Stacy Cacciatore

Main navigation

rhetoric

The Sophists

by

The Sophists

By Stacy Cacciatore

The readings this week centered on the exploration of the Sophists and the debate regarding if they existed, if they did exist, what did they stand for, and why it matters. Schiappa and Poulakos engage in a fiery debate on the topic of Sophists and they go back in forth in several papers refuting each other’s arguments. Poulakos (1983) strongly believes “…without the Sophists, our picture of the rhetoric that came out of the Greek experience is incomplete”(35)[1]. In his essay, Toward a Sophistic Definition of Rhetoric, Poulakos applauds the Sophists for their contribution to rhetoric and Greek culture and history. He defines the characteristics of the Sophists, who he says, “as a group, the Sophists are known to have been the first to say or do a number of things (44). This presupposes that the Sophists, as a group, have common characteristics. He states, “the ‘sophistic’ definition of rhetoric is founded on and consistent with the notions of rhetoric as art, style as personal expression, the timely, the appropriate, and the possible. This definition posits that man is driven primarily by his desire to be other, the wish to move from the sphere of actuality to that of possibility (45). This is an important statement about the theory of rhetoric that the Sophists developed.

 

Schiappa (1990), however, strongly disagrees. He states that Plato was the first to use the term rhetoric, making it impossible for the Sophists to have clearly conceptualized this term[2]. He provides evidence supporting his claim that there was a lack of attestation of the term in fifth- and fourth-century texts prior to Gorgias. However, Pendrick (1998) found fault in Schiappa’s logic, relating to how he defined rhetoric. He states, “Part of the difficulty with Schiappa’s position is terminological. Following George Kennedy, he distinguishes two senses of the word ‘rhetoric’: (1) persuasive speaking or oratory; and (2) rhetorical theory or “conceptual or meta-rhetoric that attempts to theorize about oratory,” (11)[3]. This rebuttal inserts weakness into Schiappa’s argument. O’Sullivan (1993) also doesn’t agree with Schiappa’s claims that Plato was the first to use the word ‘rhetoric’[4]. He brings up an extremely interesting point, which is that the lack of the word ‘rhetoric’ in 5thcentury texts is not an effective argument, as there is almost a total disappearance of all the writings of the Sophists. As we learned previously, the majority of the work of the Sophists exists in fragments. Therefore, we don’t have a full picture of the terms they used.

 

Schiappa (1990) writes another paper stressing the difference between appreciatingsophistic thinking as a contribution to contemporary theory and developing / reconstructing sophistic theories or doctrines (192)[5]. (As VV would say, the emphasis in italics is mine). Schiappa fires back at Poulakos, saying basically that while many of his works are “praiseworthy examples of neo-sophistic rhetorical criticism”, this back-handed compliment is couched with the caveat that his work requires correction “if viewed from the standpoint of historical reconstruction” (198). He is basically saying that while the work of the Sophists can be appreciated, there is a historically significant difference between the early sophistic efforts, which pontificate theories about the world and how it works, and the later efforts that are a part of clearly conceptualized “art of rhetoric”.  This phrase “art” is also important to note because Poulakos claims that rhetoric = art, but Schiappa states that “art of rhetor” didn’t occur until the 4thcentury. This isn’t the only argument that Schiappa uses in disputing Poulakos’ claims. He also discusses how one cannot classify the Sophists as “highly accomplished linguistic craftsmen” as Poulakos does. Rather, that is how everyone spoke back then…in this rhythmic fashion. Therefore, it’s doesn’t mean anything significant to claim this is a “Sophist style” when in fact, it was the style of the time. Schiappa states that there is no single doctrine of theory of any subject for the Sophists. He then goes out to define the style of each of the Sophists individually, which also becomes a hot button between Schiappa and Poulakos. Poulakos claims that Schiappa is ridiculous for saying that the Sophists can only be studied independently because he is contradicting himself. First, he says that they can’t be defined, then he says, well they can, but they are different. Schiappa (1990) defined the Sophists as follows:

 

  • Protagoras – Dissoi Logoi
  • Gorgias – Logos as Apate
  • Prodicus – Orthoepeia
  • Hippias – Polymathy
  • Antiphon – Logos as Cure or Escape
  • Critias – Logos of Thought
  • Thrasymachus – Logos and Power [6](212)

 

 

Poulakos (1990) then responds back to Schiappa in a journal article, articulating his clear frustration with Schiappa. He states, “Schiappa has no case, if he did have a case it could not be supported and even if it could be supported, it would be useless,” (219)[7]. I had to laugh at this for its’ metaphysical nihilism characteristics. Poulakos comes back strong in this argument, claiming “Schiappa creates false dichotomy between those who know the “facts” (historians and philologists) and those who don’t” (221). He also calls out Schiappa for basing his entire argument on the fact that the term rhetoric can’t be found in the ancient texts because Schiappa didn’t explain how he arrived at those facts (222). Poulakos then provides several artifacts of evidence demonstrate where and when he found the usage of the word ‘rhetoric’, including an Aesop tale from early 6thcentury B.C. He goes on to state that just because Schiappa can’t see the common themes and relationship between the Sophists, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.

 

Schiappa (1990) responds again to Poulakos. He summarizes his previous argument, “Last issue I argued that scholarship concerning Sophists can benefit by acknowledging the difference between historical and rational reconstructions. The former is recovering Sophistic Doctrines based on historical evidence. The latter contributes to construction of a contemporary “neosophistic” theory and criticism of rhetoric” (p 307)[8]. Schiappa called Poulakos’ work “neo-sophistic” because of his “sophistic definition of rhetoric” (p 307). Schiappa stated, “We are all trapped in the present and all “history” is merely a reflection of the historian’s values and biases” (p 307). I completely agree that history is biased and cannot be separated from the historian’s own viewpoints and beliefs. I don’t think it’s conscious, but we are human and I think it’s human nature to filter information through our own experience, similar to what we learned last week in the study on the frog’s brain framing reality based on his biology. I also agree with Schiappa that there is not one single “final” or “objective” or “impersonal” historical account.

 

In Schiappa’s (1991)Sophistic Rhetoric: Oasis or Mirage?He states that Poulakos developed a “sophistic definition of rhetoric” (5)[9]. He also claims that Sophistic rhetoric only exists because we want to see it, it’s just a “mirage” (5). He also believes that it is impossible to come up with a “historically defensible definition of “sophistic rhetoric” that is nontrivial and uniquely valuable,” (5). Not only does Schiappa not believe in “sophistic rhetoric”, he doesn’t believe we even know who they are. He states that the usage of the term “sophist” was loosely defined in ancient times and while Plato denoted a group of individuals in the 5thcentury B.C. (Gorgias, Protagoras, Hippias, Prodicus, Thrasymachus, Critias and Antiphon), the list was arbitrary (7). He states:

 

It is clear that we cannot identify a defining characteristic of “the sophists” that allows us to narrow the group to a degree sufficient to adduce a common perspective or set of practices. Either we treat the term as broadly as did the ancient Greeks, in which case almost every serious thinking must be included, or we are forced to pick a trait that serves no useful function other than to confirm some preconceived preference. Any account of “sophistic rhetoric” will tend to beg the question because it will presuppose who should be called a “sophist” – a determination which must be made on doctrinal grounds. The circularity of the reasoning seems to be unavoidable and is part of the reason “sophistic rhetoric” should be considered a mirage. (p 8)

 

He goes on to say that sophistic rhetoric is largely fiction and superfluous. He also claims that Plato invented sophistic rhetoric for his own needs and we no longer need to maintain this fiction (16). I was shocked when I read this, as this is quite a bold statement. I was confused at the point on Plato creating rhetoric for his own “ends”, as he doesn’t explain what those “ends” are.

 

In our very own Victor Vitanza’s (1991) paper, “Some More” Notes, Toward a “Third” Sophistiche makes the point that there is a third Sophistic. Vitanza posits that the three Sophistics’ are not necessarily sequential. Each have representation, including Protagoras for the first Sophistic, Aeschines for the second Sophistic and Gorgias (among others, including Nietzshe, Lyotard and Foucault) represent the third. Vitanza uses the method of “counting” to differentiate between the three Sophist groups. To summarize, Aristotle counts to “one”, the Sophists count to “two” and Gorgias, et al count to “many things” (p 117)[10]. To further differentiate, Vitanza defines the timeframes for each of the Sophistics:

 

  • Third Sophistic
    • Ethics, politics, aesthetics, so-called unhappy considerations
  • First Sophistic
    • 5thcentury BC
  • Second Sophistic
    • 2ndcentury AD (118)

 

Vitanza (1991) questions, “with whom will I drift” asking the philosophical question of where his philosophical roots reside, which he answers as the third Sophistic (121). He is not only against Platonism, Hegelianism, but also against any form of Aristotelianism. While the notion behind the Platonic/Socratic notion is linked to physis (nature) Sophistic is linked to nomos (law, convention, custom) (123). Lyotard says, “consensus finally does violence to the heterogeneity of language games,” (p 120). Vitanza’s response to this is “[C]onsensus is only a particular state of discussion not its end” (p 120). In the end, drifting is in itself, the end of all critique. One can understand the difference between the Sophists and Plato/Socrates by their view of man. The Sophist viewed man as an individual and the universal man was fiction. They were fascinated by ever-shifting (drifting) scenes of human life, especially public life (124). Vitanza furthers explains the Third Sophistic by stating, “The notion of a ‘Third Sophistic,’ as I espouse here, can be more accurately understood according to the topoi of “antecedent and consequent” rather than “cause and effect,” and according to ‘parataxis’ rather than ‘hypotaxis’” (128). Vitanza (1991) asks, “what is this drifting ‘add up to?’ (I’m sure pun intended with the ‘counting’). Aristotle is a philosopher, Lacan is a newer Sophist, but both are historiographers concerned with the “stories” of history. These stories tell us the world as it is, the Real. Language – constituted by Real. Lacan calls a “lie”, “lying truth”, “history” or “hystorization” resistant to theory (130).

 

All of these works tied together for me in Vitanza’s (1997), Negation, subjectivity, and the history of rhetoric. Vitanza speaks of Schiappa’s theory that rhetoric is fiction and Schiappa, like Plato, rejects the “mirage” in favor of the real thing. Vitanza’s groundbreaking paper correlates the danger of Schiappa’s argument to diminish and then exclude “the Sophists” and “sophistic rhetoric” to the theory that the holocaust didn’t exist. Vitanza immediately recognized that throughout history, there has always been a problem regarding what to do with the “Other”. Similar to individuals of Jewish heritage, the Sophists are considered “Others”. As part of this “Others” group, their work is misrepresented, ignored or worse….deemed non-existent. I had a lightbulb moment when Vitanza states that he is “laying the un/ground work, or the conditions, for rethinking the Sophists after Schiappa has systematically excluded them or re-described them as mere “fictions” (37)[11]. All of the readings then clicked into place, like a complex puzzle I was trying to solve. How did I not realize this before? Justhow dangerous it is for Schiappa to erase the Sophists from history, similar to what others have tried to do with the Holocaust.

 

Vitanza (1997) outlines Lyotard’s work in In The Differendand the differences between a differend and litigation. A differend is an argument between two parties that can’t be equitably solved. The legitimacy of one person’s argument does NOT imply the other’s lack of legitimacy. They key difference is that we have rules to settle litigation, but we don’t have rules for settling a differend (37). Lyotard cites examples of historians that claim they tried, in vain, to find evidence of the holocaust. Lyotard then goes on to say that the victims were “silenced, by the very rules of evidence that were specifically designed to allow them to speak in their defense, (38). This rang true for me as I thought about how many instances there are of victim shaming in today’s society. The rules we use to protect women from sexual abuse end up being the very rules that silence them.

 

Vitanza (1997) uses the clever play on words “Genus-cide”to articulate what Schiappa has done to the Sophists. He has tried to “kill off” an entire class of philosophers who have contributed to the theories we use today (54). Vitanza then urges historians to “write” histories, understanding what is at stake and we should question everything. I love this sentiment. We should always question and not take information at face value. Harking back to last week, we learned that we grow and learn from the conflict. Vitanza also brings us back to last weeks’ readings with his ending quote of the Dionysian’s Prayer by Kenneth Burke. He states that in contrast to Burke’s plea to have “neither the mania of One/Nor the delirium of the many” (1966, 65), we should go on and on and perpetually hold information into question.

 

LoFaro’s (2009) dissertation, she translates an essay by Mario Untersteiner ―Le origini sociali della

sofistical (―The Social Origins of Sophistry), which has never been published in English, and she explores its

significance in terms of classical and contemporary rhetorical theory (1). Throughout her dissertation she provides an introduction, background and scholarship of the sophists, a translation of the essay and interpretation of the importance of this translation to rhetorical history. When summarizing her work she says, “My main point is that what the sophists taught, rhetoric, is not in itself good or evil. Much like food, drugs, television, and any other substance or practice that can be abused, rhetoric comes to life and can be put to good or bad use” (182)[12]. I agree with this sentiment. I find it interesting that many of the works we’ve read thus far have mentioned the negative connotations with the word “rhetoric”. Rhetoric seems to have quite the bad reputation. However, I don’t see it that way. While rhetoric may be used for disingenuine purposes, it doesn’t mean those are the only uses. The other point that LoFaro (2009) makes that I felt was relevant and tied these works together was when she discussed how recently scholars have shifted the recovery of the sophists to Friedrich Nietzsche and Hegel. This ties in with what Vitanza stated about the “Third Sophistic”. She cites Vitanza’s work connecting Nietzsche and the

sophists. This helped tie together all of the readings and the connection with the “Third Sophistic”.

 

In conclusion, I think we can extend LoFaro’s point of view on rhetoric, not being good, bad or evil, to the scholars that we read on the topic of rhetoric itself and the readings this week. It’s important to not ignore work of scholars because we may not agree with their view. And their view may not be inherently “bad” or “evil”, but it will help us better understand the topic and hone our own viewpoint. Clearly, Schiappa and Poulakos don’t agree with my sentiment, as they sparred with increasingly more heat as their responses progressed. They didn’t seem to respect each other’s viewpoints nor acknowledge how they could both have valid points without negating their own argument (reflecting back to Lyotard’s The Differend). In the end, we, as scholars beginning this research on rhetoric have a responsibility to protect the integrity of the past while driving forward to the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

LoFaro, E. (2009) A new understanding of sophistic rhetoric: A translation, with commentary, of Mario Untersteiner’s “Le origini sociali della sofistica”. University of South Florida Scholar Commons

 

O’Sullivan, N. (1993, Feb.). Plato and ἡϰαλουμένηῥητοριϰή. Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, 46(1). pp. 87-89: BRILLStable. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4432222 .

 

Pendrick, G. (1998). Plato and PHTOPIKH. Rheinisches museum für philologie.141(H.1). Pp10-23. JD Sauerländers Verlag.

 

Poulakos, J. (1983). Toward a Sophistic Definition of Rhetoric. Philosophy & Rhetoric: 16: 1. Penn State University. pp. 35-48

 

Poulakos, J. (1990). Interpreting Sophistical Rhetoric: A Response to Schiappa. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 23(3), 218-228. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40237636

 

Schiappa, E. (1990). History and Neo-Sophistic Criticism: A Reply to Poulakos. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 23( 4). Penn State University Press. pp. 307-315. Retrieved from

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40237647

 

Schiappa, E. (1990). Neo-Sophistic Rhetorical Criticism or the Historical Reconstruction of Sophistic Doctrines? Philosophy & Rhetoric, 23(3), 192-217. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40237635

 

Schiappa, E. (1990) Did Plato Coin Rhetorike. The American Journal of Philology, 111, (4). pp. 457-470. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved from  http://www.jstor.org/stable/295241

 

Schiappa, E. (1991, Fall). Sophistic Rhetoric: Oasis or Mirage? Rhetoric Review, 10(1). pp5-18.

 

Vitanza, V.J. (1991) “Some More” Notes, Toward a “Third” Sophistic. Argumentation, 5: 117. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00054001.

 

Vitanza, V. J. (1997). Negation, subjectivity, and the history of rhetoric. Albany: State University of New York Press.

 

 

[1]Poulakos, J. (1983). Toward a Sophistic Definition of Rhetoric. Philosophy & Rhetoric: 16: 1. Penn State University. pp. 35-48

 

[2]Schiappa, E. (1990) Did Plato Coin Rhetorike. The American Journal of Philology, 111, (4). pp. 457-470. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved from  http://www.jstor.org/stable/295241

 

[3]Pendrick, G. (1998). Plato and PHTOPIKH. Rheinisches museum für philologie. 141(1). Pp. 10-23: JD Sauerländers Verlag.

 

[4]O’Sullivan, N. (1993, Feb.). Plato and ἡϰαλουμένηῥητοριϰή. Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, 46(1). pp. 87-89: BRILLStable. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4432222 .

 

[5]Schiappa, E. (1990). Neo-Sophistic Rhetorical Criticism or the Historical Reconstruction of Sophistic Doctrines? Philosophy & Rhetoric, 23(3), 192-217. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40237635

 

[6]Schiappa, E. (1990). Neo-Sophistic Rhetorical Criticism or the Historical Reconstruction of Sophistic Doctrines? Philosophy & Rhetoric, 23(3), 192-217. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40237635

 

[7]Poulakos, J. (1990). Interpreting Sophistical Rhetoric: A Response to Schiappa. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 23(3), 218-228. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40237636

[8]Schiappa, E. (1990). History and Neo-Sophistic Criticism: A Reply to Poulakos. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 23(4), 307-315. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40237647

 

[9]Schiappa, E. (1991, Fall). Sophistic Rhetoric: Oasis or Mirage? Rhetoric Review, 10(1). pp5-18.

[10]Vitanza, V.J. (1991). “Some More” Notes, Toward a “Third” Sophistic. Argumentation,5(117). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00054001

 

[11]Vitanza, V. J. (1997). Negation, subjectivity, and the history of rhetoric. Albany: State University of New York Press.

 

[12]LoFaro, E. (2009) A new understanding of sophistic rhetoric: A translation, with commentary, of Mario

Untersteiner’s “Le origini sociali della sofistica”. University of South Florida Scholar Commons.

Rape in Roman Culture

by

Rape in Roman Culture

By Stacy Cacciatore

I visited Italy for the first time this summer, exploring Rome, Venice, Florence, Pompeii, Tuscany and Modena, an exploration of my husband’s Italian heritage (whose family is from Sicily). I love art and one of the highlights of the trip was visiting Florence’s Loggia dei Lanzi. We had a tour guide, who talked through the art we were exploring, including the Rape of the Sabine Women, which was carved out of one single block of white marble. When I seemed taken aback that there was a statue telling the story of the rape of a young woman, the tour guide explained that it wasn’t a statue about ‘rape’ rather it was originally called “Ratto delle Sabine” meaning the “abduction” of the Sabine and the sculpture actually wasn’t meant to be sexual at all. The tour guide explained that over time the word “ratto” was confused from “abduction” to “rape” because the words sounded similar. However, upon a bit of further research, it turns out that this is hotly debated and not as cut and dry as the tour guide made it seem. Regardless, whether it’s “rape” or an “abduction”, the statue represents a moment in Roman history in which women were viewed as sexual objects, available to be taken for a male’s pleasure. We saw that same theme in the readings this week. In Ovid’s The Art of Love, he references the Rape of the Sabine Women stating, “It was you, Romulus, who first mingled the cares of love with public games, that far-off day when the rape of the Sabine women gave wives to your warriors who had waited for them so long” (1033).[1]He speaks about how the Romans marked the women they most desired, “seized upon their prey” and grabbed the women they desired.

Even as the weak and timid doves flee before an eagle, even as a young lamb quails at the sight of a wolf, so shuddered the Sabine women when they beheld these fierce warriors making towards them. Every one turned pale, terror spread throughout the throng, but it showed itself in different ways. Some tore their hair; some swooned away; some wept in silence; some called vainly for their mothers; some sobbed aloud; others seemed stupefied with fear; some stood transfixed; others tried to flee. Nevertheless, the Romans carry off the women, sweet booty for their beds, and to many of them, terror lends an added charm. (1035).[2]

Ovid (43 BC-17/18 AD) uses the story of the Rape of the Sabine Women to demonstrate the complicated history of the relationship between men and women. He attempts to redefine the relationship between the sexes from one of the man holding all of the power and taking the woman of his choosing to a mutual relationship with both sexes playing a role in dynamic. I liken Ovid’s The Art of Loveto an ancient Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus(Gray, 1992). I remember reading this book when I first got married, seeking the answers to how my husband and I could communicate and understand each other. Ovid’s The Art of Loveis scarily similar. Ovid even references the story from Olympus of Mars and Venus, Mars falling in love with Venus and changed from the grim warrior to the submissive lover. The similarities make me wonder if John Gray mirrored Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus after Ovid’s The Art of Love? Take, for example, this quote that attempts to provide advice about how men and women should communicate with each other using gendered stereotypes, “One of the biggest differences between men and women is how they cope with stress. Men become increasingly focused and withdrawn while women become overwhelmed and emotionally involved,” (29)[3]. This statement is based on a gendered stereotyped, just as Ovid’s work.

What I find striking each week in our readings is that through all these years (The Art of Love was written in 2AD) not that much has changed. How can that be? Books, magazines and television continue to provide relationship advice to men and women that reinforce hegemonic normative roles. Ovid’s first two books provide relationship advice to men, tidbits such as “pay her pretty compliments” (1065), “don’t get have your hair waved or use powder on your skin” (1071) and “Don’t make it your business to restrict her diet” (1129)[4]. He also provides women with advice in his third book, telling them how to wear their hair, proper grooming (don’t let your armpits smell!) and how to wear makeup. Think about the magazine headlines, from Cosmopolitan magazine this month, “26 Body Language Signs That Mean He’s Into You” and “7 Thickening Shampoos That Instantly Make Your Hair Look (and Feel) Fuller”….They are reinforcing the same concepts that Ovid introduced, how to feel, look and act to attract the opposite sex.
Lanham calls Ovid a martyr and says that his views contradicted Augustan Rome (49)[5]. We can certainly see this in The Art of Love,asOvid frames the game of love between men and women as one of equality. While many components of his advice are antiquated, reinforcing stereotypical roles of men and women, it was advanced for his time. Lanham states, “In the Ars and Amores he tried, using love as a metaphor for private life, to work out the implications of his rhetorical view”, (49). He goes on to say that is why his poems are so didactic. According to Lanham, another tactic of Ovid is to begin with an illusion and reality will follow (50). This is the same advice we hear today regarding “fake it till you make it” and “act happy until you feel happy”.
However, as forward of a thinker as Ovid was, I still found components of his work extremely troubling. For example, “If you give your mistress something, she may give you your congé. She will have had her quid pro quo. Always make her think you’re just about to give, but never really do so” (1067)[6]. This is basically a statement reinforcing a woman’s value only as a sexual being and a male’s conquest of her sexually. IT places a woman in the role as a prostitute, receiving money or goods in exchange for sex. Even more troubling was, “If she refuses to be kissed, kiss her all the same. She may struggle to begin with. “Horrid man!” she’ll say; but if she fights, ‘twill be a losing battle. Nevertheless, don’t be too rough with her and hurt her dainty mouth. Don’t give her cause to say that you’re a brute. And if, after you’ve kissed her, you fail to take the rest, you don’t deserve even what you’ve won” (1087). This is rape. Not only is this encouraging rape, but it is reinforcing the excused behavior of men in a rape culture that a woman, “really wants it” and that the struggle a woman puts up is only a farce. Then it gets worse….“have hurt her in the struggle, you say? But women like being hurt. What they like to give, they love to be robbed of. Every woman taken by force in a hurricane of passion is transported with delight; nothing you could give her pleases her like that. But when she comes forth scathless from a combat in which she might have been taken by assault, however pleased she may try to look, she is sorry in her heart. Phœbe was raped, and so, too, was her sister Elaira; and yet they loved their ravishers not a whit the less” (1089). I found this extremely difficult to read. Rape, violence, reinforcing sexual violence against women and justifying it by saying she really wants it, no matter how much she struggles.
Throughout these readings I was immediately reminded of Victor J. Vitanza’s position in Sexual Violence In Western Thought and Writing: Chaste Rape (2011), and the role rape plays in shaping culture. Vitanza (2011) “The whole history, or assembled histories, are predicated on rape scripts and narratives as a set of common topoi,” (xii). I agree with Vitanza’s conjecture, as he states, “to understand rape (sexual violence), I contend, we must write the paradigm of rape across several contested groundings or images” (xvii)[7]. This is a fascinating and eye-opening thought, as I’ve never thought in this way before, but now that I’ve heard this, I can’t stop thinking about it. Vitanza is absolutely right, histories and narratives have been written based on rape culture. Even Ovid, who was ahead of his time and thought of himself as a “tutor to love” (1023) reinforces rape culture throughout his work, referring to how “Stolen love is just as sweet to women as it is to us” (1049) and “seizing the right moment to open the attack.” (1063). I am brought to Vitanza’s opening in Sexual Violence in Western Thought and Writing: Chaste Rape and the haunting story of Sylvia Likens. The rape culture that made Gertrude, Jenny, Richards Hobbs and Coy Hubburd feel justified in burning, beating and cutting Sylvia with the words “I am a prostitute and proud of it” is the same culture that the Romans reinforced years ago with positioning women as a conquest, to be taken and used for sexual pleasure, but to be chastised and scorned after being used.
In The Rape of Lucretiawe see an example how rape played a key role in the development of Roman culture. The story is about a woman who is raped and then commits suicide. In Mattes’ The Rape of Lucretia and the Founding of Republic: Readings in Livy, Machiavelli and Rousseau.(2001) she states that was is most notable is the linkage to “the logic that seems to necessitate the rape of a woman in order to found a republic” (42)[8]. West also explores how genders, roles and hierarchies are influenced by these stories that uses suicide as a catalyst for republic freedom and sexual violence to unite strangers (42). I again and brought to Vitanza’s work when he says, “no act against another is more devastating than rape (sexual violence); no act is more impossible to think, read, write than rape,” (xii)[9]. The act of rape is incredibly devastating, as much or more devastating to a community than death. And yet, we see rape acting as a topic continually raised in early Roman works, not only shaping a culture, but reinforcing and dare I say, normalizing, sexual violence towards women.
The readings this week opened my eyes to concepts I’ve never considered before, but now that I’ve seen it, I can’t unsee it…I now see it everywhere. Everywhere I look, I see the signs of how rape has formed our culture. Even in my beloved Disney fairy tales….the prince “kisses” Snow White when she’s asleep (unable to consent), in Beauty and the Beast, Gaston sexually harasses Belle and the Beast holds her captive and in Aladdin, Jafar forces Jasmine to marry him. Just as we’ve seen with other ideas that originated from the Romans, rape narratives have permeated Western culture.

Works cited
Gray, J. (1992). Men are from Mars, women are from Venus: The classic guide to understanding the opposite sex. NY, NY: Harper.

Lanham, R. A. (2004). The motives of eloquence: Literary rhetoric in the Renaissance. Eugene, Or.: Wipf & Stock.

Mattes, M (2001). The Rape of Lucretia and the Founding of Republic: Readings in Livy, Machiavelli and Rousseau.The Pennsylvania State University Press: University Park, PA.

Ovid. (2012) Complete Works of Ovid.Delphi Classics. Amazon Digital Classics. Kindle edition.

Vitanza, V. (2011). Sexual violence in western thought and writing: Chaste rape. S.l.: Palgrave Macmillan.

[1]Ovid. (2012) Complete Works of Ovid.Delphi Classics. Amazon Digital Classics. Kindle edition.
[2]Ovid. (2012) Complete Works of Ovid.Delphi Classics. Amazon Digital Classics. Kindle edition.
[3]Gray, J. (1992). Men are from Mars, women are from Venus: The classic guide to understanding the opposite sex. NY, NY: Harper.
[4]Ovid. (2012) Complete Works of Ovid.Delphi Classics. Amazon Digital Classics. Kindle edition.
[5]Lanham, R. A. (2004). The motives of eloquence: Literary rhetoric in the Renaissance. Eugene, Or.: Wipf & Stock.
[6]Ovid. (2012) Complete Works of Ovid.Delphi Classics. Amazon Digital Classics. Kindle edition.
[7]Vitanza, V. (2011). Sexual violence in western thought and writing: Chaste rape. S.l.: Palgrave Macmillan.
[8]Mattes, M (2001). The Rape of Lucretia and the Founding of Republic: Readings in Livy, Machiavelli and Rousseau.The Pennsylvania State University Press: University Park, PA.
[9]Vitanza, V. (2011). Sexual violence in western thought and writing: Chaste rape. S.l.: Palgrave Macmillan.

What is Rhetoric? 

by

What is Rhetoric? By W.A. Covino and D. Jolliffe is one of the best articles I’ve read on the background and basic principles of rhetoric. The authors’ address at the forefront that there is no short answer for the definition of rhetoric. Some individuals have a negative connotation of rhetoric, as “the manipulation of the linguistic features of a text” (4), associated with fraud and opposition to truth. However, my view is similar to Ulrike Jaeckel who states, “Does a rhetor ever NOT intend a text to do something?” (5). Whether the effect of the text is intended or unintended, everything we write has the potential to influence someone. I ask myself my intention every time I post something on social media and I evaluate the intended and unintended consequences. Almost every day I see something on Facebook that irritates me (why am I still on FB?), but I ask myself what my intention is, will I achieve my goal and if there the potential for unintended consequences.

 

As we apply this to film, In The Terministic Screen David Blakesley (2003) defines film rhetoric as “the visual and verbal signs and strategies that shape film experience and film theory as “the interpretive lens through which and with which we generate perspectives on film as both art and rhetoric” (3). I correlate these two thoughts by thinking of how the rhetoric in film has both intended and unintended consequences. Take, for example, the tropes on motherhood portrayed on screen. Covino and Jolliffee define tropes as “figures of thought, and schemes, or figures of actual expression” (7). One of my favorite shows is The Goldbergs. While I love this show, it features the common motherhood trope of the overbearing, selfless, “smother-mother”. There are both intended and unintended consequences of this rhetoric of motherhood. From an intended perspective, the show’s producer, Adam Goldberg, wants to portray an image of the “way things used to be” in the ‘80s with the caring, stay-at-home-mother whose life revolved around her children. From an unintended consequences perspective, this is a stereotypical portrayal of motherhood that forces women into gender normative roles and lacks diversity. There are larger unintended consequences when film portrays stereotypical tropes, asthose who are not exposed to a broader culture may “learn” about other cultures, races, different abilities and genders on screen. I think about how Italians are portrayed on Sopranos or how autism is portrayed in Rain Manor how Southerners are portrayed in Fried Green Tomatoes and all three films use rhetoric that influences the audiences’ viewpoints on race, class, gender and abilities.

 

 

 

Blakesley, David. The Terministic Screen: Rhetorical Perspectives on Film, Southern Illinois University Press, 2003. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/clemson/detail.action?docID=1365229.

 

Covino, William A., and David A. Jolliffe. Rhetoric: Concepts, Definitions, Boundaries. Allyn and Bacon, 1995.

 

Book Review: Food, Feminisms, Rhetorics

by

Book Review: Food, Feminisms, Rhetoric  by Melissa Goldwaithe

by Stacy Cacciatore

Historically, the study of women and food has been deemed unworthy of scholarly attention. Melissa Goldwaithe turns this on its’ head with Food, Feminisms, Rhetorics. In the past feminist scholars have been reluctant to study the intersection of gender and food. Goldwaithe acknowledges this at the forefront and opens by setting the stage for the importance of this topic in the studies of rhetorics and feminism. She grabs the reader in the first paragraph, inviting them to take a deeper look at the symbolism of food and food-like materials around them. She references ‘Hungry-Man’ frozen dinners and ‘Skinnygirl’ products to introduce the rhetoric of foods on the shelves of every grocery store, but the average consumer hasn’t paid much attention to. She then invites the reader to think even deeper…what formed their beliefs about food? What foods did they grow up thinking were good? Bad? The reader is immediately immersed in a deeper level of thinking of food and representation. Food, Feminisms, Rhetorics sets out to critically examine the historical and rhetorical significance of women and food.

First off, note the plural of both the words ‘feminisms’ and ‘rhetorics’. Goldwaithe purposefully uses the plural versions of these words, acknowledging that there are multiple types of both feminisms and rhetorics. The book is divided into four parts: (1) “Part I. Purposeful Cooking: Recipes for Historiography, Thrift and Peace” (2) “Part II. Defining Feminist Food Writing” (3) “Part III: Rhetorical Representations of Food-Related Practices” and (4) “Part IV: Rhetorical Representations of Bodies and Cultures” (pp 5-8). Food, Feminisms, Rhetoric contains essays written by a variety of feminist scholars with varying viewpoints. While in the past scholars focused primarily on food disorders and feminists were reluctant to cooking and eating because they were linked to women’s oppression, however, there seems to be a renewed interest in the topic and we’ve seen more works focusing on women, food and rhetoric. Food, Feminisms, Rhetoric explores a wide range of topics, providing a forum for both new and established scholars. The topics covered range from the visual rhetoric of women during the Holocaust to the cultural appropriation and appreciation through food writing to widening the definition of a rhetorician to include housewives who hand-wrote recipe cards and handed them down through the generations.

Part I. contains essays paying attention to cookbooks as feminist historiographies, the “embodied rhetoric” of hand-written recipes handed down by generations of women, the political rhetoric of war-time recipes and thrifty shopping and food preparation. In Writing Recipes, Telling Histories: Cookbooks as Feminist Historiography by Carrie Helms Tippen, she makes the argument that rhetoric requires a redefinition to include women as practitioners of rhetoric (16). Tippen posits that cookbooks serve as a feminist hysterography and places the women authors in a position of the rhetorician.  She uses the cookbook, Sweets: Soul Food Desserts and Memoriesto situate women not only as rhetoricians but historiographers. Using the example of “My My’s Pound Cake” (Pinner’s grandmother) she illustrates how recipes not only provided a narrative for women but also contributed to the development of southern identity. Sweets served not only as a cookbook, but a memoir and alternate female narrative of the Great Migration, in which African Americans moved from the south to the north for a better future. My My uses the recipe for a pound cake to tout her southern pride, stating “Pound cakes are a truly Southern dessert,” (19). Pinner also writes about the re-creation of the southern kitchen and food social practices that migrated with her My My from the south to the north, demonstrating the importance food has on family and culture.

In The Embodied Rhetoric of Recipesby Jennifer Cognard-Black, the reader is brought into the nostalgia of Cognard-Black’s family kitchen, complete with the food-stained recipe card for “Date Puffed Rice Balls”. Cognard-Black argues that handwritten recipe cards serve as the embodiment of rhetoric, giving a three-dimensional voice to women who pass the recipes down through the generation. The hand-written recipes embody the physical aspect of the author, down to their skin cells brushed onto the card, leaving remnants of their actual body, but also situates the author in place and time. She uses the example of her grandmother’s “Date Puffed Rice Balls” recipe. This one 3X5 index card represents the voice of women in America in the 1950s. How you may ask? She gives us several examples, first, the ingredients list calls for ‘oleo’ which is short for ‘oleomargarine’ which fell out of use in the United States in 1949. Afterward, the term ‘margarine’ was used, but we can tell that this recipe was written when the term ‘oleo’ was still widely used. The name on the card is attributed to her grandmother’s friend, ‘Florence Anderson’. Quick research on the name will provide compelling evidence that most likely this is the name of an Anglo-American woman who migrated from England to the United States and was born between 1880-1940 (36). We also know that this recipe was written in a time when sugar was readily available and desserts in ball form were in vogue. All of these facts help provide a living body to the recipe. The author also states that she makes her grandmother’s butterhorn recipe with her daughter every year. Although her daughter never met her grandmother, she has a piece of her through the recipe she’s handed down. What I love most about this essay is my own personal connection to this topic, as my most valued possession is the hand-written recipe book my mom gave me on my wedding day. I’ve always felt a personal connection to her when I flip open the book and follow her directions for making her famous fudge or chili. I run my finger over the pages, feeling the imprint of where her pen left an impression. I still chuckle when I see that she re-wrote her mother-in-law’s recipe for sweet potato casserole because she felt that her handwriting was too messy and she didn’t approve of the amount of butter she used. I laugh at how she wrote her name on the top of the recipes she provided as if I didn’t know that the chili recipe was “mom’s”. And tears come to my eyes as I picture the many nights of my childhood, sitting across the table from her eating her chicken n dumplings and chocolate oatmeal cookies. I’ve always felt closer to her when preparing her recipes and Cognard-Black helps put words as to why.

The chapter, “Promoting Peace, Subverting Domesticity: Cookbooks against War, 1968-1983” by Abby Dubisar was particularly intriguing, as the author provided examples of how women combined recipes with rhetoric for antiwar feminists. The opening quote, “It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber” by Velia Dean and Barbara B.J. Zimmerman in The Great Day Cookbooksums up this chapter (60). I had never thought of it in those terms before, but wow, how accurate. Using phrases such as, “Make in 10 minutes before rushing off to your WSP meeting” (67), “Italian exports are known the world over. If only PACEM in Terris was a popular as Italian Veal and Peppers. However, until that good day…” and “Spread sauce over chicken and serve. Sometimes (maybe due to nuclear testing) the sauce just won’t thicken enough to spread” (67) the reader can see how political rhetoric is interspersed with recipes. The authors appealed to their readers, women, by using a topic that appealed to their sense while interspersing political rhetoric.

The authors in Part I. all use different methods to articulate similar messages on the argument that cookbooks are indeed rhetoric and the women authors, rhetoricians. Regardless of the format, whether hand-written recipe cards, war-time cookbooks or a memoir with recipes, the writing of recipes serves as important documentation of history and provides women with a voice in a time when male rhetoric dominated.

Part II invites the reader to understand more about defining feminist food writing. Erin Branch conducts a critical analysis of M.F.K. Fisher’s food writing. M.F.K. Fisher was a gastronomical writer, ranked fifth on “The Fifty Most Important Women in Food”, claiming she “created” the genre of food writing (77). At the time, most women wrote about food not for pleasure, but in terms of household management. They wrote about practical topics, such as saving money, recipes and advice, but M.F.K. Fisher wrote about enjoying preparing and eating food. Branch argues that Fisher “provides a rich case study for feminist rhetorical practice” (79). Branch conducts a rhetorical analysis of Fisher’s works, discovering Fisher’s “feminine style” to argue that the pleasures of food are just as important as the other benefits. Branch coins the term, “gastronomical Kairos” as “the ‘fitness’ or ‘opportuneness’ of a given culinary experience’ (79). Branch describes the rhetorical significance of the kariotic moments, using the example of Fisher’s description of eating a peach pie, still warm from the oven, peaches picked straight from the farm and the cream fresh and cold, sitting in the local stream. This description places the reader in the moment and provides an emotionally powerful appeal, contributing to the gastronomical Kairos. In fact, Branch argues that Fisher’s gastronomical Kairos is the key reason why she’s so successful. What’s also interesting to note is Fisher’s use of initials rather than her first name, which she does as to not be identified as female in her writing. I see this in my workplace still, in corporate America 2019. I work with several women who refuse to use their first name in their email, signature or corporate directory listing. Instead, they prefer to be referred to by their initials. By removing their gender in written communications, they placed themselves on an even playing field as men in the industry, similar to what Fisher did. Branch also brings up an excellent point that readers are more likely to identify with a persona whose authority is derived from experience than education or other remote sources, which is part of the reason Fisher was so successful. Fisher dared to do what only other male food writers did at the time, write about the pleasure of food. Speaking of M.L.K. Fisher, the next author, Lynn Bloom, opens with a quote from M.L.K. Fisher, “Our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others,” (89). Bloom speaks of how our love of food is intermingled with our experiences, family and memories. She also discusses vulnerability as a rhetorical strategy, using Gabrielle Hamilton, author of Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef and chef/owner of Pruneas an example. Bloom discusses how Hamilton is a powerful force among female rhetoricians, with her controlling, authoritative and list-making style. She displays the dichotomy of ball-breaking chef and motherhood with Hamilton’s ‘to-do’ list she wrote when 39 weeks pregnant:

Train CR on a 2-man line

Call Roodie for fill-in?

Have baby

Tell brunch crew vinaigrette too acidic

Pick up white platters

Change filters in hoods

Figure out pomegranate syrup. (95)

 

By having ‘have baby’ as only one-line item on this otherwise, work-centric list, demonstrates the many balls Hamilton kept in the air.

In “From Street Food to Digital Kitchens: Toward a Feminist Rhetoric of Culinary Tourism (or, How Not to Devour Paris and Eat Your Way Through Asia)”by Kristin Winet, discusses culinary tourism, which is the consuming of foods while traveling. She outlines the problem, namely cosmopolitanism. Jennie Germann Molz notes, “the practice of cosmopolitanism is not theoretically considered to be negative, as it is most often associated with ‘a stance toward diversity itself’ through a demonstration that willingly wishes to engage with the Other in curious, appreciative ways – an orientation that is not at its heart, necessarily colonizing by design (103). The main problem Winet outlines is that many food writers are not culturally sensitive. She posits that there are consequences to taking a cosmopolitan stance, including inadvertently exploiting the “Other’s” culture at the expense of highlighting how ‘adventurous’ they are. The culinary tourist ends up being about the author’s bravery at trying new and exotic foods rather than appreciating and understanding another’s culture. This process ends up decontextualizing food by erasing the history of how the food came to be. Winet states, “This is, in some ways, the kind of Internet-based de-contextualization that celebrates global food without really understanding them” (106). In the south we way, ‘she means well’ or ‘bless her heart’ which is the sentiment I have towards these to unwitting food writers. In their attempt to contribute to the rhetoric on food, they end up devaluing the culture rather than demonstrating their appreciation.

Part III evaluates rhetorical representations of food-related practices. Abby Wilkerson writes the first essay in this chapter, “Not Your Father’s Farm: Toward Transformative Rhetorics Of Food and Agriculture” and provides examples of how the rhetoric of farming and agriculture paints a picture of the ideal farming family, which is white, Anglo-Saxon, heterosexual and traditional. She discusses Eileen Schells’ work, Rural Literacies, which calls for an ‘alternative agrarian rhetoric’. Schell extends Kenneth Burke’s rhetoric of persuasion to farming families and the marketing that reinforces the imagery of farm and family. This ‘family rhetoric’ results in indirect forms of exclusion, as LGBTQ, non-white and single farmers don’t fit the marketing images of the white, heterosexual family to sell their goods.

In “Baklava As Home: Exile and Arab Cooking in Diana Abu-Jaber’s Novel Crescent” Arlene Voski-Avakian discusses the importance of diversity in the rhetoric on food. She also portrays the dilemmas that Arab American feminist writers face. If they harken back to a “glorified past” they can be criticized because of the patriarchal dominant forces in the Arab world. However, if they explore the patriarchy of their cultures in diaspora, it can play into the Western assumptions of Arab culture. She also addresses the challenges in Arab American writers to represent Arabs, as this is a broad category of diverse people. They have the challenge to decide who’s in and who’s out. There are also sensitivities to not reinforce the Americanized trope that Arab Americans are terrorists with ‘their’ women having little awareness. However, Voski-Avakian posits that Abu-Jaber successfully navigates this rocky rhetoric in her work, Crescent. She uses food as the unifying object that brings people together and offers a way to connect people across their differences (136).

Winona Landis takes a similar approach as Voski-Avakian in the respect that she analyzes the work of a female fiction author. Landis explores the work, My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki, which plays a significant role in gendered reproduction and global feminism (142). Landis states, “My Year of Meatsexemplifies the neoliberal project of identification across difference; that is, it relies on the production of positive feelings and the simplification of difference in order to promote inclusive political change,” (143). Landis expands upon Allison Carruth’s theory that “[Ozeki’s] fiction analogizes cultural diversity and biodiversity as a rhetorical tactic for rejecting ‘global economic exchange networks” by adding the emphasis on emotional reactions and identification (143-44). Similar to Kristin Winet, Landis notes the danger in representing cultural diversity as truly an appreciation of other cultures or reinforcing the mode of the United States at the center and American modes of consumption.

Sugar and Spice: Cooking with the Girl Poisoner by Sylvia A. Pamboukian offers a fascinating look into the imagery in children’s literature of the juxtaposition of the girl poisoner as innocent and celebrated from the woman poisoner, a witch and villainous.  Pamboukian cites several examples in children’s literature, including Anne of Green Gables, Harry Potter, Brave and The Secret Garden of the girl poisoner. I was particularly interested in this chapter, as this was a view I had never before considered. She extends ‘poisoning’ to include self-poisoning (The Secret Garden), cooking with less than fresh ingredients (Little Women) and deliberately poisoning ones’ family (Brave). Pamboukian posits that the ‘girl poisoners’ heroines treated as girls are read as naïve and enhances their likability. However, once a ‘girl’ becomes a ‘woman’ (as in marriageable or married women) she becomes unsympathetic.

Tammie M. Kennedy discusses the rhetoric of wine in Boxed Wine Feminisms: The Rhetoric of Women’s Wine Drinking in The Good Wife to discuss how wine and drinking has become commonplace rhetoric in today’s society. Kennedy specifically uses The Good Wife to exemplify how “drinking practices are inflected by gender ideologies that shape representations in popular culture” (171). Over the past ten years, wine has been portrayed as a substance that enables women to deal with the stress of balancing motherhood with a career and the pressures of everyday life. Kennedy makes the tie of this wine-drinking culture to feminism, stating that it is a form of female assertion. However, she recognizes there are contrary views on wine-drinking and feminism. Gloria Steinem is quoted as saying, “Alcohol is not a women’s issue”, while other feminists have touted how alcohol is an antidote to managing modern motherhood.

Part IV addresses what I’ve typically thought of when I think of women and food, the rhetorical representations of bodies and cultures. Consuelo Carr Salas opens up with The Commodification of Mexican Women on Food Packaging, addressing how Mexican foodstuffs are marketed. Walking down the ethnic food aisle, one may notice the traditional Mexican folklorico dress on the woman on the salsa jar or the woman in a simple blouse in front of a traditional kitchen setting (190). Salas critically examines this rhetoric, asking questions such as ‘who is this marketed to?’ ‘why do some companies choose to sell their product using stereotypical images vs. plain packaging?” (190). Salas found that scholars had conducted many studies on women in advertisements and found that while women are represented in more diverse roles now than in the past, food advertisement is more likely to depict women in gender normative roles. Salas’ call to action is to ask consumers to pay closer attention to the visual rhetoric of certain cultures in advertising and consider the way the stereotypes are perpetuated (195).

Alexis Baker tackles the sensitive topic of female rhetoric during the Holocaust in “Feeding the Self: Representations of Nourishment and Female Bodies in Holocaust Art.” What she found by exploring the paintings and artifacts from the Holocaust is that women used visual rhetoric to hold on to some semblance of normalcy and their life prior to being imprisoned in the concentration camp. Baker specifically looks at Ravensbruck Women’s Concentration Camp, fifty miles outside of Berlin. These women and their children were starved to death, as food rations weren’t increased, even as the camp overflowed with more and more prisoners. To ease their suffering, they composed recipe books based on their lives prior to the Holocaust. Two of these cookbooks survived. This domestic rhetoric enabled women to maintain hope and mentally place themselves outside of the camp into a time when they were happy, healthy and with their families. Paintings also exist from this time, Baker evaluates this art, specifically Mother and Child by Halina Olomucki, and found that the mother and child are represented as being together, even in a time when children were torn from their mother’s arms, their cheeks were full, in a time when they were being starved, and their locks flowed over their shoulders, in a time when their heads were being shaved. This art demonstrates the power of visual rhetoric for these women to represent them identify not by their current reality, but in the roles, they held in the past. This rhetoric enabled them to present their identities “not as victims, but of strong Jewish women” (204).

“Evolving Ana” by Morgan Gresham explores the pro-anorexia website, House of Thin, and how the rhetoric plays a role in the discourse of eating disorders. The common belief of ‘pro-ana’ and ‘pro-mia’ (meaning promoting and encouraging the eating disorders, anorexia and bulimia respectively) websites is that they contribute to the dangerous rhetoric for young girls and women on eating disorders. Gresham seeks to better understand the complexity of the discourse on these sites. Pro-ana websites popped up at an alarming rate in the 1990s and early 2000s, with a variety of thinspiration quotes and images, advice on how to maintain and hide eating disorders and tips for losing weight. There are differing thoughts on these sites, as The National Eating Disorders Association and the National Association of Anorexia fought to have these sites taken down, as they believed them to be damaging and hindering recovery for those suffering from an eating disorder. However, other researchers recognized the value in these sites, recognizing the value of women with this disorder to connect with one another and develop a coping strategy for their illness. The audience for these sites is primarily women recovering from anorexia. These women face an interesting challenge, as third-wave feminist writers claim that overcoming eating disorders is being a feminist, but Gresham explains that recovery isn’t a one-step, or one and done experience, thereby plunging women recovering from the illness into questioning their allegiance to feminism.

Rebecca Ingalls discusses the important topic of grotesque rhetoric in the Skinny Bitchbook series. The authors of Skinny Bitch, Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin, use foul language, harsh feedback and shaming language to persuade readers to adopt a veganism lifestyle. Ingalls likens this to ‘grotesque realism’, which is “excessive corporeality illustrated in artifacts depicting the carnival tradition but mean to be repressed in high culture” (223). Ingalls posits that Freedman and Barnouin use the image of the shameful female glutton and the horrible foods she eats as a rhetorical strategy to steer readers away from eating meat, dairy, sugar and refined carbohydrates and adopting a “clean” lifestyle to get skinny. The Skinny Bitch books serve as a stark contrast to the other diet books on the market that provide a sympathetic, understanding and caring view of a woman’s challenge with losing weight. Rather, Skinny Bitchtakes advantage of the “plight of a woman who has already hit rock bottom in a cycle of fad diets and weight gain and loss; what has she to lose with a little cut-to-the-chase advice about how she has failed to change her food habits?” (227). Ingalls compares the rhetoric used in Skinny Bitch to what Bakhtin describes as ‘billingsgate abuse’, at the core of grotesque realism. Compare Bakhtin’s urging to see the ‘affection’ in the insult to Freedman and Barnouin stating is ‘tough love’. Another interesting point in this article is the affirmations the authors use in Skinny Bitch to motivate the women to lose weight, it’s noted that the progression of mantras moves from “my ass is getting smaller”, “my thighs are getting thinner” and “my stomach is getting flatter” to “loving my body more” and finally “getting healthier and healthier”. This reinforces the focus on the importance of looks and only being able to love ones’ body AFTER one’s ass, thighs and stomach are smaller (235).

Moving from skinny bitches to fat ladies, Sara Hillin examines the rhetoric of the Two Fat Ladies television show in “Gusto and Grace: Two Fat Ladies and The Rhetorical Construction of Fat Culinary Ethos”. The ‘two fat ladies’ were successful and set out to “disrupt the dominate weight-normative discourse that exalted thin bodies” (238). Hillin posits that the ‘two fat ladies’ were forerunners in the “movement to combat fat oppression” and were activists, promoting self-love, size acceptance and being comfortable in one’s skin.

The plus-sized female is also explored in Elizabeth Lowry’s essay, “Deconstructing the Plus-Size Female Sleuth: Fat Positive Discourse, Rhetorical Excess, And Cultural Constructions of Femininity in Cozy Crime Fiction”. Lowry explores the relationship between personal and the political with fat positive discourse in the second-wave feminist movement, specifically by taking a deep look at novels portraying a fat female detective. While much of what Lowry explores is an interesting exploration into this genre of “chick-lit” (a term troublesome in itself), what I found the most interesting was her assessment that the fat female protagonist has to be careful not to indulge in ‘excess’ of other vices, which would reinforce the trope that overweight women are indulgent and lack self-control. Specifically, Lowry uses Flake’s Hannah as an example, citing ‘Hannah’s sexual desires are hinted at, but never quite fulfilled and her ambivalence about her own body is clear” (259). Lowry states that this is done to be careful not to play into the notion that overweight women are excessively grateful for male attention. Lowry’s concluding argument is one of mixed messages, stating that when writing about a fat protagonist, the author should be careful to celebrate excess, but not take it too far, embrace their body while also not focusing too much on their fatness. From Lowry’s analysis, it feels as if an author can’t win, if their female protagonist is overweight, but doesn’t talk about her weight, she’s “living from the neck up” (257). However, if she focuses on it too much, she’s reinforcing the stereotype that overweight women are not comfortable in their bodies.

In conclusion, Food, Feminisms, Rhetorics is an eye-opening collection of essays from feminist scholars with ground-breaking ideas, thoughts and conclusions. I gobbled up this book quickly and couldn’t put it down. Each essay is written superbly and offers a fresh new perspective on women and food. Given the variety in topics, from Grandmother’s handwritten recipe cards to the danger in cultural misappropriate a culinary tourism writer to the power of rhetoric and body image, each essay is well worth the read. The scholars offer well-researched viewpoints and extended the views posited by other researchers. I am inspired to take a deeper look at many of these issues, that previously I was not even aware. I hope that this work is the first of many works focusing on the relationship between food, feminism and rhetoric, as I believe this field is rich in content and we’ve barely touched the surface on this important topic. I highly recommend this book and I will be looking for additional works by Goldwaithe.

 

Works Cited

Goldthwaite, Melissa A. Food, Feminisms, Rhetorics. Southern Illinois University Press, 2017.

 

Book Review – Tasteful Domesticity by Sarah Walden

by

In Tasteful Domesticity, Sarah Walden explores the scholarship on cookbooks and how they’ve served as a rhetorical space for women in nineteenth-century America. She claims that Tasteful Domesticity is the first book-length study of women’s rhetoric in American cookbooks (13). Walden posits that cookbooks not only “satisfy Aristotle’s famous definition of rhetoric as ‘locating the available mans of persuasion’”, but also allow women to engage in the cultural discourse that they were previously denied (4). Walden shows how the American cookbook has served as a rhetorical device that contributed to defining the ideal American body (both physically and ideologically) and social structure. While cookbooks are often assumed to be a collection of recipes with a simple list of ingredients and instructions, she argues that they are much more, articulating domestic philosophies and providing a platform for the author to establish an authoritative ethos. The book is organized into sections to focus on various components of rhetoric in American cookbooks, focusing on taste rhetoric in virtue, morality, regions, science, and race. Walden examines a variety of scholar’s work on rhetoric and cookbooks while adding her own empirical research, perspective, and rhetorical analysis.

Since women have historically had less education than men, the ‘training’ they did receive was given to cultivate ‘epistolary skills’, resulting in ‘parlor rhetoric’. Parlor rhetoric is a metaphor introduced by Kenneth Burke (1897-1993) for the “unending conversation that is going on at the point in history when we are born” (Nordquist, 2018). This parlor rhetoric was common in cookbooks and domestic manuals, where not only many of them were written by women, but they were written specifically for women. The cookbook was a space in which women could have an authoritative voice and communicate intellectual and physical standards. Embedded in this messaging was cultural hierarchies of race, class, and gender.

Walden explains in the first chapter “Taste and Virtue: Domestic Citizenship and the New Republic” that the first cookbooks helped define the character of American women and linked their domestic roles to their new national identity (28). The first cookbook written and published on American soil was American Cookery in 1796. There were specific, ideologic characteristics communicated to American wives and mothers, defined as “republican motherhood”, which is defined as “the relegation of women’s authority to the ‘private’ sphere” (29). A key component of this was the common understanding “that one’s passions and preferences must be regulated for the good of the republic” (29). Walden uses the examples of the most prominent early American cookery texts, American Cookery (1796), Frugal Housewife (1829) and Virginia Housewife (1824) to illustrate this point. All three of these cookbooks use ‘good taste’ to promote the public virtue of a republican economy and society. They do this by communicating that one must regulate their tastes to the cultural norm and not give in to individual passions. It was from these cookbooks that ‘American taste’ was born. The cookbook authors included local ingredients, such as cornmeal, which held rhetorical significance, creating the ideal of American taste, while avoiding the use of British goods, such as tea.

The first American cookbooks were written by women for women, thereby allowing women to enter a rhetorical space of power typically reserved for men. And while Child, author of The Frugal Housewife, claims she wrote for the poor, her audience was more likely middle class, specifically middle-class white women. Randolph, author of The Virginia Housewife, attempts to build her ethos by stating she came from nothing and wrote this book for the common housewife with information she wished that she had when she was starting out. However, Walden points out that this is a fabrication or at best an exaggeration, as she grew up wealthy and most likely had domestic education.
Walden uses several examples of how these cookbooks served to define the role of the housewife, including the fact that these books often centered on the trope that the husband would bring home a friend from work and she would need to have the skill necessary to whip up a meal at a moment’s notice. These cookbooks also reinforced standards of women still held today, as Walden states, “Early republican society rhetorically cast women as rational beings with the ability to self-regulate,” (34). This demonstrates the continued notion that reinforces the notion that women should be viewed as beautiful objects meant for the male gaze.

Prior to reading this text, I had never thought of how cookbooks held rhetorical significance in defining “good taste”. But Walden provides plenty of research and evidence of how the early American cookbooks defined “good taste” through the use of specific ingredients, an indication of moral character and values. Early American cookbooks described bourgeois middle class tastes as “natural” while working class tastes were rarely described, but rather fictionalized or critiqued.

In the second chapter, “Taste and Morality: Motherhood and the Making of a National Body”, Walden outlines how American cookbooks participated in the rhetorical construction of ideal motherhood (55). Beecher, co-author of The American Women’s Home, “was the first American domestic expert to synthesize the many duties of a domestic woman – “heath, child care, housebuilding, and cooking,” (56). Her book even served as a textbook in women’s seminaries and as a handbook for domestic education. Walden points out that because society tied women’s roles to morality and the church, many of these domestic handbooks took on the sacred significance and states, “Mary Kelley calls the domestic advice literature written between 1830 and 1860 the ‘liturgy of a cult of domesticity” (56). The taste discourse in American cookbooks implied that womanhood in America was white, Protestant and middle class. Women were treated as a homogenous group. Given that women were grouped into this homogenous group, they were also all told what a ‘good housekeeper’, ‘mother’ and ‘wife’ should do. Domestic texts constructed a moral motherhood who exemplified American tastes. Hale, author of The Good Housekeeper (1839) defines ideal motherhood: “The mother appears more in relation to her children than in any other position: therefore, here mind and thoughts should chiefly be given to there are and training” (65).

 

The role of the ‘moral mother’ was to ensure to nurture her children and her role was defined more through her character than her financial state. From a morality perspective, Walden furthers her argument that ideal motherhood is defined by these texts when she quotes child-rearing advice in Mother’s Magazine, “the tastes and habits of children are usually formed from what they see and hear from their mother, they copy her likes and dislikes, and when very young, will often do and suffer much to win her smile of approbation” (67). Walden explains that both Beecher and Mother Magazine rely upon Protestant context to describe women’s work. What I find interesting is that not much has changed on this perspective today. If one is to look in a parenting magazine today, one would find many of the same perceptions and attitudes about motherhood, which further demonstrates the power of the early rhetoric on motherhood in America.

In the third chapter, “Taste and Religion: The Constitutive Function of Southern Cookbooks”, Walden argues that “southern cookbooks in part constitute, rather than merely represent, southern identity (82-83). Few southern cookbooks were published prior to the Civil War. Walden states, “cooking literature not only reflects a culture; it also marks its boundaries or produces that culture” (86). Using Kenneth Burke’s (1897-1993) persuasive process theory that shared meaning and value are attached to “common sensations, concepts, images, ideas, [and] attitudes” (57) Walden posits that audiences can “embody a discourse”. As the southern public emerged, there were limited educational opportunities for anyone outside of the wealthiest of the population, couple that with the lack of printing technology and unequal social structure and the southern cookbook was slow to emerge. Southern cookbooks were less likely than their northern counterparts to emphasize the moral implications of taste. Rutledge published the first southern cookbook, originally titled Carolina Housewife or House and Home: By a Lady of Charleston (95). Walden notes that she had to carefully negotiate her domestic authority with the expectations of a ‘southern lady’, which is why Rutledge states there are no names in the book, explaining, “a true Carolina lady’s name appeared in print only three times in her life: when born, when married and when buried – the legal necessities” (95).

In the fourth chapter, “Taste and Science: Cooking Schools, Home Economics, and the Progressive Impulse” (113) Walden posits that women used taste discourse in cookbooks to contribute to public reform. Walden builds on three arguments in relationship to taste, race, class and morality in domestic writings, including 1) domestic science caused the downfall of the American palate 2) 19th and 20th centuries sparked a new interest in the science of taste and chemical composition of food and 3) even though taste is variable, it didn’t increase the categories of people who can use it to promote their goals. Walden states that American cooking schools set out to rebrand cooking and housework as a characterization of a woman’s love for her family, as until the end of the nineteenth century, servants performed domestic labor. I thought this was a thought-provoking assertion, as I had never thought of how America managed the shift from servants and slaves performing domestic duties to non-hired help, the housewife. Previously, I did not think critically about how or why cooking contributed to the associations of a woman’s maternal identity. In the 1890s, there was an emergence of nutritional science, including the discovery of taste buds contributed to a sensory experience. The discovery of the four basic tastes of sweet, sour, salty and bitter led to the use of taste to contribute to a cultural standard. The concept of “good taste” became correlated with class. Walden states, “Rhetorically, taste now indicates rational food choices based on modern science, while the palate connotes uneducated food choices based on tradition and emotion. In either application, the message is clear: Americans need an intellectual understanding of food and the body to promote good taste and cultural betterment,” (124). This particularly hit a chord with me, as I see how this is still true today. There are certain foods associated with class structures. Walden also correlates the old adage, “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach” with taste, using the example of rhetorical blending in women’s magazines such as Good Housekeeping and Redbook referencing taste and love. These magazines reinforced that good taste is an intellectual ability that should transcend physical appetite.

 

This is a common theme in Walden’s research, as she mentions several studies that evaluate the rhetoric of taste, valuing intellect, science and self-control over taste, enjoyment and emotional experience. The American middle-class diet was formed as a result of dietary adaptations to better fulfill American Progressive ideals of productivity, efficiency and hygiene (138). Walden says the key term was “simplicity” and was grounded in “New England staples” such as meat, wheat and boiled vegetables (138). Walden encourages us to notice the difference between this “simple” diet and the rich sauces associated with the wealthy or mixed dishes that use beans, grains and vegetables to compensate for a lack of meat, which were correlated with the poor. She uses these examples to posit that taste is cultivated rather than inborn.
In the fifth chapter, “Revisions of Labor and Domestic Literacy in the Early Twentieth Century” (143). Walden explores the narratives of ‘mammy cookbooks’. ‘Mammy cookbooks’ were written by white women who were creating a narrative around the plantation mythology, reinforcing the ‘mammy’ archetype. “Mammy” is a stereotype in America of the southern, black woman who worked for a white family, taking care of the kids and working in the kitchen. She was often portrayed an older, overweight, dark-skinned, loyal, obedient and submissive, the most well-known example being Aunt Jemima, who was introduced at the Chicago’s World Fair of 1893 and came to represent “antebellum romanticism” (154). “Mammy cookbooks” were introduced in the late 1890s, were written entirely in dialect by the 1920s and continued with the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. White domestic writers capitalized on the marketability of the southern mammy. Walden explains that these cookbooks served several purposes, including romanticizing the image of the Old South, continuing to impede racial progress and defining a southern community based on print representation (154). The “mammy cookbooks” served to further divide the classes between white and black Americans as the cookbooks removed white women from “culinary “labor”.

In later years, when African American women wrote domestic texts, it served to bridge the divide between classes and races. Walden explains this in regards to the fact that white Americans withheld literacy education, even making it a crime to teach a slave to read. Literacy marked a class distinction and “became imbued with a capitalist sense of possession” (154). By authoring a text, an African American woman could demonstrate that she not only had literacy skill, but she also portrayed authority.
In conclusion, Walden makes a compelling argument regarding how women have used the cookbook as a rhetorical space. Walden guides us through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, providing examples of how the rhetoric used in cooking and domestic manuals has contributed to societal expectations. By organizing the book around different components of taste discourse, Walden is able to present research from other scholars on taste discourse and contribute her additions to their assertions. She makes an excellent argument for how women, who have typically been excluded from public forums, have used the domestic space of cookbooks to contribute powerful rhetoric that has formed cultural norms in America. The issue of the rhetoric of body image and weight in cookbooks is one that Walden could have explored further. She touches on the morality of taste and how cookbooks have contributed to the rhetoric that promotes “good taste” relating to ones’ ability to self-re
gulate. The notion being that a woman can demonstrated her strong self-regulation through weight management and prioritizing how she looks over giving in to her individual temptations. Walden’s research is critical to the field of food, rhetoric and feminism.

Works cited
Nordquist, R. (2018, Aug. 10). What is Burkean Parlor? ThoughCo. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-burkean-parlor-1689042 on January 2, 2019.

Walden, Sarah. Tasteful Domesticity Women’s Rhetoric & the American Cookbook 1790-1940. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018.