The “promiscuous audience” controversy and the emergence of the early woman's rights movement

Dados Bibliográficos

ID9237453
AutoresSusan Zaeske (University of Wisconsin–Madison, autor correspondente)
Ano1995
Volume81
Fascículo2
Páginas191-207
Data de publicação1995-05-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoQuarterly Journal of Speech (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0033-5630 • E-ISSN: 1479-5779
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00335639509384108
OpenAlexW2029699208
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas11
Referências citadas16

For too long we have conflated the rhetoric of the early women activists with that of the organized woman's rights and suffrage movements. In establishing their right to speak from the public platform during the 1830s, activist women did not rely on natural law or constitutional appeals. Rather, in combating the prohibition against addressing "promiscuous audiences," they employed a rhetoric of gendered morality that emphasized the special nature of female benevolence. Although well adapted to the exigences of the 1830s, early feminist emphasis on female benevolence as a justification for addressing "promiscuous audiences"—and for other forms of activity—had important implications that fettered women's efforts to engage in overtly political action during the 1840s

Action (physics) · Feminism · Morality · Natural (archaeology) · Political science · Politics · Rhetoric · Sociology · Suffrage · American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · Law · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Rhetoric and Communication Studies