ContingentWomen Workers n Com-
position Studies. Jarrattand Worsham74-93.
Schmidt,Jan Zlotnik,ed. Women/Writing/Teaching. lbany:State U of New YorkP,1998.
Scott,Joan. Experience. FeministsTheorizethe Political.Ed. Judith Butler and Joan W.Scott.New York:Routledge, 1992. 22-40.
Showalter,Elaine. Womenand the LiteraryCurriculum. College nglish32 (1971):855-62.
Sommers,Nancy. Between the Drafts. Perl217-24.
Sullivan, PatriciaA. Feminismand Meth-
odology. Kirsch and Sullivan 37-61.
Taylor,Sheila Ortiz. Womenin a Double-Bind: Hazardsof the ArgumentativeEdge. CCC29 (1978): 385-89.
The Students' Rightto TheirOwn Lan-
guage.CCC 5
SpecialIssue
(1974):1-32.
The Secretary'sReportof Executive Com-mittee. TheStudent'sRightto His Own
Language. CCC1 (1970): 319-28.VillanuevaJr., Victor,ed. Cross-Talkn Comp
Theory.Urbana:NCTE,1997.
Welch, Nancy. GettingRestless: ethinkingRe-vision n Writingnstruction. ortsmouth:
Boynton, 1997.
Worsham,Lynn. AfterWords:A Choice ofWords Remains. Jarrattand Worsham329-356.
Top Related