Feminist Analysis

Feminist analysis is grounded in an understanding of fundamental power differentials between women and men. Beginning in the 1980s, authors such as Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Cheris Kramarae started to carve out a space to examine gendered power relations in the communications field. In the 1990s, in quick succession, three generative articles showed the radical trajectory of feminist analysis in the communications field. First, in 1994, Carole Blair, Julie R. Brown, and Leslie A. Baxter’s expose of sexist journal review practices gave notice of the professional abuse feminist scholars faced. In 1995, Sonya K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin’s “Beyond Persuasion: A Proposal for Invitational Rhetoric” challenged normative and traditional understandings of rhetoric as necessarily engaging in persuasion. Instead of encouraging the dominance of one idea over another, of one person over another, Foss and Griffin proposed sharing stories and inviting people to engage in dual perspective taking. In the same year, Patricia A. Sullivan and Steven R. Goldzwig’s “relational approach to moral decision-making” contributed to turning toward more feminized ways of knowing and acting. Since the mid-1990s, a growing number of communication studies scholars have turned their attention to questions of gender. This entry introduces feminism and discusses how communication studies has been informed by feminist analysis and methods since the 1970s. This entry concludes by discussing feminist publications in the communications field and some current trends in feminist communications research. Feminist historian Gerda Lerner (1993) provides a heuristic five-part definition of feminism that serves communication as well as history:

While Lerner’s definition and examples draw attention to relatively elite White women, the seeds of contemporary understandings of feminism are there, including an awareness of belonging to a subordinated collectivity (which now also includes groups formed by intersections of race, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status), knowing that subordination is socially constructed, understanding that persons with similar standpoints can benefit from solidarity, conscious self-definition of goals and change strategies, and an impetus toward positive change.