IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication Mar 2022

Embodying Public Feminisms: Collaborative Intersectional Models for Engagement

Temptaous Mckoy Bowie State University ; Cecilia D. Shelton University of Maryland, College Park ; Carleigh Davis Missouri University of Science and Technology ; Erin A. Frost East Carolina University

Abstract

Introduction: This article offers an approach that we call critical collaboration —an array of theoretical commitments drawn from the authors’ embodiments and lived experiences. In making explicit the connections between authorial embodiment and the content of theory and practice, our practical models demonstrate new and varied approaches to public feminisms. We begin with a discussion of embodiment and then offer four sections—amplification rhetorics, apparent feminisms, a techné of marginality, and memetic rhetorical environments—with key takeaways to guide readers through our related-but-different approaches. Our goal in doing so is to underscore the importance of public feminisms to enacting social justice in technical and professional communication. This means recognizing our obligation to respond to unjust technical communication. Technical communication is not a utopia of inclusion and anti-racism—although some corners of the field are dedicated to those topics, to be sure. Rather, despite the social justice turn, some parts of the field still insist on objectivity, neutrality, and practicality as the touchstones for “good” technical communication. Our work here shows some of the ways in which we might resist the cultural blinders that allow such ideas to persist unabated. Drawing especially on research in rhetoric and embodiment studies, we build interdisciplinary bridges with critical race studies (including critical race feminisms), womanism, gender studies, technical communication, Black rhetorics, queer studies, cultural studies, and rhetorical genre studies, among other fields, to provide a set of practical approaches to public feminist exigencies that resist collapsing all feminisms into a single approach. We argue that drawing on embodiment to develop a multiplicity of feminist approaches and engaging in critical collaboration as those approaches evolve is a way forward that allows for more stakeholders to engage fruitfully in public feminist projects. Our hope is that readers can then imagine public feminisms as one avenue for doing the social justice work that is vital to the growth of technical and professional communication as a field.

Journal
IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
Published
2022-03-01
DOI
10.1109/tpc.2022.3143352
CompPile
Open Access
Closed
Topics
rhetorical criticism genre theory african american rhetorics collaborative writing technical communication professional writing race and writing gender and writing body and rhetoric
Export
BibTeX RIS

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

References (94) · 16 in this index

  1. 10.4324/9781003060635-5
     ↗
  2. 10.4324/9780203700280
     ↗
  3. 10.54656/FBBT3737
     ↗
  4. 10.1080/00131857.2015.1068683
     ↗
  5. 10.4324/9781315631011-38
     ↗
Show all 94 →
  1. 10.1177/135050840074004
     ↗
  2. Lunsford et al. (1990)
    Rhetoric in a new key: Women and collaboration
    Rhetoric Review
  3. Glenn (2018)
    Rhetorical Feminism and This Thing Called Hope
  4. Royster (2012)
    Feminist Rhetorical Practices: New Horizons for Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies
  5. 10.1093/oso/9780198751458.003.0016
     ↗
  6. 10.1086/494543
     ↗
  7. 10.4324/9780203873106
     ↗
  8. Frost (2015)
    Technical rhetorics: Making specialized persuasion apparent to public audiences
    Present Tense: J. Rhetoric Soc.
  9. 10.4324/9781315224541
     ↗
  10. 10.4324/9780429198748
     ↗
  11. Jones (2018)
    Technologies of disenfranchisement: Literacy tests and black voters in the U.S. from 1890-1965
    Tech. Commmun
  12. Jones et al. (2017)
    The Social Justice Impact of Plain Language: A Critical Approach to Plain-Langu…
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  13. Jones (2017)
    Modified immersive situated service learning (MISSL): A social justice approach to techni…
    Bus. Prof. Commun. Quart.
  14. Jones et al. (2016)
    Disrupting the Past to Disrupt the Future: An Antenarrative of Technical Commun…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  15. Jones (2016)
    The Technical Communicator as Advocate: Integrating a Social Justice Approach i…
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  16. Agboka (2014)
    Decolonial Methodologies: Social Justice Perspectives in Intercultural Technica…
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  17. Agboka (2013)
    Thinking about social justice research: Interrogating the international in international …
    Connexions: Int. Prof. Commun. J.
  18. Agboka (2013)
    Participatory Localization: A Social Justice Approach to Navigating Unenfranchi…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  19. 10.1007/978-3-030-26399-7
     ↗
  20. Ratcliffe (2005)
    Rhetorical Listening: Identification, Gender, Whiteness
  21. Agboka (2012)
    Liberating Intercultural Technical Communication from “Large Culture” Ideologie…
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  22. Haas (2012)
    Race, Rhetoric, and Technology: A Case Study of Decolonial Technical Communicat…
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  23. 10.5175/JSWE.2010.200900070
     ↗
  24. 10.4324/9780203943670
     ↗
  25. 10.2307/2930649
     ↗
  26. 10.4324/9781410617385
     ↗
  27. Mabokela (2001)
    Sisters of the Academy: Emergent Black Women Scholars in Higher Education
  28. Young (2009)
    Nah, we straight: Anargument against code switching
    JAC
  29. 10.17077/2168-569X.1095
     ↗
  30. LaDuke (1999)
    All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life
  31. 10.18574/nyu/9780814790892.001.0001
     ↗
  32. 10.1086/342914
     ↗
  33. 10.1086/494426
     ↗
  34. 10.1525/9780520919006
     ↗
  35. Bawarshi (2016)
    Beyond the Genre Fixation: A Translingual Perspective on Genre
    College English
  36. Tardy (2015)
    Bending genres, or when is a deviation an innovation
  37. 10.1017/cbo9780511807916.018
     ↗
  38. Bourdieu (1991)
    Language and SymbolicPower
  39. Dawkins (1976)
    The Selfish Gene
  40. 10.1086/698276
     ↗
  41. Shelton (2020)
    Shifting Out of Neutral: Centering Difference, Bias, and Social Justice in a Bu…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  42. 10.4135/9781412958806.n91
     ↗
  43. Delgado (1999)
    Critical Race Theory
  44. 10.4324/9781315232584
     ↗
  45. King (2008)
    The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative
  46. Shelton (2019)
    On Edge: A Techn of Marginality
  47. Enos (2003)
    Developing a theory and practice of campus-community partnerships
  48. Eble et al. (2004)
    Educating "Community Intellectuals": Rhetoric, Moral Philosophy, and Civic Engagement
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  49. 10.1086/689625
     ↗
  50. 10.1086/693557
     ↗
  51. Baca (2018)
    Guest editors introduction: Community resistance, justice, and sustainability in the face…
    Reflections
  52. Durack (1997)
    Gender, Technology, and the History of Technical Communication
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  53. LAY (1991)
    Feminist Theory and the Redefinition of Technical Communication
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  54. SAUER (1993)
    Sense and Sensibility in Technical Documentation: How Feminist Interpretation S…
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  55. Savage (2011)
    Perceptions of racial and ethnic diversity in technical communication programs
    Programmatic Perspectives
  56. Scott (2006)
    Critical Power Tools: Technical Communication and Cultural Studies
  57. Thompson et al. (2006)
    Women and Feminism in Technical Communication—An Update
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  58. 10.2307/375964
     ↗
  59. 10.1525/9780520942929
     ↗
  60. Rogers (2016)
    White women helped elect Donald Trump
  61. 10.1515/9781474470254-019
     ↗
  62. Milstein (2013)
    How to tell if youre racist
  63. Khansa (2015)
    Feminist: White feminism silences women of color
  64. (2018)
    History of Juneteenth
  65. Banaji (2013)
    Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People
  66. Huijg (2012)
    Tension in intersectional agency: A theoretical discussion of the interior conflict of wh…
    J. Int. Womens Studies
  67. Kendell (2018)
    Mikki kendallKarnythia
  68. 10.1086/692444
     ↗
  69. 10.1086/696625
     ↗
  70. (2016)
    Whole womans health v. Hellerstedt, 136 s. Ct. 2292, court reporter citation
  71. Ura (2016)
    Texas abortion clinics that have closed since 2013
    The Texas Tribune
  72. Frost (2013)
    Theorizing an apparent feminism in technical communication
  73. Ehrenriech (2001)
    Welcome to cancerland: A mammogram leads to a cult of pink kitsch
    Harpers Mag.
  74. (2016)
    Oxford: A dictionary of social media
  75. Nunley (2011)
    Keepin It Hushed: The Barbershop and African American Hush Harbor Rhetroic
  76. hooks (1984)
    Feminist Theory From Margin to Center
  77. 10.14452/mr-070-08-2019-01_2
     ↗
  78. 10.12987/9780300228175
     ↗
  79. Davis (2018)
    Memetic Rhetorical Theory in Technical Communication: Re-Constructing Ethos in the Post-F…
  80. Blackmore (1999)
    The Meme Machine
  81. Frost et al. (2017)
    Seeing and Knowing the Womb: A Technofeminist Reframing of Fetal Ultrasound tow…
    Computers and Composition
  82. Kantor (2017)
    Harvey Weinstein paid off sexual harassment accusers for decades
    The New York Times
  83. Sayej (2017)
    Alyssa Milano on the MeToo movement: Were not going to stand for it any more
    Guardian
  84. Burke (2018)
    The MeToo shockwave: How the movement has reverberated around the world
  85. Finn (2017)
    Why Hollywood wont ever be the same after the MeToo movementBecause it cant
  86. Morris (2018)
    Is MeToo changing hollywood
  87. Lambert (2018)
    MeToo effect: Calls flood U.S. sexual assault hotlines
  88. Rottenberg (2017)
    Can MeToo go beyond white neoliberal feminism: Who can say MeToo and who will be heard
  89. 10.1080/10999949.2014.884451
     ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 2 View in citation network → Build reading path →

Related Articles

  1. Pedagogy Jan 2022
    Contributors ↗
    modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism genre theory discourse analysis african american rhetorics decolonial rhetorics first-year composition writing pedagogy basic writing writing across the curriculum graduate education teacher development argument collaborative writing transfer assessment portfolios writing program administration writing centers peer tutoring technical communication professional writing archival research digital rhetoric social media grammar and mechanics literacy studies race and writing gender and writing disability studies public rhetoric community literacy literary studies editorial matter
  2. The Peer Review Jan 2023
    “Do You Even Know What You Are Doing?”: A Racial Other Professional Writing Tutor’s Counterstory of Imposter Syndrome ↗
    rhetorical criticism genre theory discourse analysis teacher development collaborative writing writing centers peer tutoring professional writing race and writing gender and writing affect and writing body and rhetoric
  3. Pedagogy Oct 2025
    Contributors ↗
    modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism genre theory cultural rhetorics first-year composition writing pedagogy advanced composition creative writing writing across the curriculum graduate education two-year college service learning teacher development technical communication professional writing labor and working conditions archival research multimodality artificial intelligence literacy studies race and writing gender and writing disability studies literary studies editorial matter
  4. Pedagogy Apr 2025
    Contributors ↗
    modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism african american rhetorics cultural rhetorics first-year composition writing pedagogy basic writing graduate education two-year college teacher development writing centers technical communication professional writing labor and working conditions digital rhetoric multimodality social media literacy studies race and writing gender and writing community literacy literary studies editorial matter
  5. Pedagogy Jan 2024
    The Radical Role of Student Writing in Composition ↗
    Jessica Masterson
    modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism genre theory discourse analysis cultural rhetorics first-year composition writing pedagogy graduate education teacher development argument collaborative writing professional writing grammar and mechanics literacy studies race and writing gender and writing