Comments Elsewhere

Barbara,

I agree with you that different rhetorical postures are appropriate to different circumstances. My point in quoting Garrison was to reply to Uzzah’s claim that “If you have to resort to the angry rhetoric to make your point, maybe its a point that doesn’t hold much water.” I think this is false, and obviously so. Sometimes it’s worth pulling punches to get a point across and sometimes what the matter deserves is more severity and harshness in our language. When that’s the case it does absolutely nothing to undermine or to delegitimize the point that you are making, whether or not it makes individual listeners more or less likely to agree with you. (As I take it you agree, from your comments.)

I also think it’s worth noting, though, that whatever sort of language is most conducive to persuading people, the point of feminist writing is not always to convince sexist men to become less sexist. Persuading more men (or for that matter more women) to become feminists is one way that feminism can make progress towards its goals, but it’s not the only way, and sometimes neither the most important nor the most beneficial.