A PAN-HISTORICAL ANALYSIS of MORMON FEMINISM by Tiffany
CULTIVATING LEGITIMACY IN A RELIGIOUS CONTEXT:
A PAN-HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF MORMON FEMINISM
by
Tiffany Dawn Kinney
A dissertation submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of English
May 2017
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The University of Utah Graduate School
STATEMENT OF DISSERTATION APPROVAL
The dissertation of Tiffany Dawn Kinney has been approved by the following supervisory committee members:
Maureen A. Mathison , Chair March 1, 2017 Date Approved
Robin Elizabeth Jensen , Member March 1, 2017 Date Approved
Angela Marie Smith , Member March 1, 2017 Date Approved
Cecil T. Jordan , Member March 1, 2017 Date Approved
Jennifer Andrus , Member March 1, 2017 Date Approved
and by Barry Weller , Chair/Dean of the Department/College/School of English and by David B. Kieda, Dean of The Graduate School.
ABSTRACT
Cultivating Legitimacy in a Religious Context brings to rhetoric a study of legitimacy, specifically focusing on female rhetors who pursue authority along nontraditional routes. As a case study, I consider how local histories provide texture to dominant narratives by analyzing the stories of three ex-Mormon feminist women who draw from rhetorical strategies to cultivate a position of authority for themselves inside a hierarchal, religious institution. This dissertation specifically takes a pan-historical approach to archival work by selecting rhetors who span the twentieth century and who were public leaders within their community: Emmeline B. Wells (1828-1921), Sonia
Johnson (1936-present), and Kate Kelly (1980-present). Through archival critical analysis, I discover that these rhetors focus on certain rhetorical canons in order to articulate their legitimacy and cultivate a position of authority for themselves.
To this point, Wells employs arrangement patterns, Johnson uses invention processes, and Kelly positions her delivery strategically to help Mormon women gain legitimacy. Although all rhetors employ the canons when composing, I argue that these rhetors draw from the canons unevenly because of the changing social context and exigency within which they find themselves—Wells argues for female suffrage in the early 1900s, Johnson for the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s, and Kelly for female ordination during the 2010s. By emphasizing certain rhetorical canons over others, these women intervene in the advocacy discourse and thereby shape how others after them
similarly develop their authority. By examining women’s appeals to legitimacy, this project influences the interpretive and theoretical structures in multiple disciplines including the studies of feminism, rhetorical history, and religion.
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“The time has gone by when women may sit idly down and wait for a lover or husband. There is too much to be done, there is no room for idlers; there is essential work that women can do.” -Emmeline B. Wells, “Woman’s Work,” November 15, 1875
“That is what the Mormon patriarchy has on its hands: a sea of smoldering women. Those whose anger is still undifferentiated, who do not realize how thoroughly they are being betrayed.” -Sonia Johnson, “Patriarchal Panic: Sexual Politics in the Mormon Church,” September 3, 1979
“How long must women wait for our faith to reflect the equity fundamental to Mormon theology?” -Kate Kelly, “Organizing in the Manner of the Priesthood,” March 17, 2013
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ...... iii
LIST OF FIGURES ...... ix
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... x
Chapters
1. ARCHIVING THE APOCRYPHA: LEGITIMACY, FEMINISM, RELIGION ...... 1
Introduction ...... 1 Defining and Contributing to Legitimacy ...... 2 Resituating the Rhetorical Canons: Arrangement, Invention, and Delivery ...... 6 The Historical Erasure of Women’s Writing ...... 10 Recuperating Women’s Writing ...... 12 National Feminism Interfaces With Local Utah Feminism ...... 14 The Exigency for Mormon Feminism: Patriarchal Structure in LDS Faith ...... 22 Cultivating Legitimacy: Outlining This Project ...... 24 Textual Descriptions and Justifications ...... 26 Significant Contributions ...... 30 Outline of Chapters ...... 32 Conclusions ...... 35
2. LITERATURE REVIEW: A PRACTICE IN LEGITIMACY THROUGH CITATION ...... 36
Introduction ...... 36 Definitions of Legitimacy ...... 41 A Brief Sketch of Traditional Ways to Cultivate Legitimacy ...... 44 Gaining Legitimacy When Traditional Pathways Are Blocked ...... 46 Citing Nature or Being ...... 47 Drawing on Elements of Context: Exigency and a Politics of Location ..... 48 Earning Legitimacy Through Association ...... 51 Earning Legitimacy Through Popularity ...... 53 Gaining Legitimacy Through Visibility ...... 55 Citing Authorities...... 57 Citing Texts ...... 60 Citing Experience ...... 64
Performing or Claiming Legitimacy ...... 68 Conclusion ...... 69
3. EMMELINE B. WELLS: LEGITIMACY THROUGH ARRANGEMENT ...... 72
Introduction ...... 72 Pre-Textual Context: Otherwise Historical Context ...... 73 A Crisis of Succession ...... 73 Restricting Plural Marriage Means Restricting Political Rights ...... 74 Encouraging Westward Migration: Granting Rights to Utah Women ...... 76 Emmeline B. Wells: Sarcastic, Devoted, Suffragist ...... 78 “The Woman’s Exponent” ...... 80 Methods: Studying the Life’s Work of Emmeline B. Wells ...... 81 Theoretical Underpinnings of This Method ...... 88 Large-grain: Social Circulation ...... 91 Mid-grain: Publication Patterns and Placement ...... 94 Small-grain: Organization of Individual Newsletters ...... 101 Fine-grain: Paragraph, Sentence, Punctuation Order ...... 111 Conclusions: Descending Scales of Arrangement ...... 118
4. SONIA JOHNSON: ESCHEWING LEGITIMACY FOR INVENTION ...... 123
Introduction ...... 123 Pre-Textual Context: Otherwise Historical Context ...... 125 Correlating the Church’s Efforts Translates Into Forgetting Women ...... 125 Sonia Johnson: Irreverent, Imaginative, Equal Rights Feminist ...... 128 Publications: Books, Presentations, Speeches ...... 130 Methods: Studying the Rhetorical Core of Sonia Johnson’s Work ...... 132 Theoretical Underpinnings of This Method ...... 138 Illegitimacy Leading to Awareness ...... 141 Legitimating Women in Mormonism ...... 146 Eschewing Legitimacy Within Mormonism ...... 150 Legitimating Herself Inside Liberal Feminism ...... 154 Towards Invention: Eschewing Legitimacy Inside Liberal Feminism ...... 157 The System-Splitting Turn to Invention ...... 161 Following Invention: Seclusion and Inventing Feminist Communes ...... 166 Conclusions: Eschewing Legitimacy and Inventing a “Womanhelix” ...... 169
5. KATE KELLY: CRAFTING LEGITIMACY THROUGH DELIVERY ...... 172
Introduction ...... 172 Pre-Textual Context: Otherwise Historical Context ...... 175 Legitimacy, Delivery, and Gender ...... 175 Women in the Mormon Church Since Johnson: 1979-present ...... 178 Kate Kelly: Feminist, Lawyer, Women’s Rights Activist ...... 182 Digital Archive: Kelly’s Delivery Online and in Person ...... 184
vii
Methods: Studying the Rhetorical Core of Kate Kelly’s Work ...... 186 Theoretical Underpinnings of This Method ...... 192 Out on Their Own: Separating Ordain Women From Feminist Activism ...... 194 Making OW Appear as Nonthreatening: In Person and Online ...... 199 “Prospective Elders”: Kelly, OW, and Emulating the Priesthood ...... 204 Contrary Evidence: Borderline Apostasy and Acute Emotions ...... 210 Conclusions: Legitimacy and Ordain Women ...... 213
6. CONCLUSION: SUCCESSFUL LEGITIMACY? ...... 217
Introduction ...... 217 Legitimacy ...... 218 E.B. Wells: Legitimacy in Mormonism and Feminism ...... 221 Sonia Johnson: Legitimacy in Mormonism and Feminism ...... 224 Kate Kelly: Legitimacy in Mormonism and Feminism ...... 226 Legitimacy in a Social Organization: Religion ...... 230 Legitimacy in a Social Organization: National Feminist Movement ...... 231 Hybrid Methods ...... 233 One Last Thing: Advancing Discourse, Trained Rhetors, Canonization ...... 234 Conclusions and Potentialities ...... 236
APPENDIX: EMMELINE B. WELLS' ARRANGEMENT PATTERNS ...... 241
LITERATURE CITED ...... 256
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figures
1: Original Continuum of Legitimacy ...... 71
2: Discourse Historical Approach ...... 120
3: Continuum of Legitimacy Pointing out Arrangement Patterns ...... 121
4: Illustration of the Descending Scales of Arrangement ...... 122
5: Continuum of Legitimacy Pointing out Inventing Legitimacy ...... 171
6: Continuum of Legitimacy Pointing out Delivery Strategies ...... 216
7: Continuum of Legitimacy With Strategic Rhetorical Canons ...... 239
8: Layers of Legitimacy ...... 240
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I will forever be grateful for the five years I spent studying, researching, and writing at the University of Utah. The opportunity to earn a PhD still feels unbelievable as a first-generation college student. This experience helped me uncover my foremothers, those who came before me, those who worked to improve women’s lives throughout the
Salt Lake Valley. I would not have finished this project without my family, friends, and dissertation committee—I am grateful to you all.
To Maureen Mathison: Thank you for all of your guidance on this project. A year and a half ago, I felt lost, isolated, and without direction. You stepped in and helped me become a more confident researcher, writer, and through your example, a kind colleague.
When I first applied to PhD school, I hoped to find an advisor I could go to for guidance, not only during graduate school but throughout my career. You are that person. Thank you for caring about me— as a scholar and as a human being.
To Robin Jensen: Thank you for inspiring this project and for encouraging me along the way. Your ceaseless kindness and optimism continues to be an inspiration.
Whenever I face an obstacle in the archives or in the classroom, I always think: “what would Robin do?” After, I try to follow your graceful example by being generous with others and always believing in their abilities.
To Angela Smith: Thank you for supporting my scholarship. I know I would not be where I am today without you. If I ever had a question or needed advice on a chapter
or article manuscript, you were never too busy to offer incisive, brilliant feedback. I would not have completed the chapter on Sonia Johnson or published an article during graduate school without you—thank you.
To Jay Jordan: Thank you for treating me like a budding scholar and not just a
“graduate student.” From participating in a mock-interview to inviting me to speak in your graduate seminar, you helped me see myself as a professor.
To Jenny Andrus: Thank you for your early guidance on this project and for helping me secure a fellowship. The Clarence Snow Fellowship gave me time and space to complete the bulk of this research.
To Gerri Mackey: Thank you for always making me feel welcomed and for having my back. The English graduate students are lucky to have someone like you.
To the Maud Squad: Thank you for providing a space of solace during graduate school, which often feels plagued by uncertainty and criticism. Your collective advice has kept me going.
To Wells, Johnson, and Kelly: Thank you for fighting for women’s rights. I hope that this dissertation does you proud.
To my parents: Thank you for believing in me and for working to make this all possible. I know it wasn’t easy to figure out a way to help pay for Westminster or say
“good bye” to your first born when I went off to graduate school. I will never forget all that you sacrificed to help make my dreams come true.
And lastly, to my partner, Josh: You are my rock. You encouraged me and kept me focused. You also showed me that there is life outside of graduate school. You took care of me in so many ways— forever, thank you.
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CHAPTER 1
ARCHIVING THE APOCRYPHA: LEGITIMACY, FEMINISM,
RELIGION
“Is she preparing herself for the position she is destined to occupy, and the work which will consequently devolve upon her? This subject opens up a wide field for dissertation”
—Emmeline B. Wells in “Women’s Organizations”
Introduction
This dissertation explores the legitimation practices of feminist women inside one institution, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In line with pan-historical work by Hawhee, Olsen, and Piepmeier, this dissertation examines how feminist conversations have changed or evolved in order to further women’s legitimacy. It specifically takes a pan-historical approach to archival work by studying rhetors who span the twentieth century and were leaders within their community: Emmeline B. Wells
(1828-1921), Sonia Johnson (1936-present), and Kate Kelly (1980-present). Through my analysis, I discovered that these rhetors draw on the rhetorical canons unevenly in order to cultivate a space of authority for women in their community. To this point, Wells employs arrangement patterns, Johnson uses invention processes, and Kelly positions her delivery strategically to help Mormon women gain legitimacy. I argue that these rhetors draw from the canons unevenly because of the changing social context and hence
2 exigency in which they find themselves—Wells argues for female suffrage in the early
1900s, Johnson for the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s, and Kelly for female ordination during the 2010s. Overall, this dissertation works to consider the rhetorical activities employed by a marginalized group not given legitimacy— women in the
Mormon faith. These three women use their writing to reform a male-dominated hierarchical institution in order to cultivate a position of authority for themselves and other women.
This introductory chapter continues by 1) defining legitimacy, 2) demonstrating a reappropriation of the canons, and 3) outlining the academic problem of female legitimacy in society and within a religious context. 4) Next, this chapter describes feminist attempts to recuperate stories written by women that face erasure. 5) After, this chapter explains Mormon women’s activities on the national and local stage through which I give the historical background for twentieth-century Mormonism, as an interpretive frame from which to understand these women and their attempts to garner legitimacy. Lastly, 6) this chapter delineates the direction for the rest of this dissertation, where I justify the site of analysis, introduce the archival sources, and provide chapter descriptions.
Defining and Contributing to Legitimacy
According to Reyes, legitimation refers to the process whereby a speaker uses
“argumentation strategies to justify their behavior, ideas, thoughts, declarations or social practices.” From the Latin word “legitimus,” “legitimacy” is related to “lex,” “lexical,” or to “make legal” (801). Even with the original meaning of legitimacy restricted to legality,
3 legitimacy studies frequently take an extended view wherein scholars consider societal consensus as indicative of legitimacy and not only if a behavior, thought, social practice, or idea is codified into secular law. Berger and Luckmann approach legitimacy through this extended view when they claim that “all language [functions] as legitimation” (131).
My project builds on Berger and Luckmann’s extended notion of legitimacy by considering language that is not found within a legal tradition but is instead found inside writing that works to forge societal consensus. As such, I define legitimacy in this dissertation according to Berger and Luckmann, who claim that legitimacy is cultivated through social consensus. Without social consensus, undergirded with mutual respect, an authority does not have proper legitimacy but is instead wielding power through force
(Coates). Reyes and Bowles also influence my use of “legitimacy” as they claim that legitimacy depends on the social location of the rhetor seeking authority from their audience. As such, I examine rhetors who are not already instantiated with power because of their identities and therefore cannot use traditional routes to cultivating legitimacy.
It is also important to note that “legitimacy,” “authority,” and “ethos” are intimately linked together and have convergent meanings depending on their disciplinary use. 1 While legitimacy functions as the process of fostering social consensus, authority is understood as the embodiment of legitimate power while ethos hinges upon one’s character. If the legitimizing process is successful, a person or group will encapsulate
1 “Legitimacy” was the concept explored by the following authors: Gunn; Lama- Rewal; Lewontin; Liljia; and Reyes. “Authority” was frequently cited by: Aronson and Swanson and Bowles. While “ethos” was the term of choice for Rhetoric and Composition scholars, including: Buchanan; Kirsch; Harrison; Kendall and Fisher; Montford; and Reynolds.
4 legitimacy as the authority in that society, enclave, or community. In effect, they will portray a convincing and believable ethos to their audience. Throughout this dissertation,
I will employ the terms “legitimacy,” “authority,” and “ethos” frequently and in conjunction with one another. Although these concepts diverge, they continue to be used almost interchangeably among scholars as they have a similar meaning even if employed in different disciplinary contexts.
It is also important to go beyond a definition of legitimacy in order to trace how legitimacy is cultivated. Legitimacy is maintained through a variety of discursive devices used by those from a social location that is either bestowed and instantiated with power, attempting to further replicate their legitimacy, or by those without power, attempting to establish their legitimacy. This dissertation takes the latter approach to legitimacy studies by investigating those rhetors who do not already have legitimacy, expressly investigating how they cultivate it. My over-arching research question is: when traditional routes to cultivating legitimacy are blocked for disempowered rhetors, what discursive moves can they draw from to gain legitimacy?
This project speaks to work on legitimacy studies contributed mostly by scholars involved in historical discourse analysis (i.e., Vaara; Reyes; Van Leeuwen and Wodak cited below). More specifically, this work builds upon scholarship originally developed in historical discourse analysis by Van Leeuwen, who examines traditional legitimacy patterns and how those in positions of power employ discursive devices to produce and replicate their own legitimacy. According to Van Leeuwen, appeals to legitimacy are frequently organized into four different categories, which include rationalization, authorization, moralization, and mythopoesis. He explores these four categories and how
5 they interact inside the context of classroom social norms. Van Leeuwen’s work on classroom social norms responds to earlier scholarship that he conducted with Wodak, where they examined how legitimacy is crafted in a different context, specifically examining how the Austrian government maintains their legitimacy when they decided to/not to grant “vacation visas” to refugees working in their country. Remarking on legitimacy studies, Reyes also contributes by analyzing discursive legitimation strategies in presidential rhetoric—specifically how U.S. Presidents Barack Obama and George W.
Bush evoke and manipulate audience emotion in order to legitimate their choices to engage in armed conflict.
While this scholarship by Van Leeuwen, Wodak, and Reyes is immensely important for laying a foundation, it only considers legitimacy in a unidirectional model of communication—one where the speaker, who is instantiated with power, develops and continues to replicate their legitimacy. Notably, Vaara questions this unidirectional model of communication assumed in much legitimation scholarship. He is critical of this simplistic model when he factors in the media as the third participant in communication—thereby making a triangular model instead of one that is unidirectional or bidirectional (as communication is depicted as moving from rhetor to audience and rarely from audience to rhetor). This project follows in the vein of Vaara’s scholarship in that it also places pressure on one-sided studies of legitimacy wherein I chose to not explore those in power and instead consider the position of the disempowered—those speaking who are not instantiated with power. I explore how those who inhabit a disempowered position use discourse to gain authority in a particular context when traditional routes to gaining authority (i.e., being given the priesthood) are blocked
6 because of the rhetor’s social location (i.e., as a woman).
No matter how “legitimacy” is expressly defined and operationalized in any one research project, the over-arching study of rhetorical legitimacy is important because its analysis works to explain how speakers make rhetorical bids for authority and to gauge the degree to which those bids are successful. Focusing on legitimacy in feminist studies is important because it offers a different theoretical lens to understand women’s history and how women were allowed or prohibited from exercising power. Ultimately, the major goal of this dissertation is to construct legitimacy as a theoretical construct so it is understood in the field of feminist archival research as an important measure of how women have garnered authority in a particular context.
Moreover, the theoretical lens of legitimacy is an appropriate rhetorical construct to examine in the context of feminist Mormon women because these women sought to integrate themselves more fully into their religion in a way that did not radically change the structure of their church. The study of legitimacy will help me consider what rhetorical techniques women inside the Mormon religion used to create change and how they furthered their claims to legitimacy using certain rhetorical moves tailored to their historical context. Through their writing and speeches, often published for religious audiences, Wells, Johnson, and Kelly seek legitimacy in two intersecting subject positions, as religious authorities and as women’s rights advocates.
Resituating the Rhetorical Canons: Arrangement, Invention, and Delivery
According to Paul Prior, the traditional canons have offered a recipe for creating effective rhetoric or mapping rhetorical activity for at least two millennia. In this
7 dissertation, I build from an ancient understanding of these canons in order to resituate and use them as analytic frames to understand how rhetors employ them to gain legitimacy. Out of the five rhetorical canons, I only focus on arrangement, invention, and delivery below because these were the canons used strategically by the three rhetors,
Wells, Johnson, and Kelly.
Also known as “dispositio” or “taxis,” arrangement is typically understood as ordering sentences or paragraphs to create more felicitous conditions for understanding and accepting a rhetorical proposition. In ancient times, arrangement focused mostly on oration, but the term has broadened to “include all considerations of the ordering of discourse” (“Silva Rhetoricae”; my italics). The canon of arrangement has played a large part in writing instruction since current traditional rhetoric, when early writing teachers encouraged students to focus almost solely on issues of arrangement and style (at the expense of the other three canons). In this dissertation, I expand and re-appropriate the canon of arrangement in that I do not only examine how a rhetor uses small-scales of discourse, such as ordering sentences or paragraphs. Instead I take a more expanded view of this canon wherein I examine arrangement considerations that span from the large- scale social circulation of ideas embodied in texts/people to the small-scale arrangement of punctuation marks in a sentence. I justify taking this expanded view as part of arrangement because this canon has a history of expansion in line with changes in medium—arrangement expanded to include written discourse when oral discourse was no longer the preferred medium. As such, I argue that ideas encapsulated in linguistic structures beyond the paragraph and the sentence can also be placed into a different
“arrangement” (i.e., ideas captured in the ordering of punctuation, the social circulation
8 of publications, and the traveling of rhetors).
In addition to arrangement, this dissertation also uses the canon of “invention” as an analytic lens. Known as “inventio” or “heuresis” (trial and error) in Latin, “invention” means to “come upon” or “to find” when translated into English. This process of
“happening upon” an idea is historically and conventionally centered around “topoi” or
“common places” that depict relationships between ideas, especially common ones like cause and effect and comparison and contrast (“Silva Rhetoricae”). After current traditional rhetoric, writing as a formal discipline developed in the 1970s and with it more sustained attention to invention as a process. Despite this renewed attention, some groups were/are historically disallowed from “remembering or inventing arguments”
(Ede, Glenn, and Lundsford 411). Therefore, the mere act of participating in invention for women is considered radical or at least a subversion of dominant ideals. As Karlyn Kohrs
Campbell puts it: “invention… is a key element in the erosion of myths that justify women’s subordination and the ideological barriers that retard social change” (“Women’s
Liberation” 112). In line with Campbell’s analysis of Jo Freeman and Gloria Steinem’s writing, I explore how Johnson “comes upon” or “finds” a new world for women through various invention processes. Ultimately, Johnson’s invention processes depart from traditional understandings of invention and instead run parallel to feminist invention strategies that work to undermine ideological barriers to women’s equality.
The last canon with which this dissertation engages is the canon of delivery.
Known to the ancients as “actio,” “pronuntiatio,” or “hypokrisis,” analyzing delivery involves focusing on how a message is spoken, rather than the content of the message itself (“Silva Rhetoricae”). Prior notes that with the proliferation of electronic and digital
9 media, rhetoric and composition scholars are more focused on aspects of delivery than they were in the past (3). Despite the renewed attention to this canon, there continues to exist barriers for some marginalized groups when attempting to deliver a message.
Similar to invention, Ede, Glenn, and Lundsford posit that women were historically excluded from delivering messages and therefore had to “gain access to the medium of delivery… [which meant] they most often found themselves altering that medium in whatever ways would allow them to speak” (431). As such, in Kelly’s chapter, I analyze both the message’s content and how the content is shaped by aspects of delivery to render the message more palatable to its intended audience. I justify this choice when analyzing archival documents because it is difficult to separate the medium of delivery from the content delivered as the scholar is not always present to understand how each piece of writing was delivered (especially when the medium is oral delivery in person, which is saved through history as a written speech).
It is important to note that despite the strategic use of one canon, all rhetors use all of the canons each time they sit down to craft any message. As Trinh Minh-ha puts it:
“despite our desperate, eternal attempts to separate, contain and mend, categories always leak” (quoted in Ede, Glenn, and Lundsford 438). All of the rhetorical concerns delineated by each of the canons affect and “leak into” each other to produce effective rhetoric. In this dissertation, the rhetors use their writing by drawing strategically from one rhetorical canon in an attempt to cultivate women’s legitimacy in two hierarchal organizations.
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The Historical Erasure of Women’s Writing
One indication that women were disallowed from exercising power and are therefore not legitimate continues to be the erasure of their writings. In fact, feminist archival scholars have claimed that the erasure of women’s writing is a major barrier to their scholarship—a barrier that all work in this field intentionally or unintentionally responds to. Foucault explains that the erasure of any writing, including women’s writing, is ingrained with power relations, when he writes that power “produces, if anything, absences and gaps; it overlooks elements and introduces discontinuities, separates what is joined and marks boundaries” (90; author’s emphasis). According to
Foucault’s theorization, women’s writing is erased from the rhetorical tradition because of their position of relative subordination and illegitimacy and therefore functions as an absence or a gap inside the rhetorical tradition. In more specific words, the historical absence of women’s writing is an effect of a patriarchal power structure that devalues the feminine. And unfortunately, as feminist theologian, Mary Daly, explains, “people will continue to silence and erase women so long as the masculine remains the unmarked gender” (quoted in Glenn Silence, 24). Yet, where there is power, there is also resistance and feminist scholars conducting important archival work are a form of this resistance as they recuperate, amplify, and celebrate women’s voices.
In Rhetoric Retold, Cheryl Glenn highlights the erasure of women’s writing when she discusses her graduate work on Aspasia—where she was only able to discover seven pages that referenced this particular female rhetor. Patricia Bizzell, co-editor of The
Rhetorical Tradition, similarly laments the ways in which women writers are included or excluded from the rhetorical tradition. Like Glenn, Bizzell includes women inside the
11 tradition yet she points out that even in her award-winning edited collection, women’s writing comprises smaller excerpts than writing authored by men and involves more justification for their inclusion.
The absence of women’s writing is further exacerbated in contexts where patriarchal authority remains intact and unquestioned—such as in many American religions. Morrill points out that historians who write about American religions rarely mention women as penning important texts. This is mysterious considering that women, as Braude finds, frequently outnumber men in all but a few American religious groups. It seems that from these numbers, women practice their faith, but they are rarely invited into positions of authority where they could articulate their legitimacy as authors of important texts. In most American religions, women are not permitted to act as authorities, especially over male members. Although there are exceptions like the Wiccan faith or the Shakers, most religions worship female saints and figures, but they do not permit female members to exert their legitimacy and therein function as authorities.
When discovered, women’s achievements in religious rhetoric are surprising as many of these religions are often heavily patriarchal; they often worship divine beings that are male as well as answer to religious authorities that are also male. Women maintain a decidedly subordinate role, called a “help-meet role,” in most of these religious spaces.
Yet, despite the patriarchal nature of their churches, women are sometimes permitted to render religious spaces as sites for female rhetorical education (i.e., Catholic nunneries) and as areas to demonstrate their rhetorical abilities (i.e., as female Protestant preachers).
Moreover, readers generally encounter religious women’s appeals to legitimacy in texts that are not considered “doctrine” or “theology,” such as in periodicals, newspaper
12 editorials, blogs, public speeches, and conference presentations. The relatively low status of women’s writing in a religious context, found in common publications and not doctrine, means that their writing faces erasure to an even greater extent (Braude).
Braude notes that women’s writing, in genres that are more common and written by authors from a marginalized social location, face greater erasure because they are not valued to the same extent as male writings, written from positions of authority, with the potential to be canonized. As such, scholars are still recuperating women’s attempts to gain legitimacy in religious contexts.
Yet, in some ways, this erasure is alleviated in the case of Mormonism, as it is
Mormon cultural practice to maintain extensive personal and church records. As Morrill notes, Mormon “men and women wrote journals and diaries in order to leave… a record of their spiritual journeys, and men and women also contributed to church periodicals or published monographs of poetry, literature and didactic work” (186). Therefore, the challenge of this dissertation remains analyzing these female-penned documents and extending their impact into other spaces where their presence works to reform interpretive structure and place pressure on dominant narratives.
Recuperating Women’s Writing
In response to the erasure of women’s writings, there is an escalating scholarly effort to recover female voices resonating throughout the Canonized and Apocrypha
(non-Canonized) texts in Western religions. As such, many of these female voices are being remembered not only in their specified religions but also in the larger rhetorical tradition. These commemorated voices span from 300 B.C. with Timycha, a woman
13 involved in the sacred enclave of the Pythagoreans (Pomeroy), to others currently preaching in Protestantism (Mountford). Some of the more notable women who have employed their words to whittle a space for themselves in religious rhetorica include:
Margery Kemp (1373-1439), Julian Norwich (1343-1415), Anne Hutchinson (1591-
1643), Mary Bosanquet Fletcher (1739-1815), Lucretia Mott (1793-1880), Eliza R. Snow
(1804-1887), and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902).
Recuperating women’s complex and interesting history is a broad project, with many feminist scholars crafting methods to contribute to this academic lineage. Royster and Kirsch draw from McIntosh to delineate the five phases of women’s history and to highlight where current scholars should focus their efforts. According to McIntosh, the five phases of women’s history involve: 1) “a womanless history, 2) women integrated into history, 3) women included but understood as a problem, anomaly or absence, 4) women as history,” and 5) women as historical subjects whose presence places pressure to “reconstruct, redefine and transform history to include all” (133). Palczewski delineates a similar outlining of scholarship in women’s history, which she pulls from feminist scholar, Elaine Showalter. Showalter argues that revising a field, wherein scholars integrate women into the history of rhetoric, follows a specific pattern: 1) scholars make note of women’s absence, 2) scholars work to integrate women into the existing structure, and 3) structures are (finally) transformed to include women.
Mormon women exemplify one important, but often neglected, site of female rhetorical power. Although female rhetoric radiating from this religious site is not inherently radical, there are a fair number of women pushing for authority who have been excommunicated or released from their callings. This means women’s rhetoric, in this
14 religious context, is perceived as a threat to patriarchal authority and therefore has the potential to be erased. This dissertation works to understand these women as rhetorical subjects and to integrate them into the historical narrative in a way that recuperates their writings and places pressure on existing, dominant narratives. These dominant narratives are perpetuated about Mormon women from the larger public, the national feminist movement, and inside their patriarchal church.
National Feminism Interfaces With Local Utah Feminism
As part of a recuperative effort, this project must start by outlining the historical interactions between Mormon feminist women and those in the national feminist movement, from the late 1800s onward. In many ways, Mormon feminism parallels the national (U.S.) feminist movement, but also departs from the national movement in their concerns and relative successes. While both the national and Mormon feminist movements are interested in advancing the rights of women, one is focused on women’s advances in the secular sphere while the other adds unique concerns about female ordination and other traces of authority inside a religious context. In addition to departing at critical junctures, the successes of the national feminist movement and the Mormon feminist movement are not always shared as the success of Mormon feminism is intimately tied to the increasing power of all male, priesthood.
Overall, the interactions between national feminism and Mormon feminism are marked by alliances and antagonisms. For example, the national and Mormon feminist movements worked together throughout the late 1800s, advocating for the same cause—
15 suffrage for women. 2 Feminist leaders from the National Women’s Suffrage Association
(NWSA), namely Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and the Mormon religion, Emmeline B. Wells and Eliza R. Snow, forged important coalitions in support of suffrage. Mormon women were some of the first in the country to receive suffrage as the territorial government of Utah granted it to them in 1870 (White). Despite Utah women earning the right to vote before most of the country, the national feminist movement was not completely accepting of Mormon feminists (Willard). The American Women’s
Suffrage Association (AWSA), counterpart to the Anthony and Stanton run NWSA, did not actively welcome Mormon feminists into their organization because they practiced polygamy. In addition, Francis Willard, president of the Women’s Christian Temperance
Union, justified excluding Mormon feminists from participating in her organization because polygamy was an immoral act. Eventually tensions between the AWSA and the
NWSA were resolved as the organization merged in 1890 to become the NAWSA,
National American Women’s Suffrage Association (Iversen).
The morality of polygamy not only drew criticism from feminist leaders in the
AWSA, it also drew attention and legislative action from national, male, political leaders.
2 Similar to the national feminist movement, Mormon feminism is marked by vague beginning and end dates for the three “waves”—a vagueness that highlights the arbitrariness of these dates in general. This arbitrariness means that advances in Mormon feminism occurred between the “waves” as well as within the “waves.” For example, various online, Mormon feminists groups were founded between the late 1980s and the early 1990s, which technically falls amid the second and third waves of feminism. Furthermore, Mormon feminist causes associated with each of the waves are also arbitrary as female ordination has roots in the first wave even though it is the sole focus of the third wave. Despite the limitations of this wave model, this historical context section is organized chronologically according to the waves with special attention given to advances occurring amid the waves (because the “waves” still serve as a shorthand, organizational pattern).
16
Locally, the majority of Mormon men and women came together to advocate for women’s suffrage because they understood this success as one that would help protect their religious beliefs in the face of U.S. government intervention. Moreover, this intervention came in response to the religious practice of plural marriage with the U.S.
Congress passing the Edmunds-Tucker Act, which stated that polygamy was a felony punishable by five years in prison and a $500 fine (Pearson and Madsen). This act also functioned to further punish the practice of plural marriage by disenfranchising polygamous Mormon men and all women regardless of their relationship to polygamy
(Pearson and Madsen). In effect, the act also disbanded the Utah Militia and it created a federally governed Utah Elections Committee that disallowed Utah women from holding political offices or serving on juries (Stromberg 5).
Reportedly, Susan. B. Anthony was dismayed upon learning that suffrage was stripped from some of the first women granted the franchise in the United States (Madsen
“Mormon Legitimacy”). Anthony’s Mormon friend, E.B. Wells shared this same outrage at this restrictive form of government intervention in her state. Wells expressed a general feeling of discontent among Mormon women when she wrote: “not only do we feel that we are justly entitled to the ballot by birth and American blood, but by the hardships of a pioneer life shared with our husbands, brothers and fathers” (Wells, “Christiancy”). Wells wrote this opinion in response to the Christiancy Bill, a forerunner to the Edmunds Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 1882 (analyzed in the third chapter). Her response not only drew on nationalistic discourse with references to “American blood” but also rationalized gender equality between men and women embedded within the shared suffering of Mormon pioneer heritage.
17
By placing women on the same plane as their “husbands, brothers and fathers,”
Mormon feminists advocating for female suffrage found allies not only in famous, national suffragists but also in their fellow members, both male and female. Eventually, the Mormon Church president at the time, Wilford Woodruff, released a manifesto in
1890 withdrawing official church support of plural marriage—a manifesto that provoked
U.S. President Benjamin Harrison to permit Utah men to (again) vote (Pearson and
Madsen). Yet, Utah women, along with the other female U.S. citizens, would not receive the vote (again) until the ratification of the nineteenth amendment in August 1920
(Pearson and Madsen). Once suffrage was finally achieved, the majority of Mormon men and women did not work as closely with the national feminist movement ever again.
Although Mormon feminists like Johnson and Kelly would continue to interact with the feminist movement on a national scale, most Mormon men and women would not support feminist causes with the same fervor.
Generally, feminists in the second wave worked diligently for the rights of women in legal, social, and radical avenues. The specific measures supported by U.S. feminists in the 1960s and 1970s included: rethinking society through feminist principles, particularly women’s role in the nuclear family, safe access to legal abortion, desexing the English language, furthering women’s education and advocating for equality legislation, like the Equal Rights Amendment, the Equal Pay Act, and amending the Civil
Rights Act to account for sex discrimination. Despite the diverse causes the national feminist movement supported during this time, feminist Mormon women galvanized around one issue: the Equal Rights Amendment. In the early 1970s, a Deseret News Poll found that over sixty percent of Mormon women supported ERA (Stromberg 5). Yet,
18 when ERA passed both houses of Congress and moved to the states for ratification, the leaders of the Mormon Church started to oppose it. The official church stance against
ERA heavily influenced male and female members as the majority of Mormons worked with other conservative groups, like Phyllis Schlafly’s the Eagle Forum, to prevent it from being ratified (Rosen). By 1979, ERA did not pass as only thirty-five states ratified the Amendment, three shy from the thirty-eight states needed to fully ratify (Rosen). Utah was one of the states that opposed (Rosen).
In the second wave, the boundaries of antagonism and alliance between national and Mormon feminism changed as a majority of Mormon women and men went from supporting to sabotaging efforts to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. The few Mormon men and women working to ratify this amendment were in the minority as the majority believed that passing it would erode women’s “traditional roles.” Sonia Johnson, founder of ex-Mormons for ERA, notes the Mormon church cautioned members to not “reveal that they were Mormons or organized by the Church when they lobby, write letters or donate money…Instead, they are directed to say that they are concerned citizens following the dictates of their individual consciousness” (Johnson “Patriarchal Panic:
Sexual Politics in the Mormon Church”).
Like women’s suffrage, passing ERA was a secular issue, not a private, doctrinal, religious one. But unlike the suffrage movement, Mormon feminists advocating for the
Equal Rights Amendment found allies in non-Mormon feminists working in national organizations and, unfortunately, antagonists in many of their fellow Mormon members.
For example, one Mormon feminist advocating for ERA, Sonia Johnson, became so involved in the National Organization for Women (NOW) that it provided her a platform
19 that she used to run for U.S. president (as a candidate of the national Citizen’s Party).
Although she lost, Johnson took this as an opportunity to create connections with other feminists and gain national attention for important religious and feminist issues. Johnson was welcomed into national feminism before running for president, as leaders of the
Mormon Church excommunicated her for 1) describing them as “savagely misogynistic” and 2) advocating for ERA.
Similar to the first and second waves, the boundaries of antagonism and alliance shifted in the third wave as the issues that galvanize a religious, feminist following changed. Like the first and second wave, third wave feminism still works for gender equality within a patriarchal society by examining aspects of our culture that promote inequality based on sex or gender (such as critiquing language and ideologies that are inherently sexist). Unlike the earlier waves, the third wave is more interested in promoting intersectional analysis by listening to perspectives that were left out in the other two waves— from diverse subject positions like women of Color and third-world women (Springer). The third wave also intends to support opportunities for equality in an array of spaces, including: education, professions, religions, and parenting (i.e., where men are encouraged to display empathy and kindness as an active father) (Harnois). As such, third wave feminism invites women into equitable positions in the public, professional sphere, while men are welcomed to take on an active role in the private, domestic sphere.
Like the national third wave feminist movement, there are multiple causes that current Mormon feminists advocate—yet, the cause cultivating the most attention is female ordination. While female ordination is undeniably influenced by feminist
20 advances made in secular spaces, female ordination is not secular and falls within the realm of the sacred as a doctrinal, theological issue relying on advocacy from the inside.
With a squarely religious cause, the alliances feminist Mormon women find are not necessarily with other Mormons or national feminist organizations but instead with progressive religious women from Jewish and Catholic faiths.3 The third wave is also different from previous feminist waves because it forges coalitions through online spaces.
As Mormon scholar Joan Brooks points out “the internet became a major game changer for Mormon feminists … [W]omen who may have once felt isolated in their congregations found a safe space to communicate and collaborate” (quoted in Stromberg,
7). In these online spaces, various Mormon feminist groups were founded, such as
Women Advocating for Voice and Equality (WAVE, founded in 2010) or All Enlist
(founded in 2012)—both precursors to Ordain Women (OW, founded in 2013)
(Stromberg “Birth”).
Kate Kelly founded OW with a Wordpress website where she offered a mission for this group: we “do not seek members or followers. Rather, [Ordain Women] provides an [online] space where Mormons can openly speak about their concerns about gender inequality and hope that the prophet and apostles pray about women’s ordination”
(Ordainwomen.org “Landing Page”). Despite not openly demanding ordination, those
Mormon members associated with this group were/are dealt with harshly—as was Kelly when she was excommunicated from the Mormon Church in 2014. According to official
3 This support for Mormon women’s ordination from other faiths is evident in Kate Kelly’s posts on ordainwomen.org where she provides links to websites hosted by other religious women organizing for ordination.
21 statements offered by the all-male church leadership, these members are allowed to question, individually, but the collective spirit and public actions of OW are problematic as they “amount to bearing false witness, defaming the church and apostasy” (Jenson
393). Whether Mormon women will receive female ordination is still playing out and as such, this dissertation will track this discourse as it is currently developing. 4
Throughout the twentieth century, the national feminist movement worked intermittently with Mormon feminists—exemplified by first wave alliances between
Susan B. Anthony and E.B. Wells, second wave connections between the National
Organization of Women and Sonia Johnson, as well as third wave links between Kate
Kelly, Planned Parenthood, the Equal Rights Amendment, and religious feminists from faiths supporting female ordination. Although the secular advances made by the national feminist movement influence Mormon feminism, Mormon women still hold a position of subordination and “second-class” authority inside their faith because of the hierarchal and patriarchal structure of the Mormon church. It is this structure and its further
“correlation,”5 which has continually worked to exclude women from positions of authority. As Jenson notes, women and men who “work to extend the rights and
4 Later, Kate Kelly found a position as legal representation for a national, feminist organization, Planned Parenthood. Currently, Kelly is also part of a statewide movement to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment that Sonia Johnson was excommunicated for supporting. Kelly announced her efforts to organize support for the bill on a Facebook live session with local Senator Jim Dabakis on February 6th, 2017. Kelly’s support of the amendment and reactions from the Mormon Church are still playing out. 5 In the late 1800s, Mormon women outperformed Mormon men in nearly every church activity, so the “Priesthood Correlation Program” was developed in 1908 to encourage male involvement. In addition to inviting men into the priesthood, this correlation program streamlined church structure so it could expand and replicate in other cities. Correlation also meant that women’s organizations became known as “auxiliaries,” with attendant connotations of “assisting” and “serving.”
22 privileges of women across faith traditions, continue to face the trials of meaning making and legitimacy” (393). Mormon feminists are similarly included within Jenson’s insight, as they currently face the trial of legitimizing their authority inside the Mormon church.
The Exigency for Mormon Feminism: Patriarchal Structure
in LDS Faith
Founded in 1830 in Fayette, New York, the majority of members in the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) are currently women. A research study conducted at Trinity College discovered that Mormon women in Utah make up sixty percent of the local wards, while outside of Utah, Mormon women make up fifty-two percent of the local wards (Stack “Gender Gap”). From these numbers, it is clear women represent the majority of the membership yet they are not given a place within the church governing councils, such as the General Presidency, Twelve Apostles, Quorum of the
Seventy, or locally governing councils, such as Mission Presidencies, Stake Presidencies, or Bishoprics. According to Emmeline B. Wells, “Many intelligent women as well as men, outnumbering men even, have embraced the doctrines of Mormonism,” meaning that historically and currently, women are the majority of church members. Yet, despite their position as a majority, women cannot participate in the higher authoritative branches of the religion as women are only granted influence over other female church members and children, when they serve in the “callings” of Relief Society President, Young
Women’s President, and leadership of Primary or Sunday School for child-aged members.
To more fully explain what it means to be excluded from the hierarchy of the
23
Church, what follows is a delineation of the church’s organizational structure and leadership positions women are not permitted to hold. The church is organized by wards, similar to a congregation, which are typically the size of a neighborhood. All of the members in a ward worship in the same church building and are presided over locally by the Bishopric, including the Bishop and his counselors. Anywhere from five to twelve wards are grouped together to form a “stake,” which is presided over by the Stake
President and his counselors. The stakes and wards are all governed by the Quorum of the
Seventy, which is comprised of seventy male leaders, the Twelve Apostles comprised of twelve male leaders and the General Presidency, which includes two counselors and the
Church President or Prophet. When a member of the Church is asked to serve in a position, it is referred to as a “calling” and all of the men in these leadership positions are said to be “called by God” to serve their Church. Women are allowed to serve in lower status positions such as on the Relief Society General Presidency, which governs the women’s auxiliary organization, or in the Young Women’s General Presidency, a group that creates programing for young girls, or in the Primary General Presidency, a group that creates programing for children, yet they are not permitted into positions that exercise authority over any adult male members.6
The positions Mormon women hold are a type of “second-class” authority, a conclusion further exemplified by the divergent titles given to male and female leaders from this religious tradition. In From Housewife to Heretic, Johnson describes the
6 This position of illegitimacy has changed for Mormon women as they are currently given three seats on church-wide governing counsels. Please see Conclusion and Chapter 5 to more fully understand the gains Mormon women have made inside their church.
24 hierarchical relationship between male and female leadership roles in the Mormon church when she observes that male leaders are given specific titles to exert their authority (i.e., prophet, apostle, president, elder, bishop, etc.), while all women, even if they are an authority, use the same title (i.e., sister). The authority positions held by female Mormons are severely circumscribed because of their gender.
Not only are women excluded from holding positions of authority over all members of their ward in the Mormon Church, they are also excluded from access to certain church governing manuals because they are not called to positions that govern.
According to Jenson, most women are excluded from accessing the official Church
Handbook of Instruction, Volume 1: Stake Presidencies and Bishoprics. Accessing this manual is important as it signifies a position of authority within the Mormon Church because “it is the official instruction and policy manual for leading all Church units and
Church members” (391). While 118,000 men are permitted access to this manual, only nine women are granted the same permissions. Those nine are given access because they are called as general officers for the Church (i.e., Young Women’s Presidency, Relief
Society Presidency, Primary Presidency) which is a much higher calling than most of the
118,000 men, who are called as local priesthood leaders or mission presidents.
Cultivating Legitimacy: Outlining This Project
At the intersection of rhetoric and religion, this dissertation project will move on to consider “women as history” and “historical subjects who transform theoretical structures to include all.” Instead of tracing women’s absence, this project examines women’s writing to strengthen their voices in pursuit of their stated goals. This project
25 does not explicitly make an argument for why women should be included but instead assumes that they should and works to actively “amplify their voices” to transform historical, rhetorical, religious, and feminist theoretical structures (Royster and Kirsch
35).7 For religious women, and Mormon women in particular, these stated goals revolve around legitimating their authority inside the patriarchal and hierarchical institution of their organized church in addition to feminist organizations that often understood them as outcasts because of their religion. Again, these women did not work to radically change the structure of their beloved Church or national feminist organization; instead, they sought to reform their structures in order to legitimize themselves in positions of authority. Recuperating the voices of Mormon women involves understanding and analyzing their appeals for legitimacy.
Again, this study does not examine how those with power, such as the hierarchy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,8 wield their legitimacy over their followers through their doctrine and other orders. Instead, I look at how those who are marginalized inside this hierarchal and patriarchal structure, specifically feminist
Mormon women, develop their legitimacy. More specifically, I am interested in understanding how Mormon feminist women develop their legitimacy within two contexts: the national feminist movement and their hierarchal church. In their moves,
Mormon women (sometimes) avoided draconian consequences for their attempts and crafted new audiences in/outside of their religion— both occurrences lent them a further
7 For more about early disciplinary conversations concerning women’s writing and whether it should be included within the rhetorical tradition, please see the debate between Campbell, Biesecker, and Baliff. 8 Hereafter referred to as the Mormon Church or the Church.
26 degree of social consensus and hence legitimacy.
The three case studies I have chosen, Wells, Johnson, and Kelly, span the twentieth century, purposefully tracing the trajectory of Mormon feminism. Wells represents the late 1800s-early 1900s when women were given authority in the Church.
Yet the end of her life saw the first wave of correlation, which is a process that involves
“streamlining” the message of Mormonism so it is easily replicated in other regions within and outside of Utah. As a consequence, women lost positions of authority and
Wells was personally released from her lifetime calling as Relief Society President.
Johnson’s writing and political action responds to the second stage of correlation when women were prohibited from controlling their own budgets and further disallowed from exercising authority, even in all-female groups. Kelly represents the most recent strand of
Mormon feminism as she attempts to garner authority for women inside the Church using reformist actions that argue for female ordination.9
Textual Descriptions and Justifications
The texts analyzed throughout are all public documents, meaning that they are circulated in public spaces so various audiences can experience these texts. It is important for a dissertation contributing to legitimacy studies to include only public documents as legitimacy is generally created in public spaces through social consensus (Berger and
Luckmann). While the work of women outside of public spaces is important, their work
9 Yet her most recent editorial, published in September in The Salt Lake Tribune, takes a more separatist stance as Kelly argues that women should leave the Mormon Church if their position in that space “no longer sparks joy” (Kelly “Sparks Joy”).
27 arguably has the most impact when it filters into the public sphere and is thereby able to improve women’s legitimacy on a large-scale. Along these same lines, if a text is not made accessible to a larger public, the legitimacy that this text argues for would only be important to the individual author (i.e., if the text is a diary) or small group of readers
(i.e., as with a letter). The public writing that I examine has a reach beyond the author and a handful of readers as this writing is often characterized as public because it reaches groups in the form of a conference presentation, a newspaper article, a published monograph, or even a blog post (with the potential to be read by anyone with an Internet connection). The public life of these documents continues on today as these documents are stored in digital and physical archives and as such, they echo in many scholarly publications.
Although these documents differ in space, time, and exigency, they all center on legitimating Mormon women by bestowing authority on these women in a religious context. Texts by Mormon feminist leaders are specifically important to study in regard to legitimacy because these women wanted legitimacy in their faith. They did not want to separate from their religion nor radically change the structure of their religion; instead they wanted to reform and integrate female authority into their religion. There are various female rhetors who populate the Mormon historical landscape—all of these women contribute to the conversation and further help cultivate female legitimacy. I have chosen to select three women as exemplars of the legitimacy discourse that characterizes twentieth-century Mormon feminist writing. Furthermore, these women span across the twentieth century and therefore respond to women’s concerns in different historical time periods—meaning that the primary exigency for their rhetoric changes from national
28 suffrage, to the national Equal Rights Amendment, to local female ordination. Despite their differing concerns, all of these women work to publically legitimate female authority in their specific time period and religious context.
These three women, emblematic of their respective time periods, include
Emmeline B. Wells (1828-1921), Sonia Johnson (1936-present), and Kate Kelly (1980- present). Although there are other Mormon feminist writers during suffrage, Wells was chosen because her writing has arguably the longest span and she held a position of authority within the Mormon Church and among female members.10 She was also selected because she was well connected with the national suffragist leaders who embodied and articulated popular discourse in favor of women’s rights. Within Wells’ corpus, I specifically examine her articles and their juxtaposition to other discourses in
The Woman’s Exponent, a bimonthly published newsletter of which she was the chief editor from 1877-1914.
Sixty years later, Sonia Johnson entered the conversation concerning women’s authority when she founded Mormons for ERA. As the founder, she politically organized women in the Mormon Church to work for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.
The texts selected from Johnson’s writing were all publically given presentations at
10 There are other female feminist Mormon members, such as Eliza R. Snow or Zina Young, who are purposefully not the focus of this study. Although Snow was given a position of leadership and frequently used The Woman’s Exponent to express her feminist ideas, she was not connected to national feminist discourse in the same way as Wells (i.e., she did not visit the National Women’s Suffrage Association Convention). While Young may have visited the convention along with Wells, she did not publish as frequently and was not the editor of The Woman’s Exponent. Both the frequency and the connection with the national suffragists and the discourse that they embodied helped in my selection of Wells.
29 rallies and conferences or scholarly published articles and monographs. Like Wells,
Johnson was selected from other Mormon feminist women because of her explicit connection to larger discourses as illustrated by her leadership role with the National
Organization of Women.
Similar to the two women who preceded her, Kate Kelly was selected because she inaugurated the Ordain Women’s movement for Mormon women. Although there were rumblings for female ordination before Kelly, she was the one who organized women in a way that received attention from the Church hierarchy by launching her website ordainwomen.org. With Kelly, I examine her publically made blog posts from ordainwomen.org, editorials in The Salt Lake Tribune, and one speech she gave entitled
“The Intersection of Feminist and Religious Ideology.”11 Kelly is also connected to larger discourses surrounding women’s rights exemplified by her current position as lead council for Planned Parenthood of Utah and on her website in the form of hyperlinks to other digital spaces where women are seeking ordination in their respective religions.
Lastly, Kelly, Johnson, and Wells are all representatives of Mormon feminist discourse because they use their writing to organize around important issues in their relative time periods (i.e., suffrage, ERA and female ordination). The extreme consequences each of these women faced also speaks to the importance of their writing— two of the women were excommunicated from their faith while the other was dismissed from her “lifetime” calling. Other feminist Mormon women faced similar fates for their writing, yet none were arguably as connected to national discourses as Wells (in her
11 More thorough descriptions of each of the documents mentioned briefly here will given in the three analysis chapters.
30 association with the N.W.S.A), Johnson (in her association with to N.O.W.), and Kelly
(in her association with Planned Parenthood and other religious, female ordination groups).
Significant Contributions
This dissertation is positioned to make crucial conceptual, theoretical, and methodological contributions to diverse areas of academic inquiry, specifically: rhetorical history, feminist theory, religious studies, and historical discourse analysis.
First, archival work in rhetoric must add further complexity to the incomplete history of the rhetorical tradition by considering women who were not actively designated as “teachers,” “pedagogues,” or “trained rhetors” yet clearly make a contribution to the rhetorical lives of women. Archival scholarship in rhetoric has characterized the tradition as narrowly focused on the writings of mostly, white, privileged men and as such, scholars work to amplify the voices of those who are muffled, silenced, or simply ignored because of their gender. A few of these marginalized voices are strengthened by research in this field: bodies belonging to ancient Greek women (Glenn), Chicana teachers (Enoch), ancient sophistic rhetoric teachers (Jarrat), and famous female rhetors (Lunsford). My project adds to archival work in rhetoric by considering the linguistic devices of women in a relatively isolated, religious enclave—
Mormon women and their attempts at cultivating their own legitimacy. Most recently,
Gere wrote Mormon women rhetors more fully into the rhetorical tradition by analyzing how early Mormon women crafted arguments for suffrage while still maintaining a distinctive religious identity (10). This study departs from Gere’s article by taking a
31 longitudinal view of Mormon women’s discourse in examining this discursive thread throughout the twentieth century and by using a method, the discourse historical approach, to examine their writing through the lens of legitimacy.
In addition to writing these women into the rhetorical tradition, this project also makes advances in feminist studies by considering a group that is often overlooked: religious feminists. The status of religious feminists as “second-class feminists” was most recently pointed out by Zobair and Mountford. Both argue that feminist scholarship has purposefully overlooked the contributions of religious feminists because these contributions call for reformist, and not radical, measures in religious institutions. This study works to focus attention on reformist measures by examining how Mormon women employ discursive strategies to cultivate their legitimacy in their religion and within the national feminist movement. Employing linguistic devices to cultivate female legitimacy is not radical, as it does not ask for a complete reworking of the Mormon patriarchy or the National Woman’s Suffrage Association (NWSA); instead, it calls for integrating women into the current constellation of power. By examining reformist and not only radical measures, this study expands scholarship by considering nuances in women’s rights activism and providing analysis of these nuances.
This dissertation project is also poised to make a third contribution, this one to religious studies wherein it will consider the use of rhetoric inside the religious context of
Mormonism. Since the 1970s, Brekus notes that there is much research on women in religion, particularly famous individuals like: Frances Willard (1839-1898), founder of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Kateri Tekakwitha (1656-1680), a Native
American convert to Catholicism, and Ann Lee (1736-1784), the founder of the Shakers.
32
In addition to studies on individuals, religious scholarship also examines a range of the women’s religious activities in organizations and under historical constraints, in addition to considering how their beliefs have influenced their political commitments and personal lives. Yet there are few studies examining the longitudinal, rhetorical activities of religious women such as Mountford’s study on the rhetorical lives of Protestant women and Efthymiou’s dissertation work on Jewish women.
In addition to Mountford and Efthymiou’s work, there are few monograph-length studies involving the rhetorical lives of religious women, especially from a Mormon tradition. This subject is taken up in isolated incidences relayed in articles but not typically full-length monographs that work to connect multiple Mormon rhetors across time. Some of these isolated incidences include a chapter that examines the rhetoric of
Eliza R. Snow (Adams-Roberts, Eves, and Rohan), various early Mormon suffragists
(Gere), and the conflict between the Mormon Church and Sonia Johnson (Schuefz).
Instead of analyzing isolated instances, this project connects three different rhetors to make comparisons and draw conclusions about Mormon women’s rhetoric and their push for legitimacy in the twentieth century.
Outline of Chapters
Following this introduction, I delineate the legitimacy literature I am building on and responding to. In this chapter, I plot this research on a continuum that organizes the literature according to whether the rhetor is drawing upon characteristics of their context or of their person in order to articulate their legitimacy. Next, I move on to the heart of this research where the next three chapters each feature one of the case studies, organized
33 chronologically to give a sense of narrative coherence. These analysis chapters also include a brief section delineating the methods I designed to analyze each archive, individually. The research methods combine two fields of study, specifically feminist rhetorical historiography and historical discourse analysis, to parse how discursive features in relation to rhetorical context were employed to confer legitimacy on the three rhetors featured in this study. Each of these analysis chapters follows a similar model: opening with a description of the historical context, outlining the methods used in the analysis, and an in-depth textual analysis of the rhetor’s public, published writing through the lens of legitimacy.
The first of these three chapters is on Emmeline B. Wells and her writing in The
Woman’s Exponent, a bi-monthly published magazine that ran from 1872-1914. Wells was the editor of this publication for over thirty-five years and during this time, she rhetorically worked to legitimize women in a variety of ways, including: normalizing women’s efforts to earn an education and enter various professions, defending the practice of plural marriage on feminist grounds, and actively lobbying for women’s enfranchisement. Discursively, Wells draws from first wave feminism, but also discourses of Christian morality (i.e., the Christian Mother and women’s separate sphere) and Mormon exceptionalism to further legitimize the authority of Mormon women. She also uses macro and micro discursive strategies that rationalize, moralize, and authorize suffrage for Utah women by strategically using the rhetorical cannon of arrangement.
The fourth chapter involves an analysis of Sonia Johnson, a fifth-generation
Mormon mother and wife who was excommunicated after politically organizing for ERA.
This chapter draws from Johnson’s texts that were distributed to the public either through
34 presenting or publishing. Like Wells, Johnson also draws on a variety of discourses to garner more legitimacy for women by lobbying for women’s equality as outlined in the
Equal Rights Amendment. She expressly draws on the cannon of invention, through which she realizes that the current structure of society is fundamentally flawed, so legitimacy in this structure would just mean more inequality. Upon this realization,
Johnson works to imagine a more equitable structure for women outside the current system of inequality.
The fifth and last analysis chapter of this dissertation focuses on the most recent writing in the thread of Mormon feminism: the writing of Kate Kelly. Featured on her website ordainwomen.org, Kelly’s writing articulates a position of authority for Mormon women within their church. Instead of advocating for women’s rights in politics, like
Johnson, or through the vote, like Wells, Kelly turns a feminist lens on the beloved church of her childhood. Ultimately, Kelly works to legitimate women inside the Church and inside the larger feminist movement through strategic delivery—both in OW’s presence online and during their “faith-based actions.”
The dissertation closes by drawing each of the three case studies together to compare and contrast their use of rhetorical strategies and more fully present the implications for this work to the larger fields of rhetoric, composition, communication, religion, and feminism. This chapter begins by presenting a cohesive summary of the major findings spanning across the three case studies outlined above. As legitimacy is forged through social consensus (Berger and Luckmann), this final chapter also considers to what extent Wells, Johnson, or Kelly’s rhetoric was rendered legitimate inside
Mormonism and national feminism. In addition, this chapter provides potential directions
35 for future research. As two of the three women were excommunicated, the dissertation ends by acknowledging the limitations of this study and positing directions for future research.
Conclusions
This next chapter outlines previous rhetorical studies, whereby I delineate the strategies used by those who are marginalized to earn legitimacy and instantiate themselves with power. As part of this literature review, I organize the studies along a continuum from strategies where the rhetor draws on elements of the context, to strategies where the rhetor pulls from personal characteristics. Following the literature review, the remainder of this dissertation examines archival documents spanning throughout the twentieth century in order to focus on how feminist, Mormon women draw from the rhetorical canons to further legitimate themselves and their arguments for equality.
Like Susan Jarratt in “Rhetoric and Feminism: Together Again,” I ultimately gauge the success of the feminist history written inside the pages of this dissertation in terms of whether the community I examine— feminist, Mormon women—takes up the findings of this study and how they are use these findings to guide their future pursuits to cultivate legitimacy.
CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW: A PRACTICE IN LEGITIMACY
THROUGH CITATION
“Women begin to speak and write from a different starting point than most men and because they confront fundamental obstacles to being accepted as rhetors, women’s rhetoric often entails the development of alternative communication strategies. This is especially true of ethos, [gaining authority and developing legitimacy], since it is precisely the characteristics of a good speaker that have historically been denied to women” –Carolyn Skinner from Women Physicians and Professional Ethos in Nineteenth-Century America
Introduction
For millennia, women were not permitted to write or speak in public. This practice of silencing women has proven especially true in religious spaces, such as the
Mormon Church, where women are forbidden, by the all-male leadership, from participating in sacred ceremonies or offering sermons and prayers to audiences made up of male and female listeners. Since the “weaker” sex was divested of authority for so long, she faced challenges for gaining legitimacy even though she is no longer silent or considered the “weaker sex.” Although the Mormon Church provides the context for this dissertation, they are not the only institution, especially among religions, to silence women. In fact, women’s expected, submissive role is written into the King James Bible where they are often told to “learn in silence with all submissiveness” and to “bear no
37 authority over men” (Timothy 2:12).12
To better understand how women confront obstacles to being heard, I trace various threads illustrating alternative communication strategies that open spaces for women as effective rhetors. More specifically, this literature review examines the rhetorical strategies that marginalized rhetors, such as women, employ when traditional routes to gaining legitimacy are blocked.13 In addition, I organize my tracings of these threads along a continuum, outlining whether the rhetor is drawing on elements of the context or their personal characteristics in an effort to legitimize themselves and their cause.14 I have chosen to organize the rhetorical strategies according to this continuum because I would argue that women are forced to exclusively use nontraditional strategies, as their gender automatically precludes (in some contexts) them from exercising established routes to gaining legitimacy.
As Skinner points out in the epigram to this chapter, women, historically, start from a position of lesser authority so they “confront fundamental obstacles” in persuading their audiences, which requires them to continue to adopt “alternative [or nontraditional] communication strategies” (171). While Skinner is writing about nineteenth-century women in medicine, her claim about women coming from a position of lesser authority and assuming alternative rhetorical strategies can also be applied to
12 Women’s position of lesser authority is especially evident in Christian denominations from which the above quotes are pulled. In other religions, women often hold more or less authority than that position sketched by the above quotes. 13 In many religions, women’s gender prevents them from holding positions of authority. 14 It is important to note that there exists other organizational patterns for this continuum, such as plotting these strategies from traditional to nontraditional ways of cultivating legitimacy.
38 religious women. This literature review traces the alternative communication strategies that marginalized rhetors, in various configurations of authority, adopt. Throughout this chapter, I review studies for terms that are closely related to “legitimacy” that might describe or are connected to the same concept, such as “authority” or “ethos.” I argue that this expansion in search terms is necessary as it allows me to understand how marginalized groups articulate their legitimacy from many different disciplinary angles
(i.e., in my literature searches, I have observed that “legitimacy” appears more in the literature from discourse studies, “ethos “in composition/rhetorical studies, and
“authority” in studies outside of the discipline).
Although the terms “ethos,” “authority,” and “legitimacy” are used interchangeably throughout the scholarship reviewed, it is important to theorize the relationships between these three terms more so. Ethical appeals cultivate a rhetor’s authority and then as a rhetor embodies that granted authority, they use it to develop legitimacy (i.e., Ethosà Authorityà Legitimacy). In the context of this dissertation, I argue that” ethos” includes rhetorical negotiations on a small-scale between rhetor and their intended audience, whereas “authority” becomes the embodiment of that ethos as the rhetor is granted authority by the audience. The rhetor then uses their “authority” to establish further “legitimacy” by extending their arguments to larger audiences and thereby facilitating social consensus.
Here, ethos is not centered in a text but instead hinges upon the character of a speaker. According to Longaker and Walker, “ethos” is “whatever [personal qualities] inspires trust (reputation, credentials, knowledge of the subject, intelligence, fair- mindedness, honesty, goodwill, and general moral quality)” (45). Ethos has been a
39 theorized concept since ancient times, as many of the famous Greek and Roman rhetoricians like Isocrates, Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian have argued that it is the most important pisteis or rhetorical appeal (Longaker and Walker 233). Even modern rhetoricians like Kenneth Burke have claimed that this “ethical appeal lays the foundation for all other communication” because it is through this appeal that a rhetor is able to facilitate identification with an audience and create common ground.
After a rhetor has used various appeals to establish their ethos, an audience amenable to their message will start to grant the speaker a level of authority. This authority is always contextual and depends upon the addressed audience and also the audience’s interpretation of the speaker’s subject location. Once an audience grants a rhetor authority, they begin to embody a positive ethos and are understood as a reliable source on the subject, and as someone who is respected for their expertise, knowledge, or experience. Reynolds notes that writers “earn their rhetorical authority by being responsible—by stating explicitly their identities, positions or locations, and political goals” (330). In other words, rhetors use ethical appeals to convince an audience to have confidence in their abilities based on past experiences. As the rhetor gains more authority, they ultimately have opportunities to enforce rules or laws and further influence the opinions of others.
Even though authorities are often permitted to enforce laws, I would argue that using force to compel an audience to action is not an authentic form of legitimacy. In line with Coates, an authority only has legitimacy if they are able to persuade others to action through mutual respect. In this dissertation, legitimacy is understood as “social consensus” wherein multiple audiences are persuaded, not by force, to agree to support a
40 person, rule, law, ideology, or even belief system (Berger and Luckmann). Throughout the following pages, I explore various ways marginalized rhetors develop their legitimacy, as they employ rhetorical techniques hinging upon their ethos in order to be granted authority.
While “authority” and “ethos” are similar terms, “legitimacy” is the overriding concept that I employ throughout this dissertation. Many feminist scholars use the lens of legitimacy to understand and interpret feminist activism. As Bordo notes, legitimacy is the entire mission of the Contemporary feminist movement, a mission that she explicitly articulates as: “restoring to legitimacy that which has been marginalized and disdained”
(224). Like Bordo, Schmertz also calls for framing feminist work in terms of legitimacy, which she describes as exercising women’s “ethos” or authority (82). And, as the legitimizing process is one that produces social order and change, it is logical to explore it in a dissertation that takes as its subject religious, feminist women who use their writing to challenge a dominating, male hierarchy.
This chapter initially considers the multiple definitions of “legitimacy.” I then briefly sketch how rhetors traditionally gain legitimacy in hierarchical institutions. I use this traditional sketch as a foil to demonstrate the ways in which marginalized rhetors create bids for legitimacy when traditional pathways for gaining it are blocked. These pathways might be blocked for various reasons, some of which are out of the rhetor’s control. These strategies are organized into ten different categories, which all fall along a continuum that involves: the rhetor claiming legitimacy to having legitimacy conferred upon the rhetor (in effect moving from the human internally claiming legitimacy to progressively more nonhuman external, contextual forms of legitimacy).
41
Definitions of Legitimacy
From the Latin word “legitimus,” “legitimacy” is related to “lex” or to “makes legal,” but more often, studies on legitimacy take a more extended view wherein they consider societal consensus and not only if a behavior is codified into secular law. Berger and Luckmann take this extended view to its logical conclusion when they state that “all language is legitimation” (131). This project builds on a notion of legitimacy by considering language that is not found within a the U.S. legal tradition, but is instead legitimized as a construct by gaining a limited form of consensus from a specific religious audience and/or codified into ecclesiastical law—thereby acquiring legitimacy within this religious context. The following definitions of “legitimacy” fall within three camps: 1) one defines legitimacy from the position of the rhetor seeking it from their audience (Reyes; Bowles), 2) one defines legitimacy from those who already have power and want to maintain it (Mackay), and 3) one defines legitimacy as a negotiation between two parties, on relatively equal footing (Exdell).
According to Reyes, legitimation refers to the process whereby a rhetor uses argumentation to justify their behavior, ideas, thoughts, declarations, and/or social practices. Through legitimation, the rhetor seeks approval from their audience in order to receive or maintain acceptance and authority (Reyes). This approval seeking process is reiterated by Bowles who proposes legitimacy as a recursive process of “setting aspirations and accounting for the legitimacy of one’s claims to those in positions of authority” (204). Both Bowles’ and Reyes’ definitions assume that the audience addressed holds authority, which is conferred upon the rhetor by cultivating consensus.
Weber (quoted in Thomas et al. 378) similarly defines legitimacy as depending upon
42 social consensus yet he calls legitimacy “validity” and explains that legitimacy is only conferred upon a rhetor when their action is related to a “morally binding” or legalistic rule (thereby relating to a previously authorized rule). Like Reyes and Bowles, Dombush and Scott (quoted in Thomas, Walker, and Zelditch 378) point out that a legitimate action becomes “morally binding” when it involves collective consensus and cannot be dictated by one person’s belief. Ultimately, these definitions build from Berger and Luckman’s text, The Social Construction of Reality, where they posit that legitimacy is gained through social consensus.
Instead of understanding legitimacy from the position of the rhetor, Mackay and
Exdell complicate this definition by tracing legitimacy from the position of those who already hold power. In his study of advertisements arguing for Scottish Independence,
Mackay finds that legitimacy involves a process whereby power is exerted by one group over another and is maintained and understood as acceptable by both. In his understanding, legitimacy can become insidious because it often goes without question and is “taken for granted, both by those who wield power and have it wielded over them”
(Mackay 235). Therefore, analyzing the process of legitimacy, which “is taken for granted,” holds the potential to spark social change because it requires critically examining how one group justifies its dominance over another. Exdell similarly considers how ruling groups, and not only single rhetors, construct their legitimacy. He claims
“legitimacy is an attempt to achieve general acceptance by making liberal principles unthreatening to cultural conservatives” (Exdell 245). Yet his analysis emphasizes legitimacy as a negotiation—a back and forth—as cultural conservatives respond to liberal principles and those articulating the liberal principles give rebuttals to their
43 responses. As both political orientations in the United States are powerful, with ruling organizations that involve many working on their behalf, this understanding of legitimacy is outside of the simplified “rhetor beseeching audience” model or “single ruling group justifying their power to the people.”15
In this dissertation, I acknowledge that the legitimacy process involves a dynamic negotiation between those in positions of power with those who are marginalized. Here, I choose to focus on the writings of the three ex-Mormon women and the rhetorical and discursive devices they pull from to articulate their authority. This dissertation falls more in line with the definition posited by Reyes, Bowles, Weber, Dombush, and Scott, wherein the rhetor is seeking legitimacy from their audience and is understood as achieving it because of social consensus. I make this choice because these women were silenced from speaking against those in positions of authority and by focusing solely on their writings; this dissertation gives them further voice, which has the potential to build their legitimacy. Furthermore, their silencing signals a power imbalance between the three women and the Mormon Church, which means there was little negotiation between the two parties (since the Mormon Church was previously understood as “legitimate” it could simply deem the ideas, beliefs, and actions of the three women “illegitimate” with little to no explanation).16
15 It is also important to note that some scholars have defined “delegitimacy,” which they claim involves the same processes as legitimation but instead differs in the “content of the beliefs that are affirmed” (Fave 35). This definition of “delegitimacy” comes into play during the fourth chapter on Johnson, who forgoes liberal change for more radical change, involving the delegitimation and eschewing of the Church’s beliefs to build a more gender equal structure for women. 16 For an example of how little explanation is given by the Mormon Church when its leadership is justifying its actions, take this common saying among the members:
44
A Brief Sketch of Traditional Ways to Cultivate Legitimacy
Those in positions of power, who are already considered legitimate in the current configuration, often draw from a common set of discursive strategies to maintain their legitimacy. Scholarship on governmental assemblies, corporate structures, and academic disciplines examines how people working in those institutions already instantiated with power maintain their power when traditional pathways are not blocked.
According to Van Leeuwen and Wodak, those in positions of power maintain it by making appeals that fall into four different categories: authorization (legitimacy through ethos), rationalization (legitimacy through commonsense or “logic”), moralization (legitimacy through appeals to morality), and mythopoiesis (legitimacy through established, positive narratives). Reyes builds on Van Leeuwen and Wodak by overlaying his categories on theirs when comparing President Bush’s speeches that justify war with those given by President Obama. He claims that both presidents legitimate themselves and justify their actions through a combination of: 1) emotions
(moralization), 2) referencing a hypothetical future (mythopoiesis), 3) rationality
(rationalization), 4) voices of expertise (ethos), and 5) altruism (moralization) (781). In legitimacy studies, these devices are frequently used to analyze the words and writings of those who are already granted a degree of power.
Traditional legitimacy strategies are not only employed by governing bodies establishing their credibility, scholars in the academy often work to gain authority inside their respective disciplines. Although women are the minority in many disciplines, and
“when the prophet has spoken, the discussion is done” (Tanner).
45 are often on the outside or the periphery of the configuration of power, scholars found that many adhere strongly to traditional strategies for gaining legitimacy. Kirsch discovered that women successful in their academic careers had effectively become
“men-like’ in order to succeed as professionals” (6). Lewontin echoes Kirsch when he discovered that female academics working in science maintain their authority by strictly following what is deemed important by their peers, specifically: 1) “facilitating public communication of their research, 2) maintaining employment within the field/gaining promotion, 3) educating professional offspring and 4) earning funding to continue their research” (372). As determined by their “peers” through consensus, these four ways of maintaining legitimacy are the same as those developed by men working in a scientific discipline.17
Although the bulk of scholarship on legitimacy studies traces how power is maintained and furthered, this dissertation examines how those who do not wield power attempt to legitimate, authorize, and validate themselves. It is important to sketch out the traditional ways of maintaining legitimacy because “acts of rebellion” can only be understood within the current configuration of power and as a response to that configuration (Lewontin 372).
17 Using CDA, Van Dijk found that legitimacy is maintained through multiple linguistic devices, such as: overall interaction strategies (i.e., self presentation), macro- speech acts like topic selection, local speech acts that implement and sustain global acts, local meanings (i.e., few details/many details, general/specific, vague/precise, explicit/implicit), word choice, local syntax (i.e., passive versus active sentences, nominalizations, conferring responsibility), rhetorical figures (i.e., hyperbole versus euphemisms), metonymies, metaphors, and expressions (i.e., sounds and visuals/order). All of these devices were used to emphasize or frame actions, ideas, or beliefs in positive and/or negative ways, which would subsequently influence the rhetor’s legitimacy (Van Dijk 328).
46
Gaining Legitimacy When Traditional Pathways Are Blocked
While some of the discursive strategies used against the reigning social and political structures are unique, many are similar to the devices explained in the previous section. Although these devices look similar, their use is different because of who is deploying them, and their social location within the current configuration of power.
Despite the similarities, there remain prominent absences in the above depiction of legitimacy and how legitimacy functions when it is not maintained by someone in power.
The unconventional modes of achieving legitimacy, when traditional pathways are blocked, can best be understood in the form of a continuum. These strategies are organized below— ranging from legitimacy bestowed by an external entity to legitimacy claimed or performed by the self (please see Figure 1 featured at the end of this chapter).
This continuum effectively works to complicate the four legitimacy appeals created and employed by Van Leeuwen, Wodak, and Reyes. In addition, these discursive strategies plotted along this continuum are organized so that they are progressively more internalized and embodied by the rhetor, deeming herself legitimate, and less reliant on petitioning others or drawing upon contextual factors. Overall, by considering studies conducted on groups not in power, who employ nontraditional strategies, this review gives a fuller, more nuanced and dynamic understanding of how the legitimation process functions. While some of the devices could be classified within the previous categories
(i.e., citing texts, citing people, citing experience as authorization), others cannot and therefore offer more complexity to the study of legitimacy (i.e., highlighting elements of the context, citing one’s nature or ontology).
47
Citing Nature or Being
Plotted on the continuum featured at the end of the chapter, the first legitimacy strategies represent one extreme in that they draw on factors external to the rhetor as they involve a reference to an idea, concept, belief, or action’s “nature,” “being,” or “origin.”
This legitimacy strategy is distinct from the others in that it is situated at the furthermost end of a continuum and as such represents an extreme. This legitimacy strategy requires a discursive move in which a rhetor crafts a claim, which draws on an object’s fundamental
“nature.” For example, an action is justified as legitimate when the rhetor references its ontology or cosmology, where this action’s mere existence in time/place/space, qualities of this existence, and how it originated, are constructed as a reason to support its authority.
Suddaby and Greenwood, exploring those marginalized in a cooperate culture, and Vaara, analyzing the media and its legitimation processes, both find rhetors employ strategies that draw on cosmology to legitimate themselves by constructing a claim as
“inevitable,” “natural,” or of its “being.” Since this claim is figured in many ways as
“predestined” with these references, it is assumed by the intended audience that this idea must be legitimate and therefore becomes one link in the (supposed) “natural chain of events.”
More specifically, in their study of how employees oppose corporate innovation,
Suddaby and Greenwood found that changes were framed for the workers as “a natural process of evolution or consequence of globalization” and that they must accept these changes to “avert [corporate] disaster” (55). Though disempowered and fearful, workers responded in kind to this framing by positing ontological claims where they “made
48 extensive use… about what can or cannot co-exist” together (Suddaby and Greenwood
51). For example, when an accounting firm purchased a law firm, the original employees were against any sort of “multidisciplinary partnerships” between the two. Marginalized in this new configuration, the accounting employees fought the “multidisciplinary partnership,” arguing that the work of auditors and lawyers cannot co-exist together because auditors work on “behalf of the state to uphold regulations and lawyers work on behalf of the client to advance their interests” (Suddaby and Greenwood 51). In effect, this response rebutted the proposed changes, where the accountants were able to demonstrate that the changes could and should not co-exist with the original principles and procedures that the company deemed to espouse.
Both parties in this study draw on claims pertaining to the actions of the fundamental “being” or “nature” as a way to argue for their claim’s respective legitimacy.
Although in religious traditions, cosmology is often considered connected with a
“creator,” this strategy is distinct from those that reference “God” or a divine being as an authority, who also confers legitimacy.
Drawing on Elements of Context: Exigency and a Politics of Location
Another discursive strategy used by those who are marginalized or not given authority draws from and highlights elements of the rhetorical context, specifically emphasizing exigency. In addition to focusing on exigency, a rhetor’s social location within that context, the resources they have access to depending on this location, is also used to craft bids for legitimacy. Along the legitimacy continuum, this category is set apart from the previous one in that it does not involve one formulaic bid by using a
49 reference or citation. While there remains certain linguistic templates a rhetor employs when they draw on elements of context, this category encompasses more and appears more transitory than those bids made directly through references or citations.
Many rhetorical scholars emphasize that elements of context are integral to bids for legitimacy. In Shaver’s study of female exhorters, she found that early Methodist women were permitted authority to speak because of the exigency of their words—they specifically spoke from their deathbeds. Their ability to function in a “liminal state between heaven and earth” permitted these women an element of legitimacy that more so fits with exigency, as part of the context, than in speaking with an assumed authority in heaven (Shaver 30).18 It is the exigency of their rhetoric, relative to the end of their lives and a perceived closeness to an afterlife, that gives these women and their words weight.
It is important to note that these exhorting women, speaking from their deathbeds, were given an authority in their religion they were never allowed when they were healthy.
With this authority, the exhorters directed their audiences in matters that influenced both their spiritual and civic lives.
In addition to exigency, a rhetor’s social location embedded inside their rhetorical context restricts and constrains their “choice of legitimacy strategies” (Goddard 41). In other words, a rhetor’s identity in relationship to cultural and social institutions can determine the words they speak and the legitimacy of these words. Again, aspects of the
“rhetor’s identity are highlighted depending on the social location” within which they are
18 Although I will argue later in this review that Shaver’s findings can be interpreted as crafting two different appeals to legitimacy—not solely focused on the rhetorical context.
50 embedded (Goddard 41). Skinner describes the connection between context and one’s
“social location,” which she reads as acknowledging the resources available to the rhetor and “popular beliefs about those in her social location” (173). The popular beliefs concerning social locations and the resources available to rhetors as such definitively influence their legitimacy. Yet, as Sutton points out, this social location is not completely stable and predetermined. She claims that the rhetor is able to sway an audiences’ perception of the “groups she belongs to” and therein the beliefs about her social location and hence the rhetorical resources she can access (Sutton 132). Reynolds claims that the overarching goal of all feminist scholarship is to complete this type of analysis—wherein women’s social locations and their underlying ideological systems are questioned as they connect authority with marginalized identity (327).
Overall, the rhetorical context reflected in exigency and a rhetor’s social location works to determine legitimacy. Goddard argues that any discursive strategy is not as important as the context from which the claim emerges. It is difficult to disagree with
Goddard, as elements of the context underlie every aspect of the spoken or written word.
For him, it is context that is the final arbiter for determining legitimacy as the context influences how the discursive strategy is interpreted and the extent to which this strategy is understood as successfully cultivating legitimacy. Other feminist rhetorical scholars,
Shaver, Reynolds, Sutton, and Skinner, are in line with Goddard concerning the importance of context and the rhetor’s social location within that context in successfully cultivating legitimacy.
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Earning Legitimacy Through Association
Another way that marginalized groups foster an ethos of authority involves developing relationships of prominence by publically associating themselves with others who hold positions of authority inside the community. Stoudt, Fox, and Fine note in their research that associating with certain individuals, typically those already instantiated with power, provides “legitimacy, dignity and recognition” for those who are initially without these resources (107; my italics). In line with Harris’ research, Aronson, and Swanson posit that “no one achieves authority without group validation” and one way to receive this group validation is to associate one’s self with others who are already accepted inside said group (168).
There are many examples of groups developing relationships and associating themselves with those in power as a way to establish their legitimacy—Lijia, Aronson, and Swanson are three researchers whose work explores communities of women that employ this strategy. More specifically, Lijia’s research takes as her subject women in
Cambodia by examining how they improve their legitimacy through calculated marital choices. Here, she finds Cambodian women’s marital decisions, the family they choose to marry into, becomes more important than their female gender identity in determining their political power. According to Lijia, legitimacy for these women is all a “matter of ordering one’s identities” so that they more closely mirror those in positions of power, which translates into forwarding their martial identity and backgrounding their gender identity (81). Aronson and Swanson find the same move, legitimacy through association, inside the ranks of academia. These two discover that scholars integrate themselves into their chosen field through their use of citation, which means improving their legitimacy
52 by associating their work with others (others who are often of more prominent).19
Typically, the scholars who are cited do not condone or disavow this association unless they do so publically by reciprocating the citation or criticizing how their work was used.
In both of these cases, those instantiated with power are not directly conferring legitimacy upon the marginalized groups. Instead, by employing writing or spoken language, the marginalized groups are gaining legitimacy through mere association. Both of these studies suggest that through association, those in prominence are tacitly agreeing and condoning the entry of the marginalized.
In addition to examining legitimacy through association, researchers like Goddard note that there are particular rhetorical techniques rhetors employ to facilitate these connections. To this point, Goddard suggests using ambiguous claims that could be understood from multiple angles at the same time so as to speak to several conditions simultaneously (41). Goddard argues, “actors with multiple ties have the ability to speak legitimately to otherwise opposed coalitions. In doing so, bridging actors create legitimate ground for negotiation and construct[ing] the conflict as divisible” (63). Using ambiguous claims will create associations and, ultimately, nurturing these associations and speaking from a position of multiplicity, with loyalties to many groups, will facilitate legitimacy as multiplicity allows for negotiation between coalitions.
19 Please note that citing another scholar involves cultivating legitimacy through association, whereas a letter of recommendation involves conferring legitimacy upon another. Furthermore, citing a scholar means that the rhetor is performing academic discourse and wants to advance their position so they are taking a risk (through citation and interpretation of another’s work) in order to achieve a goal (advance their position).
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Earning Legitimacy Through Popularity
Fostering legitimacy through popularity as a strategy is most clearly marked by the presence of a large number of people who stand in support of a cause, a person, or an idea. In a face-to-face communicative context, it is the sheer number of bodies standing in support that impresses the audience enough to grant a degree of legitimacy. This strategy takes different forms when it is not enacted in person between a rhetor addressing her audience. Outside of face-to-face communication, legitimacy cultivated through popularity might look like the wide dissemination or circulation of a text or even printing a text with a list of names that condone the information in the text.
Both L. Richard Della Fave and Sarah Hallenbeck explore how legitimacy through popularity functions when facing an audience in person. From a sociological perspective, Fave explains how public rituals work to delegitimize particular social groups and how these rituals should be revised to promote more egalitarian aims. She finds that to foster egalitarianism, “the presence of large numbers of people is important because it is impressive. It conveys the impression that the symbols affirmed by the ritual are widely shared, that they are powerful and that it is normal to believe in them” (Fave
33). Here, the sheer number of audience members at these rituals gives the impression of mass consent for the symbols. Hallenbeck extrapolates this same strategy for legitimacy further in a space outside of public rituals.
In her latest research, Hallenbeck investigates women who confront nineteenth- century medical science to develop arguments for why they should be permitted to bicycle. Grounded firmly inside the field of rhetoric, composition, and technical communication, Hallenbeck finds that female rhetors learned, when they were initially
54 met with hostility, to extend outside of professional medical venues and to “seek out broad public audiences” as their ideas were better received with these lay masses (327).
Hallenbeck demonstrates that these women cultivated legitimacy for their ideas by appealing to the masses and gaining popularity for their ideas in this way.
This strategy, fostering legitimacy through popularity, takes on a different form in textual documents as opposed to in-person communicative contexts. In their research on women’s rhetorical practices in religious spaces, Wendy Shaver and Vicki Tolar Collins examine how women cultivate their authority in these (often) male-led institutions. While the women Shaver researches were granted legitimacy through the context in which they spoke, their deathbed, they also earned legitimacy when their church effectively fostered their rhetorical practices by publishing and disseminating their memoirs. Shaver notes
“the church’s willingness—even eagerness—to publish and disseminate so many memoirs depicting women exhorting from their deathbeds provides evidence of the authority posthumously granted to these women as exhorters” (33; my italics). As the church supported their message by publishing these tracts, the intended audience grew in scope and fervor—they were eager and demanded access to these tracts.20
Along similar, religious lines, Collins analyzes the writings of Hester Rogers, the first female follower of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. Through her analysis,
Collins forwards a “theory of accretion” wherein she claims that Rogers earned
20 In Shaver’s analysis of these “exhorting women.” they fostered their legitimacy using multiple means, including: 1) gaining popularity with their readers, 2) capitalizing on the unusual context surrounding their rhetoric, and 3) convincing their church, a collectivity representing religious authority, to condone their rhetoric through publication and dissemination.
55 legitimacy because her tract was published with additions and notes of support from male figures—like Wesley. In delineating a “theory of accretion,” Collins takes specific pains to differentiate it from the contemporary, academic practice of “citation,” as Rogers does not mention these men by name inside her text; instead, these men attach their names to her published work in an effort to show their support. This practice, “accretion,” is also different from legitimacy conferred through authority, as it was not only the quality but also the quantity of printed names that helped establish the text’s legitimacy, as they functioned to “accrete” onto the text in number.
Popularity, in person or in text, works to establish the legitimacy of a cause, an idea or even a person. Whether it is in the form of bodies standing together in support of a cause, writing names to condone a text, circulating copies to eager audiences or broadening an argument’s scope so it speaks to a larger audience, cultivating legitimacy through popularity remains an effective rhetorical strategy.
Gaining Legitimacy Through Visibility
There are many ways to cultivate legitimacy— one of which involves constructing a situation to increase one’s public visibility or making a process more transparent and hence visible. Following the continuum of legitimacy delineated at the opening of this chapter, the discursive strategies are organized in a way that they are progressively more embodied by the individual rhetor and less dependent on outside forces. This strategy, legitimacy through visibility, is positioned in the middle of the continuum as it continues to rely on others for acknowledgement. Throughout these studies, there are dual uses for the term visibility: 1) as it refers to fostering an idea,
56 person, or place until it begins to impinge upon public awareness and 2) as it refers to procedural transparency (i.e., permitted to metaphorically “see” through the mechanisms of bureaucracy to make visible how leaders are installed in positions of power).
Most of the research completed on legitimacy through visibility examines well- educated, powerful women who are developing their authority in highly competitive arenas. The works of Lama-Rewal and Öztürkmen are representative of this trend as they both examine how visibility cultivates legitimacy for women in politics and academia, respectively. More specifically, Lama-Rewal takes as her subject of inquiry women’s political representation in France and India. It is in her analysis that she discovers women gained legitimacy inside India through the Women’s Reservation Bill, which reserved thirty-three percent of seats in state assemblies and in parliament for women. Lama-
Rewal notes that Indian women in the 1990s were massively present in political life, due in part to this bill, which improved women’s political visibility and thereby legitimacy
(1439). Similarly, in her work on Turkish women inside women’s studies programs,
Öztürkmen finds that increasing the public’s visibility of women’s studies through publications and fostering degree programs with community outreach also leads to legitimacy (175).
In addition, the second meaning of legitimacy through visibility is procedural transparency. For example, Brenda Gunn analyzes how indigenous Canadian women develop self-determination and she finds that increasing public visibility of a procedure facilitates legitimacy. If there are “institutionalized and well established procedures for electing leaders,” the leaders are more likely to be considered “legitimate” holders of power (Gunn 41). Transparency of a procedure, electing or appointing a governmental
57 official, becomes the important mechanism for establishing that official’s legitimacy. If there are questions about the procedures employed to elect the official, such as voter fraud, the official is more likely to be consider illegitimate.
In the above examples, Lama-Rewal, Öztürkmen, and Gunn all examine communities of women, Indian women, Canadian women, and academic women, respectively, who are traditionally barred from expressing their legitimacy. They discover that these women bypass their barriers by emphasizing visibility in the form of cultivating public awareness and procedural transparency.
Citing Authorities21
It is important to note that some of these legitimacy strategies overlap with others. Due to this overlapping, it is difficult to fully pull the strategies apart from one another and classify them as separate because they work towards the same goal, yet I attempt to do so in this literature review since there remain important differences between these strategies. While citing an authority is similar to citing texts and experience, it is also different because the practice of citing authorities means citing any information from that authority, even if that information is not embedded inside a text. Also the practice of citing an authority may be based on that authority’s knowledge and not only their experience. On the other hand, texts involve multiple citations, sometimes from sources that are not necessarily considered “authorities” on a subject—often depending on the audience’s expectations of that text.
21 This literature review is an effort to explain these similarities and differences in a way that is cohesive, moving towards comprehensive.
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Whether or not they are barred from cultivating their legitimacy through traditional routes, one rhetorical strategy used by groups and individuals alike involves citing authorities. While Van Leewen specifically mentions this technique as one way dominant groups develop and maintain their authority, marginalized groups also engage in “citing authorities.”22 This rhetorical strategy is different than the rhetorical strategies of “associating with others” or “gaining legitimacy through popularity” because “citing authority” involves relying on the authority of one individual and not a host of people.
This rhetorical move is convincing because of the status associated with this one individual instead of the pressure associated with popularity or visibility. Furthermore,
“citing authorities” is situated midway along the continuum between “gaining legitimacy through popularity” and “citing texts” as this strategy moves towards cultivating authority by referencing internal characteristics of the rhetor and not external characteristics embedded inside the rhetorical context.
Within a religious context, the most important authority for many is a “divine being,” who is typically gendered male and referred to as “God,” followed closely by the religious leaders exemplifying characteristics of the divine. Studying the Irish-English conflict, Goddard discovered that the marginalized Irish citizens legitimized their battle for the territory of Ulster by “referencing God and his words” (41). Shaver found a similar use of rhetoric in her study of Methodist women exhorting from their deathbeds.
In addition to highlighting the unusual context of the deathbed, Shaver argues that these women reference divine authority as a way to develop their legitimacy and they craft this
22 It is important to note that who one cites and the why often changes depending on one’s social location or established relationship to power.
59 appeal to authority by interpreting traces of divine from marks that pepper their bodies.
To this effect, Shaver writes that the “memoirists attempted to portray the depths of women’s holiness by describing traces of the divine inscribed on their bodies and souls”
(31). Although the women of Shaver’s study do not directly quote the words of God to articulate their authority, these women physically embody his/her authority as they interpret traces of the divine in marks of birth, illness, and aging.
In addition to citing a divine authority and interpreting their will through bodily traces, rhetors also cite human authorities in the context of their religious communities.
Both Vicki Tollar Collins and Patricia Bizzell find that religious rhetors seeking to improve their legitimacy cite leaders inside their respective communities. Analyzing the early writings of Hester Rogers, Collins finds that the “accretion” of male endorsements gave women a position of authority through which they could preach in public. Although the “accreting” of names is arguably an “appeal to popularity,” it can also function as an
“appeal to authority” as many of these names belong to powerful men—in particular the founder of Methodism, John Wesley. Collins notes that Methodist female preachers were only “allowed to speak or preach in public if they received permission from John
Wesley,” himself (337). Here, these female preachers are citing a male leader, using his name as evidence for their permission to speak in public, as a way to develop their own authority. This arrangement also benefited Wesley—he gave Rogers permission because she was effectively doing his bidding, preaching Methodism, while also developing her authority as a female speaker and religious figure.
Analyzing the speeches of Frances Willard, Bizzell discovers that Willard makes similar moves to Hester Rogers. But Willard’s strategy for citing authority departs from
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Rogers because she cites female leaders (specifically Phoebe Palmer) and not only male leaders inside Methodism. Willard takes her reference to Palmer one step further than
Rogers takes her reference to Wesley in that she not only cites Palmer but also begins to exhibit elements of her rhetorical style. To this effect, Bizzell writes that “Willard testified to Palmer’s spiritual influence on her, and her speaking style also reflected
Palmer’s blend of intense commitment, spiritual restraint, refined appearance, sound logic, and seemingly artless eloquence” (377). Here, Willard moves beyond citing Palmer as an inspiring authority figure—she works to embody Palmer’s ethos and develop legitimacy by mimicking another female rhetor who has authority.
Set within religious contexts, the legitimacy strategy of “citing authorities” takes on many forms, including: claiming inspiration from a divine being (Goddard), interpreting physical marks with religious significance and embodying these marks
(Shaver), gaining permission from an authority to speak in public (Collins), as well as referencing an authority and imitating her oratorical style (Bizzell). These female rhetors employ the strategy of “citing authorities” to accommodate and to also repudiate and resist dominant discourses. Although they are relying upon a strategy frequently used by those in power, by speaking from female bodies, by interpreting marks on female bodies, and by imitating the ethos of female bodies, they are working to resist dominant discourse that would rather silence their female bodies.
Citing Texts
Similar to “citing authorities,” Van Leewen claims that “citing texts” is another way the powerful legitimize themselves and maintain their position. By focusing on
61 research concerning marginalized groups and their rhetorical practices, it is clear the strategy of “citing texts” is not exclusively employed by the powerful. This tactic is also used by women, from all different backgrounds, marginalized and delegitimized within the current configuration of power. Separately, Lawston and Öztürkmen find that women in their research draw upon texts to articulate their legitimacy and therefore they emphasize the importance of access to texts in cultivating authority. Mir-Hosseini as well as Kendall and Fisher not only emphasize accessing texts but also give specific examples of women using canonical texts to establish their authority inside civic and religious contexts. Similarly, Cruikshank examines specific texts that women reference to provide examples of narratives that women use in order to cultivate their legitimacy. Working with examples ingrained inside the Mormon faith, Mihelich and Storrs center the rhetorical strategy of “citing texts” in the specific context that this dissertation focuses upon. The rest of this section will further develop and explain in more detail each scholars’ specific contribution to the study of legitimacy through textual citation.
Öztürkmen and Lawston both focus on vulnerable populations, populations that are incarcerated or unfairly marginalized inside their workplace or society at large.
Studying how activists work with incarcerated women, Lawston discovers that these activists improve their credibility by “provid[ing] prisoners with resources—resources to which the prisoners do not have access” (655). These resources included access to certain texts that are not readily available to the prisoners. Although analyzing an entirely different population, Öztürkmen finds that access to texts are also important to gender studies professors, seeking to increase their research profile. These professors sought access to international networks or publications, which they used to frame their own work
62 in terms of a larger conversation and publish for broader audiences to increase their research stature.
Gaining access to texts is the first step in enacting the rhetorical strategy of “citing texts,” the next step involves directly referencing these texts and using them to further bids for legitimacy. Mir-Hosseini is a feminist scholar who extends ideas about women’s rights to determine if women are or are not legitimized inside the Islamic religion. More specifically, Mir-Hosseini argues that feminists who are willing to engage with Islam’s sacred texts and subsequent ecclesiastical traditions can reform the religion for women from the inside. “By advocating a brand of feminism that takes Islam as the source of its legitimacy,” Mir-Hosseini maintains in citing texts, “these feminist voices are effectively challenging the hegemony of the patriarchal interpretations of the sharia [law] and the legitimacy of the views of those who… have spoken in the name of Islam” (156). These
Islamic feminists are in turn building off the legitimacy of sacred texts and using these texts to argue for the authority of their feminist positions.
Outside of this religious context, Kendall and Fisher discover that other female rhetors make a similar move—citing texts and interpreting them in order to increase their legitimacy. Examining the rhetoric of one of the first female orators to appear before the
American public, Kendall and Fisher discover that Frances Wright frequently draws from canonical and civic oriented American texts in order to argue for gender equality. Similar to the feminist Islamic women who cite and reinterpret the sharia, Frances Wright draws from canonical texts like the Declaration of Independence, to promote gender equality, to specifically “persuade her listeners that women should have [access to an] equal education” (Kendall and Fisher 63). For Cruikshank, female rhetors not only cite
63 canonical texts, they also build arguments from these texts by drawing upon discourses woven throughout the texts. Moreover, Cruikshank finds that southern Yukon women draw from prophecy narratives and use these narratives to compete with Western discourses for legitimacy. Here, this rhetorical move, “citing texts” and discourses from these texts, works to transform the social and political order by giving Yukon women a strategy to facilitate their legitimacy and in turn delegitimize Western discourses
(Cruikshank 150).23
Women inside the contemporary context of the Mormon faith also employ this strategy of “citing texts.” Through their rhetorical analysis, Mihelich and Storrs posit that
Mormon women draw from canonical texts within their religion, such as the New
Testament and the Book of Mormon, to justify life decisions that in turn work to increase their legitimacy. From these texts, Mormon women specifically interpret the discourses concerning the ideology of motherhood to justify their decisions to delay motherhood and pursue a higher education. In effect, this “interpretation [of certain canonical texts and discourses] legitimates their education” and in turn their education works to provide them with authority inside their communities (Mihelich and Storrs 418). In these examples, marginalized groups of women from religious, secular, and civic contexts, access and
“cite texts” to further improve their legitimacy: by increasing their status with their research subjects, improving their stature, arguing for gender equality inside their communities, and justifying their chosen life decisions. “Citing texts” as a rhetorical
23 Throughout the literature review of this dissertation, I am enacting this rhetorical strategy, “citing texts,” in order to further cultivate authority as a doctoral candidate and future PhD.
64 strategy is moving along the continuum delineated in the beginning of this chapter— specifically towards performing claims of legitimacy as the practice of “citing texts” hinges upon the rhetor’s personal interpretation of these canonical texts.
Citing Experience
Similar to the strategies of “citing texts” and “citing authorities,” Van Leewen argues that those in power maintain their legitimacy by using the rhetorical technique of
“citing experience.” Again, those in power are not the only ones who “cite experience” in an attempt to cultivate authority, as marginalized groups frequently use this technique to validate their experiences apart from dominant ones amplified in the mainstream.
Scholars find that marginalized groups typically value primary experience over other strategies used to cultivate legitimacy and as such, they form coalitions based on their shared experience of marginalization (Cruikshank, Lilja, Lawston). In addition, rhetorical spaces like writing play an important role in “citing experience” because they allow marginalized rhetors room to experiment with different ways to articulate their experience (Harrison). And once rhetors have solidified how they will draw from their experience, they often encourage those who are similarly marginalized to engage in the same experiences so as to develop the overall authority of their group (MacKinnon;
Plant).
“Citing experience” is an important strategy for marginalized rhetors as their experience often deviates from dominant discourses. Examining the communicative strategies of Northern Aboriginal women, Cruikshank references Rushforth’s research on the indigenous Dene society. Rushforth finds that for the Dene people, “knowledge
65 comes to be seen as legitimate when it is based on what he calls primary experience”
(Cruikshank 162). For example, the Dene people spoke out against the Mackenzie Valley
Pipeline from their own experience with the land. In their testimonies, they placed greater emphasis on primary knowledge than that relayed by “expert witnesses,” who did not have the same experience working and living on the land. Here, “citing” and articulating primary experience is a highly valued rhetorical technique for marginalized groups.
Not only is primary experience important, it also becomes the basis for many who are marginalized to forge political coalitions and to work for their secular and sacred legitimacy. As an iconic example of “citing experience” inside a feminist context, second wave radical feminists employed consciousness-raising groups, designed to help women understand how their experiences as gendered beings are valid and to show them that their experience provides them with a valuable perspective outside of dominant discourses.
Lawston and Lilja discover that other marginalized groups like radical second wave feminists use expressions of experience to develop in-group bonds. Lilja investigates the rhetorical strategies of fifty-two Cambodian politicians, who use their experience with violence in major twenty-first-century conflicts to establish their political legitimacy (i.e., World War II, Cold war, Indochina war and rule under the Khmer
Rouge). Lilja finds that “those lacking certain memories—those who were not present in the past—are accused of not having the ‘right’ experience (of violence and war) and thereby [are unable] to become one of ‘us’” (90). In this way, “citing experience” is rhetorically used to separate those who have experienced trauma and marginalization from those who have not, and through this separation to forge a stronger, political base of
66 support for politicians with memories of this collective violence. Lawston finds that activists working with incarcerated women make a similar appeal to experience. These activists suggest to the incarcerated women that “[they] are all sisters” and therefore share experiences of marginalization. Although Lawston notes that activists “never explicitly told prisoners that their work is legitimate because they are women—they implied it by talking with prisoners about the ways that they all connect based on abuse and caretaking. Activists did, however, speak in meetings of their gender experiences as legitimating their work” (655). Here, activists use their shared experiences, forged through trauma and societal expectation, to create a connection with the incarcerated women and to build legitimacy for their work based on this shared experience.
These marginalized groups not only value experience and employ shared- experiences to forge coalitions, they also rehearse experiences and experiment with the most effective ways to articulate them. Based on her study of Confederate women’s diaries, Harrison uncovered that these women frequently used diaries as rhetorical space to articulate and rehearse their newfound experiences. These women not only used these diaries as a space of reflection and rehearsal but also as spaces of persuasion wherein they “persuaded themselves that they could and should take on the new roles thurst upon them” (Harrison 260). Therefore, these Confederate female writers were rhetorically practicing and experimenting with articulating their experience and convincing themselves to engage in additional experiences.
In their research, Mackinnon and Plant find that marginalized groups of women relate their experiences in order to encourage not only themselves, but others to engage in similar endeavors as so to improve the legitimacy of the overall group. Mackinnon, a
67 legal feminist scholar, uses the term “legitimacy” to delineate the barriers that women face when she writes that “women are systematically excluded from access to the tools of the law and from the possession and legitimacy [of a] legal and political education” (131; my italics). Mackinnon goes on to propose that women receive a legal education similar to her own because this education would provide them with a kind of legitimacy that they could use to further their bids for authority. In addition to Mackinnon, whose work is centered in a legal context, Plant discovers that women in a religious context also draw upon their experiences and encourage others to have similar experiences. More specifically, Plant relays the example of female Quaker ministers who were faced with hostile attitudes from male members about their preaching. As such, these female ministers “publically pointed out… the reluctance that they perceived in too many men
Friends to submit to the humiliations and sufferings necessary for divine service” (Plant
313). Through their critique, these female ministers encourage their male counterparts in the Society of Friends to engage in experiences of “humiliations and “necessary sufferings” as a way to understand and identify with the female leaders. Plant’s example is different from the one provided by Mackinnon as it does not involve the female ministers encouraging the same experiences for their female followers. But it does involve a marginalized group, female Quaker ministers, encouraging an experience in order to hopefully change the hostile complaints of the male members and potentially increase their authority in their community.
By using this rhetorical strategy, “citing experience,” marginalized rhetors not only emphasize the importance of experience and build coalitions from it, they experiment with ways to express their experience and encourage others to seek out
68 similar experiences. Overall, this rhetorical strategy, “citing experience,” is situated further down the continuum as this technique does not require a rhetor to filter their claim for legitimacy through a text or another authority figure; instead, this strategy is based off the rhetor’s past and their articulation, understanding, and deployment of that past.
Performing or Claiming Legitimacy
At one end of the continuum, described earlier in this chapter, sits the rhetorical strategy of “performing or claiming legitimacy.” This strategy is plotted on the end of the continuum because it involves the rhetor relying only upon themselves and not others or the context to craft a position of authority. Although similar, this rhetorical technique is different than “citing experience” as the rhetor is currently in the moment, establishing their legitimacy based on their mere existence and not an interpretation of their past.
Cruikshank’s research finds a marginalized group that claims their legitimacy based on their existence; meanwhile, Butler traces performances of legitimacy, focusing on how some performances can shift what is recognizable as “legitimate.”
In addition to “citing experience” and “citing texts,” Cruikshank finds that aboriginal, indigenous women employ “self-evident” fictional and nonfictional narratives to explain their legitimacy. These narratives are formulated in a way that they “speak for themselves as though their message is a self-evident, commonsense explanation” and as such they serve to legitimize women’s authority through mere existence (Cruikshank
150). Elder aboriginal women specifically select these narratives to pass onto younger generations as a way to cultivate legitimacy for themselves and their position of authority. These narratives are featured as an example of “claiming legitimacy” for
69 oneself and not “citing a text” because of their self-evident and commonsense nature.
These commonsense narratives are different than the prophecy narratives mentioned in the section on “citing text,” as Cruikshank gives multiple examples of indigenous, aboriginal women employing linguistic strategies to establish and maintain their legitimacy.
While Cruikshank’s research on aboriginal women shows them using self-evident narratives to claim their authority, Butler’s research on the performativity of gender through the “slipperiness of drag” illustrates how to place pressure on reigning systems and change what appears legitimate by “contesting what has become sedimented in and as the ordinary” (145). She explains that a “performance that does not provide such support [for the current power structures] may produce a ‘shift’ in the terms of legitimacy as an effect of the utterance itself” (Butler 147; my italics). Here, the performances Butler describes as “not providing support” are performances that work to undermine reigning systems of privilege. When these performances undermine systems of privilege, such as men dressing in drag undermining heterosexual privilege, they have the potential to produce a “shift” in the terms of legitimacy.
Conclusion
While the analysis and classification of rhetorical strategies indexed throughout this chapter is extensive, it is in no way comprehensive as it focuses only on the techniques frequently employed by marginalized rhetors seeking legitimacy. There are some important techniques involving others directly granting the marginalized rhetor legitimacy, which were purposefully excluded from this chapter, such as the act of
70 petitioning and appealing. Though historically important to the feminist cause, these strategies were not included because they hinge on decisions made by others, decisions influenced by rhetorical strategies already thoroughly explored in this chapter.24 In addition to working extensively, it is important to note that all of the studies cited in this chapter are taken from work done on the rhetoric employed by marginalized groups, specifically focusing on studies that examine women speaking or writing within the context of religion. Throughout this chapter, the dominant strategies used to articulate legitimacy are delineated in the opening as a foil to compare how dominant groups employ rhetoric in ways that are distinct from or similar to marginalized groups. Overall, this chapter summarizes how marginalized groups articulate their legitimacy and emphasizes how these rhetorical strategies exist on a continuum—moving from devices that involve highlighting elements of the context to devices that focus directly upon the attributes of the rhetor.
The rest of this dissertation will center on an analysis of the three case studies:
Emmeline B. Wells, Sonia Johnson, and Kate Kelly. As Goddard recognizes “history and culture restricts the range of legitimation strategies” (40). This restriction works to explain why the three rhetors emphasize and employ the rhetorical canons differently and with unique effects—as Wells engages with arrangement, Johnson with invention, and
Kelly with delivery.
24 Please consult Susan Zaeske’s Signatures of Citizenship: the Rhetoric of Women’s Anti-Slavery Petitions for an excellent understanding of how the process of petitioning and appealing influenced the women’s antislavery movement.
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citing nature drawing on associating gaining or being context with others visibility
External à
gaining through performing/claiming citing authorities citing texts citing experience popularity legitimacy
ßInternal
Figure 1: Original Continuum of Legitimacy
CHAPTER 3
EMMELINE B. WELLS: LEGITIMACY THROUGH ARRANGEMENT
“We ardently and hopefully desire to be one with the women of America in whatever may be practicable for universal National Woman Suffrage… Mormons do not believe man has the right to deter women from enjoying the God-given privilege of free agency. [Rather, Mormons believe] that man and woman are created free and equal to act in unison on all subjects and interests to both”
—Emmeline B. Wells in “Convention Letters from Ballot Box”
Introduction
Throughout her writing, suffragist Emmeline B. Wells sought to legitimize
Mormon women on two fronts—inside their religious faith and in the National Women’s
Suffrage Association. The above quote represents one of her attempts to legitimize
Mormon women in the national suffrage movement by demonstrating how Mormon theology places women into a position of equality in relationship to their male counterparts. Wells, a prominent force in the local and national suffrage movement, was also editor of “The Women’s Exponent,” a nineteenth-century newsletter based in Salt
Lake City, Utah. Wells’ discursive move to cultivate Mormon women’s legitimacy goes beyond the content she chooses to include in “The Women’s Exponent.” Instead her use of arrangement patterns in various scales, both large and small, is the main discursive strategy she employs to legitimate her fellow Mormon women on these two fronts. Wells
73 strategically uses arrangement patterns on the macro level—social circulation of her newsletter, sequence of issues, and design of individual newsletters—and on the micro level— placement of punctuation, ordering of paragraphs and sentences—in order to render women’s suffrage reasonable and thus legitimate.
According to Jan Bloomaert, it is essential for those employing the discourse historical approach to first delineate the pre-textual contexts. These pre-textual contexts function to “influence language long before it is produced in the form of utterances and that define the conditions under which the utterances can be produced or fail to be produced” (Bloomaert 101). In other words, pre-textual contexts represent important historical and social events that effect what language is possible and intelligible throughout a specific time period. Beetham also argues for delineating the pre-textual context as it gives the researcher evidence of the power relations that influence the normative attitudes and behaviors at that historical moment. In order to fully understand the exigency of Wells’ bids for legitimacy and the scales of arrangement she employs, these two pre-contexts, specifically Mormon history during the mid-late 1800s and
Wells’ personal history from 1875-1914, are essential reading.
Pre-Textual Context: Otherwise Historical Context
A Crisis of Succession
After the martyrdom of their founder, Joseph Smith, in 1844, the Mormon Church faced a crisis of succession. According to John Sillito, the original Church broke into four different branches (Sillito 82). The first branch, led by Sidney Rigdor, the senior surviving member of the first presidency, called themselves the “Rigdonites.” The second
74 branch, led by Joseph Smith III, the son of Emma and Joseph Smith, referred to themselves as the “Community of Christ.” The third, led by James Strang, an elder in the original church, called themselves Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The fourth, led by Brigham Young, named their branch The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints (Bowman).25
The fourth branch, led by Young, evacuated Nauvoo in 1846 to cross the plains in search of Zion or “the Promised Land.” On July 24th 1847, after months of trekking, a group of Mormon Pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley through the Rocky Mountains by way of Emigration Canyon (Bowman). In Utah, Young attempted to maintain most of the teachings of the original church including promoting Smith’s doctrine of plural marriage.
This doctrine later became a lightening rod for moral advocates who used it to effectively curtail the voting rights of women.26
Restricting Plural Marriage Means Restricting Political Rights
Fifty years before Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, enfranchising all U.S. women, thirteen U.S. states sought to give women the right to vote.
25 The fourth branch would later splinter into a fifth led by Lorin Woolley called “The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.” This branch is well known for their continued practice of plural marriage in small rural towns like Hildale, Utah. 26 Some of these moral advocates populated the American Woman’s Suffrage Association (AWSA), led by Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe. This association actively worked to prevent Mormon women from voting because many practiced polygamy. The AWSA should not be confused with the NWSA or National Woman’s Suffrage Association led by Stanton and Anthony. In 1890, the NWSA and the AWSA merged into the NAWSA or the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
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As an experiment and to further encourage female migration westward, the territories of
Wyoming (in 1869) and Utah (in 1870) passed statutes, which permitted female suffrage
(Pearson and Madsen 38; my italics). Yet, within a matter of years, the right to vote was soon stripped away from all Utah women as antipolygamist, moralist groups urged
Congress to reverse the territorial statute (Madsen 153). This urging resulted in the following series of legislative acts, which sought to effectively limit the practice of polygamy: the Morrill Act of 1862, the Poland Act of 1874, the Edmunds Act of 1882, and the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887 (Embry and Kelly).
The final two acts built on the legislation passed in the first two acts, which meant they effectively functioned as amendments. For example, “the Edmunds Act of 1882 reinforced polygamy as a felony offense which came with a punishment of five years in prison and five hundred dollar fine” (Embry and Kelly 5). In addition to this punishment, the Edmunds Acts dictated that those who engaged in plural marriage were not allowed to vote, hold political office, or serve on a jury. The Edmunds Act also created the federally appointed Utah Commission, which oversaw and controlled the election process (Pearson and Madsen 64). Under the Edmunds Act, Utah women from a different religion or those who engaged in a monogamous marriage retained their right to vote.
After disenfranchising all polygamous men and women, the Edmunds Act did not hinder the practice of plural marriage—this provoked Congress to pass an even more punitive act. While only fifteen to twenty percent of Mormon women entered into plural marriage, the U.S. Congress, urged by moralizing activists, sought to stop this practice.
The “western experiment of female suffrage ended with the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887 that disenfranchised all Utah women, even those not engaged in a plural marriage, as well
76 as all polygamous men” (Pearson and Madsen 65). This piece of legislation was purposefully written to “enable the prosecution of polygamy and to allow federal marshals to force children and wives involved in this practice to testify against their husbands” (Iversen 10). Officially passed March 1887, the Edmunds-Tucker Act also forced the Mormon Church to relinquish their financial holdings and property, it dissolved the “Perpetual Emigrating Fund” that helped European refugees settle in Utah, and it abolished the Utah Militia (Pearson and Madsen 168). Three years after passing the
Edmunds-Tucker Act, Wilford Woodruff, church president, issued a “statement in
September 1890 withdrawing his official support of the practice of polygamy” (Embry and Kelly 5). In 1893, Grover Cleveland finally presented Utah men (even once practicing polygamous men) with amnesty that allowed them to vote again. Yet all Utah women were still excluded from said amnesty and lost their voting rights for the following twenty-seven years (Pearson and Madsen 65).
Encouraging Westward Migration: Granting Rights to Utah Women
Once Utah women were stripped of their voting rights, they formed political organizations in an effort to advocate for their franchise. With the passage of the restrictive Edmunds-Tucker Act in 1887, Utah women started the Utah Women’s
Suffrage Association,27 which was officially endorsed by the Mormon church and invited
27 By organizing this local suffrage organization, Utah women indicated that they were politically influential—other signs came in the form of progressive divorce and property ownership laws and juror requirements. During the nineteenth century, Utah women were “permitted to dissolve their marriage because of ‘disharmony,’ a progressive attitude toward divorce that was markedly different than traditional views on marriage throughout the U.S.” (Pearson and Madsen 45). Eventually, this progressive
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28 the participation of Mormon women as well as Gentiles (Iversen 12).
A progressive attitude towards women and their rights meant that when Utah was granted statehood as the forty-third state, it was also one of the first to give women the right to vote (Pearson and Madsen 66). Yet voting and its counterpart, holding political office, were rights that Utah women were denied for some time. Wells laments the practice of women being restricted from their right to vote or hold political office when she was nominated for county treasurer. Since she was ultimately denied a place on the ballot, the Mormon People’s Party organized a campaign to amend the law and get her elected (Iversen). Yet this campaign was fruitless and Utah women were not allowed to seek political office until Utah was granted statehood. Once receiving the franchise, Utah voters started to elect women into political office, including Martha Hughes Cannon, who was elected the first woman senator in the U.S.29 and Sarah Anderson and Eurithe K.
Labarthe, who were both elected state representatives. Among these gritty, strong, pioneer women is one who is a central focus of this chapter—Emmeline. B. Wells.
attitude towards divorce was stopped in 1878 when “civil law could no longer embrace a religious concept too liberal for the prevailing social norms and policies” (Pearson and Madsen 47). Also Utah women under the Married Person’s Property Act of 1872 and the Oregon Donation Act of 1850 were permitted to retain control over their own property even when married. In 1896, Utah women were the first in the nation permitted to serve on juries. Although the law permitted women to serve, Pearson and Madsen point out that they were rarely summoned to jury duty (61). 28 “Gentiles” was the term frequently used at the time by those in the Mormon Church to indicate that someone was not baptized or otherwise affiliated with the Mormon faith. 29 Martha Hughes Cannon even beat out her own husband who was also on the same ballot.
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Emmeline B. Wells: Sarcastic, Devoted, Suffragist
Born in rural Petersham, Massachusetts, Emmeline Blanche Woodward was the seventh in a family of ten children. Although she was not born Mormon, her mother and three younger siblings joined the Mormon Church in 1843. At the age of fifteen,
Emmeline married James Harvey Harris and left her home state for the Mormon stronghold in Nauvoo, Illinois (Madsen 150). Emmeline’s marriage with Harris was brief as he abandoned her in search for work shortly after arriving in Nauvoo.
In 1846, the Mormons were forced to flea their stronghold because of their religious beliefs and began a trek across the plains in search of “Zion” or the Promised
Land (lds.org). Emmeline and her second husband, Newel K. Whitney, a Bishop and known polygamist, were among the Mormon pioneers who forged a path to the Utah territory (lds.org). Whitney died a few years after arriving and settling Salt Lake City. For her economic protection, Emmeline decided to engage in another plural marriage with her third and final husband, Daniel H. Wells, with whom she had five children.
Although Wells’ private life as a plural wife and Mormon pioneer is of unique interest, her public roles are the major concern of this chapter. Historically, Wells is well known for her position as editor of “The Woman’s Exponent” (described later), a position she held from 1877-1914, wherein she published over three hundred editions. In one of the editions, Lydia D. Alder writes about the importance of Wells’ editorship: “as the editor of the ‘Exponent’ for many years, her words are read the world over. Its columns are open to the women of Utah irrespective of nationality or creed” (1898-04-15). Indeed,
Wells used the columns to not only relay information about the Church, but also to argue for women’s rights, especially their right to an education and to enfranchisement.
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In addition to her responsibilities running the newsletter, Mormon prophet
Brigham Young appointed Wells the secretary of the women’s auxiliary organization or the Relief Society.3031 Wells was also a leader outside of her church wherein she led multiple local political organizations such as the Utah Territorial Woman Suffrage
Association (Madsen). In her role as president of this organization, Wells wrote frequently and traveled sporadically to the East coast to become the “chief liaison between Mormon women and national woman suffrage leaders” (Madsen 157).
Originally, Wells was a novelty as a woman heralding from one of the only states where women had the vote and as she was readily invited into the National Women’s Suffrage
Association where she forged important relationships with other national suffragists.
At eighty-two, Wells was called to serve in her most important leadership role in the Mormon Church, as the fifth president of the Relief Society. As precedent dictated, president of the Relief Society was a “lifetime calling,” the only lifetime position women were permitted to hold, which meant Wells expected to serve in this position until her death. Joseph Fielding Smith, the tenth president of the Mormon Church, surprised Wells when he released her from this position before her death, eleven years into her calling.
Smith claimed that Wells was relieved because of her age and failing memory, but to prove her ability to recall information, she visited Smith and proceeded to recite an entire chapter from The Book of Mormon. Shortly after her release, Wells passed away on April
30 Young writes in “The Woman’s Exponent” that Wells was appointed secretary of the Relief Society for her efforts organizing the granaries throughout the Utah territory. 31 The Relief Society is the women’s auxiliary organization within the Mormon Church. All adult women who are members of the Church became part of this organization after they come of age.
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29th, 1921.32
Her memory lives on and she is remembered through supportive biographical accounts and in numerous primary accounts kept in the pages of her diary and “The
Woman’s Exponent.” In her newsletter, Wells describes herself as a crusader for Mormon women’s rights, as she “desires to do all in [her] power to help elevate the condition of her people, especially women” (Madsen 141). It is my hope that this chapter will add to the historical narrative of Wells’ life, where she will continue to be remembered for accomplishing her mission—cultivating legitimacy for Mormon women.
“The Woman’s Exponent”
Under the editorship of Wells, “The Woman’s Exponent” functioned as a bi- monthly newsletter produced continuously from 1872-1914.33 It was relatively short, consisting of only eight typed pages organized into three columns. Towards the end of its run, the frequency of its publication fell to once a month or once every other month.
Produced in Salt Lake City34 and circulated throughout the nation, the publication was
32 According to Maxine Hanks in Women and Authority: Remerging Mormon Feminism, Ann Cannon Wells claims that being released from her calling, her position of authority, was the cause of Wells’ death. 33 Although editor for the longest amount of time, Wells was not the only editor of this publication. In its inaugural edition, Lula Greene is listed as the first editor with Emmeline B. Wells showing up as a contributor and later as a co-editor. Within five years, Wells became the chief editor of the newsletter—a title she held until the end of the publication when she invited her daughter, Ann Wells Cannon, to work as her co- editor. After Greene left the position of editor, she continued to write for the publication as a frequent contributor, even taking on the nickname “Aunt Lula.” 34 The office of the “Exponent” was adjacent to the Salt Lake City Temple located beyond the Eagle Bridge spanning State Street in downtown Salt Lake City.
81 described as “an advocate of the principles of truth. Gems of thought both prose and poetry adorn it” (1898-04-15). This description is accurate as the contents of “The
Woman’s Exponent” typically include articles describing events in the Mormon Church, important national events (such as the Spanish American War), information about the women’s suffrage movement, sentimental poetry, historical accounts of famous women, advertisements, and details on local relief societies and other organizations (i.e., the Utah
Suffrage Association, Daughters of the American Revolution, Utah Press Corp).
Throughout its lengthy publication life, “The Woman’s Exponent”35 focused on events of interest to Mormon women, demonstrated by its byline: “The Ballot in the hands of the
Women of Utah should be a Power to better the Home, the State and the Nation.”36 The newsletter, so important to its’ readership, was distributed to readers for fifty cents for a six-month subscription or one dollar for an annual subscription. While the exact circulation numbers are unknown, Wells does mention that the reach of this publication is beyond the Utah Territory and may involve readers who are not Mormon.
Methods: Studying the Life’s Work of Emmeline B. Wells
The method designed to study Wells’ writing was dictated by and tailored to the size, scope, and variability of her archive, itself. As “The Woman’s Exponent” spans forty years, this chapter’s method involves collecting and examining Wells’ organizational patterns in over 300 editions of the newsletter. The 300 editions represent
35 Please note that “The Woman’s Exponent” and the “Exponent” are referring to the same publication—one is a shortened version of the title very brevity sake. 36 Although it always focused on women, this byline changed continuously throughout the newsletter’s publication.
82 fourteen years of the newsletter’s publication, with the years analyzed systematically selected and spaced apart. The analysis examines Wells first year as editor (1875), three years when women in Utah were (dis)enfranchised (1878-1880), and a series of three- year spans evenly spaced a decade apart (1888-1890, 1898-1900, 1908-1910), as well as her last year as editor (1914). Overall, this analysis is purposefully systematic in its selection of documents so as to understand both the diachronic and synchronic features of legitimacy discourse in this slice of Mormon feminist writing.
The archives used to access “The Woman’s Exponent” are the L. Tom Perry
Special Collections housed in the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University.
The finding aid used to discover “The Woman’s Exponent” was entitled “Mormon
Publications: The Nineteenth and Twentieth-centuries” where I searched for the term
“Woman’s Exponent.” Since these archives are digitized, the amount of time spent collecting and analyzing this collection was not specifically documented but is estimated at over seventy-five hours.37 The provenance of the artifacts varies depending on the edition. It is clear that some editions were donated to the L. Tom Perry Collection by a specific reader because this individual’s name is handwritten across the top of the front page. The only issue working with this archive was the interface of the search guide
“Mormon Publications” and not with the individual editions, themselves. For example, the interface would force the user to start from the beginning of the collection whenever they entered the web portal—this meant clicking through fifteen pages before discovering
37 The details about archival work are shaped by a call made in Barbara L’Eplattenier’s “An Argument for Archival Research Methods: Thinking Beyond Methodology.”
83 the edition that they were interested in. While the documents are digitized, the interface does not allow the archival researcher to search for particular collocations, words, or even entire editions inside the collection.
After selecting these documents and creating a large corpus, this method proceeds qualitatively by examining the organizational patterns of each of the newsletters. The newsletters were analyzed for seven different discursive strands and where these strands appeared inside the newsletter (specifically, on which page) and within each page (on which column). The seven discursive strands studied are operationalized in the following section and they include: 1) Wells’ writing on women’s suffrage; 2) Wells’ writing on women’s rights; 3) official Mormon Church discourse;38 4) discourse excerpted from
Popular Women’s Journals; 5) local suffrage organization discourse; 6) writing on
“women in war”; 7) and national suffrage discourse. Although the newsletter represents other discursive strands outside of these seven, these strands were selected because of their prevalence, frequency, and relationship to the topic of this dissertation—Mormon feminist writing. Next, the patterns of organization were identified by a symbol and placed into a table (Appendix) that details in which page and column each appeared.39
From this comprehensive table, I identified the organizational patterns prevalent inside the publication. Again, these organizational patterns were identified based on frequency, with one pattern, in particular, selected for further analyses—the organization of Wells’ suffrage writing and national suffrage discourse in relationship to official
38 References to the Mormon Church are shortened throughout as “the Church” because it is the only church studied throughout this particular chapter. 39 For this table detailing how these discursive strands intertwined with each other, please consult the Appendix.
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Mormon church discourse. While focusing on one organizational pattern may not fit with the table in the Appendix, since this table delineates more holistic patterns, I chose to analyze this one pattern because it represents the extent to which Wells was successful in legitimating Mormon women inside their faith and the national feminist movement. This analysis is designed to examine Wells’ organizational patterns in various scales, specifically: the large-grain of material and social circulation of the newsletter, mid-grain with the organizational patterns of the publication, small-grain of the organization of individual newsletters, and the fine-grain of strategic placement of paragraphs and linguistic features in Wells’ writing.40 By examining arrangement at these various levels,
I am able to ask: How was Wells drawing from national discourse to further legitimate women’s suffrage on a national and local level?
This analysis proceeds by asking a series of questions pertaining to circulation, organization, and placement inside the newsletter, and its relationship to legitimizing women’s suffrage. The following are questions that were asked in order to analyze legitimacy in each of the various “grains” examined throughout this chapter.
Social circulation: 1) Who subscribed to “The Woman’s Exponent” and where did they reside? 2) Where did Wells, as a physical embodiment of her rhetoric, travel in her pursuit of women’s suffrage?
Publication organization: 1) When did Wells decide to feature certain discursive strands? 2) What relationship do these discursive strands have to the historical context at
40 The term “grain” was purposefully selected to describe each of the various scales of arrangement because Wells was in charge of organizing the growing and storing of grain throughout the Utah Territories. It seemed fitting to name one methodological contribution in this chapter after a position Wells’ held dear.
85 that time?
Newsletter organization: 1) Since the newsletter is organized into three columns, where was Wells’ writing on suffrage placed inside the newsletter and in which column
(A, B or C) on the page? 2) Where was Wells’ writing featured in relation to national suffrage discourse and official church discourse?
Article organization: 1) How did Wells organize the paragraphs of her article to further legitimize women’s rights?
Sentence level organization: 1) How did Wells employ grammar, tense, and other micro linguistic features to further legitimize the cause of women’s suffrage?
I trace seven discursive strands throughout Wells’ editorship of “The Woman’s
Exponent” (these strands are featured in a table in Appendix). The questions above guide my analysis, whereas the strands below work as evidence to answer the questions. In the following, I operationalize the seven discursive strands and explain how the newsletter articles were categorized according to the content they best exemplify (please see Figure
2 for a visual illustration of the discourse historical approach).
• First discursive strand: “Wells’ writing on suffrage.”
The first discursive strand, and arguably the most important, includes articles
that represent Wells’ writing about women’s suffrage. Articles were
categorized as “Wells’ writing on suffrage” when they were clearly penned by
Wells as illustrated in her cursive signature, printed name, or pseudonym
(Blanche Beechwood or Aunt Em). Articles were also counted in this category
when they were printed under Wells’ editorial mast and were without
attribution as articles recognized as hers’ were often printed in this space
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(typically on page four, column one of each newsletter). The content of this
category, “Wells’ writing on suffrage,” involves arguments made about
women receiving the ballot, both nationally and locally. This category does
not include articles that express background discourses that help Wells set up
her claims for suffrage, such as historical sketches on suffragists and
arguments for the Mormon practice of plural marriage.
• Second discursive strand: “Wells’ writing about women’s rights.”
The second discursive strand, “Wells’ writing about women’s rights,” serves
as a supplement to the first in that it encompasses arguments crafted for
women’s rights that are not solely about suffrage. Frequent examples include
arguments for why women enter into diverse professions and encouraging
women to pursue an education outside of motherhood.
• Third discursive strand: “Church discourse”
The third discursive strand is designated as “Church discourse.” These articles
were written by leaders of the Mormon church, including local and national
leaders, both male and female.41 This “Church discourse” detailed changes
within the Mormon Church’s organizational structure in addition to
articulating the theological, social, and political views of the hierarchical
leadership.
• Fourth discursive strand: “Popular women’s journals”
The fourth discursive strand analyzed includes articles that were excerpts from
41 Typically the female voices considered as official “Church discourse” were Wells or Eliza R. Snow, first president of the Relief Society.
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various national, popular women’s journals such as: “Waverly Magazine,”
“Woman’s Words,” and “Woman’s Journal.” These articles were not typically
attributed to any author but instead to the journal, itself. The article excerpts
from women’s magazines were frequently on topics such as women’s rights,
as well as women’s roles in politics and society.
• Fifth discursive strand: “Local suffrage organizations”
Articles written about or by women participating inside local suffrage
organizations make up the sixth discursive strand analyzed. Once deprived the
vote, local suffragists inside Utah started to form their own suffrage
organizations as an extension of the national organizations. These articles
frequently appeared around the early 1890s and they detailed the meeting
minutes and accomplishments of each of these local organizations.
• Sixth discursive strand: “Women in war”
As the United States entered the Spanish American War, another discursive
strand emerged: women in war. These articles were categorized as part of the
“woman in war” discursive strand if they included content about women’s
role in the war, how women are/were affected by the war, the American Red
Cross, or Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross.
• Seventh discursive strand: “National suffrage discourse”
The seventh and final strand of discourse was “National suffragist discourse.”
These articles were included as part of discourse if they were attributed to a
famous national suffragist (i.e,. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Lucy Gage), prominently and frequently referenced the ideas of these women,
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or included “notes or news” about the successes/failures of the national
suffrage movement.
Theoretical Underpinnings of This Method
The method I develop to analyze Wells’ work is informed by historical discourse analysis and feminist archival research, specifically Wodak and Meyer and Royster and
Kirsch, respectively. This blended method is an approach that is concerned with history, power, ideology, and gender, as it uses archival documents to investigate the history of
Mormon women, their position of power within the church’s overall hierarchical structure, and the national suffrage movement, all engrained within their arguments for legitimacy. This method draws from discourse analysis as it is concerned with both micro examples, such as arrangement and punctuation used in the newsletter, as well as macro issues, like power and legitimacy.42
In addition to micro devices and their relationship to macro discourses, the discourse historical approach examines larger discourses synchronically, diachronically, and in strands of discourse. This chapter’s method includes: “historically oriented analysis and it proceeds by conducting several synchronic cuts through a discursive strand” (Wodak and Meyer 52).43 Hence, the synchronic cutting of the diachronic strand of “Mormon feminist discourse” is represented in smaller discursive strands woven into
42 Norman Fairclough in Discourse and Social Change makes a similar move when he examines discursive and linguistic devices in order to draw conclusions about larger discourses, specifically commodification, democratization, and technologization. 43 In future chapters, this discourse historical approach will continue to develop by “subsequently comparing these strands to one another” (Wodak and Meyer 52).
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“The Woman’s Exponent,” with a slice of discourse featuring a three-year span every ten years and the beginning/end of Wells’ editorship.44 This slicing pattern was selected as it is systematic in its spacing, which means that each decade and its discourse is not overly represented. This method of selection will also provide the right amount of discursive information to make inferences about “changes to, and continuities of, discourse processes throughout time” thereby allowing for comparisons within Wells’ writing
(Wodak and Meyer 52).
Indeed, the systematicity of this method guards against a major critique of discourse analysis work, namely that the linguistic samples chosen in this type of work are “cherry picked” or involve the suppression of other types of evidence.45 Not only does this chapter include samples evenly spaced through the entire corpus, the full dissertation is also designed to triangulate findings and thereby come to some stable conclusions about Mormon women’s writing and legitimacy. Baker and Levon have recently answered the “cherry picking” critique by calling for different types of analyses, specifically triangulating findings in eclectic, qualitative research (with a corpus of fifty articles) with more quantitative research using a larger corpus (of five hundred articles)
(1). While this dissertation does not employ qualitative and quantitative research, it does center triangulation as an important methodological concern. In feminist archival
44 The years of “The Woman’s Exponent” examined include: 1875, 1878, 1879, 1880, 1878, 1879, 1880, 1888, 1889, 1890, 1898, 1899, 1900, 1908, 1909, 1910, 1914. 45 Gunter Kress in his brief essay “Critical Discourse Analysis” responds to this critique frequently levied at CDA scholarship. He calls “cherry picking” eclecticism and claims that the linguistic insights produced from scholars who use eclecticism in their evidence selection should not go ignored. Furthermore, he claims that “eclecticism does not operate at the level of theoretical framework, where there continues to be efforts to develop a coherent theoretical approach” (Kress 88).
90 research, L’Eplattenier also calls for triangulation of findings as a way to validate research in the humanities. L’Eplattenier posits that in addition to being explicit about our methods, as archivists, we should include the attempt to triangulate information and that this attempt is part of a “systematic method of gathering evidence” and thereby
“influences our interpretation of that evidence [and] our presentation of our revisionist histories” (69). This chapter and the overall dissertation follows both Baker and Levon and L’Eplattenier’s call for triangulation by drawing from Well’s archive in evenly spaced intervals and from the two other archives throughout the twentieth century.
Overall, this triangulation facilitates a type of comparison between and within archives that emphasizes the validity of the claims made using this evidence.
In addition to exploring the content represented by each of these discursive strands, this chapter will also consider legitimacy through the concept of “social circulation.” Royster and Kirsch describes social circulation as “where women’s work goes, what it does, who encounters it and how they respond to it and more… [In other words, examining social circulation involves following discourse in] concentric circles that represent both the public and private domains” (5). This concept of social circulation is particularly helpful in the larger grains of analyses, where the researcher traces the movement of the publication and its acceptance by various audiences (and understanding its entry as pertaining to bids for legitimacy).46
Throughout this chapter, I examine arrangement in a variety of different scales
46 It is important to note that this grain of analysis, social circulation, is not a strand of discourse. Instead multiple strands of discourse delineated earlier in the chapter are used within this grain of analysis as Wells pushes her ideas into the national and international conversation.
91 and this chapter is organized based on these scales of arrangement. The scales include
“large-grain,” where this discourse circulates, “mid-grain,” how articles are arranged within a publication, “small-grain,” how discourses are arranged in individual editions and “fine-grain,” how paragraphs, sentences, and punctuation are arranged. Examining the discursive strands of “The Woman’s Exponent” in these scales of arrangement allows me to understand how Wells’ strategic focus on arrangement patterns helped to further advocate for Mormon women’s legitimacy. At the end of this chapter, please see Figure 3 for an illustration of how arrangement patterns are plotted along the “Continuum of
Legitimacy” and see Figure 4 for a visual representation of how these descending scales of arrangement correspond to one another.
Large-grain: Social Circulation
On the larger scale of materiality, I argue another way to understand
“arrangement” is through the “social circulation” of ideas as embodied by speakers and their texts. To understand arrangement and social circulation as similar, discourse has to be seen as both material in that Wells is the embodiment of her discourse when she travels and speaks and her newsletter is another material form, as a written record of her discourse when it circulates throughout the world. In effect, Wells is materially arranging her ideas by injecting them in certain conversations by speaking at national conventions and by ensuring her newsletter has a broad circulation pattern. Wells sought legitimacy for Mormon suffragists inside the national movement by expanding the social circulation of her words by personally traveling, becoming the physical representation of her discourse when she spoke, and allowing for subscriptions of her newsletter far and
92 wide—in both cases, arranging her ideas on a national and international stage.47
Although there are no official records for the circulation of “The Woman’s
Exponent,” Wells gives a hint as to the international interest in this newsletter in her article entitled “Our Little Paper” (1880-05-15). Here, Wells writes that she is “in receipt of letters from several parts of the U.S., England, the Sandwich Islands, New Zealand,
Australia and the East Indies as well as various parts of this Territory testifying to the good influence of this little paper wherever it is circulated.” It is clear that the reach of
“The Woman’s Exponent” did not end at the borders of the Mormon-dominated Salt
Lake Valley. Furthermore, the circulation of Wells’ words did not stop where the circulation of “The Woman’s Exponent” terminated because she also published articles arguing for women’s suffrage from the perspective of a Mormon woman in “The
Woman’s Words, an organ for the National Woman Suffrage Association, The Woman’s
Tribune of Ohio and the Ballot Box of Philadelphia” (Madsen 148). Madsen notes that it is within the pages of these editorials, articles, and letters that Wells “found a ready
Eastern audience” (148).
The importance and impact of “The Woman’s Exponent” is also illustrated by the circulation and receipt of individual editions of the newsletter. Tracing the individual receipt of the editions is possible as some are marked at the top of the front page with the recipient’s name. Some of the recipients include Annie W. Cannon, Emmeline B. Wells,
47 In some ways, expanding the social circulation of her discourse also facilitates her legitimacy with her second audience of male and female Mormons and their leaders. The increased social circulation of this discourse meant that many male Mormon leaders published in the “Exponent” as a way to increase the readership of their words—choosing to publish in this newsletter because of its reach was a way of increasing the validity and legitimacy of this newsletter and its cause, women’s suffrage.
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Mary G. While, Mary Cowely (from Holladay, Utah), and the Kanab Relief Society. This practice of recording their monikers on each edition speaks to the importance of this publication for the audience it reached. Further speaking to this publication’s importance is an advertisement by Eye and Ear doctor, Romania I. Pratt, who places an ad in four separate editions seeking earlier editions of the “Exponent” so as to complete her collection. These women would not bother recording their names on issues of “The
Women’s Exponent” if they did not care about having this newsletter returned to them;
Pratt would also not try to collect all editions if the newsletter did not hold some value.
In addition to the circulation of the newsletter, Wells intentionally arranges herself materially in order to interact with audiences interested in national suffrage discourse. For example, she traveled to the East Coast throughout her tenure as editor of
“The Woman’s Exponent” in order to argue for women’s suffrage. All of her trips to
Washington D.C. and other cities on the eastern seaboard, wherein she argues for suffrage, are heavily documented in her newsletter.48 Moreover, the importance and subsequent legitimacy of Wells’ discourse for national and local suffragists is evident in the following two anecdotes: 1) upon speaking at the NWSA, Anthony bestowed on
Wells a golden ring as a token of their friendship (Madsen 176)49 and 2) there was always a line outside of Wells’ editorial office as local women (including suffragists) came to her office seeking advice and guidance (Hanks 32). Both of these anecdotes suggest Wells
48 The national suffrage discourse also significantly influenced Wells as the editions published during the late 1870s, when she made her first trip to Washington D.C., include full pages reprinting the words of national suffragists. 49 Even when members of the rival suffrage association, the American Women’s Suffrage Association, attacked Wells because of practicing polygamy, Anthony did not get involved in the attack (Iversen 9).
94 and the suffrage discourse she represented were important for two audiences—local
Mormon women and national suffragists.
The importance of this discourse is also evident in the frequency of its publication. “The Woman’s Exponent” was produced twice a month for almost forty years. In my examination, this publication frequency only changed during the Spanish
American War at the turn of the twentieth century when the publication went from being published twice a month to once a month. The frequency again changed in the last four years of the publication’s life when it went from once a month to once every two months.
Yet the frequency and continuity of its publication even in the face of outside adversity, like a war, meant that “The Woman’s Exponent” was significant to its readership.
Overall, the social circulation of “The Woman’s Exponent” and the travels of
Wells, as a representative of Mormon suffrage, served to expand the impact, importance, and thus legitimacy of this discursive strand (Mormon women’s suffrage). The large social circulation of this newsletter functions as a form of moral legitimacy, in that it
“references [the] value” of the newsletter for its readership (Van Leeuwen 91). The frequency of publication also factors into the newsletter’s social circulation and provides further evidence for the importance and thereby legitimacy of Mormon suffrage discourse.
Mid-grain: Publication Patterns and Placement
Wells works to legitimize Mormon suffrage discourse through publication patterns and purposeful placement. This purposeful placement involves designing and including articles in particular areas within the publication. After examining over three
95 hundred editions, I found the following placement patterns: 1) local concerns about women’s suffrage were reserved for the front page50; 2) official church news, sometimes written by Wells, was often included on page four under the editorial mast; 3) news about the national suffrage movement was placed on page three, bottom of the third column; 4)
Wells’ personal views on suffrage or women’s rights placed underneath editorial mast page four, first column; and 5) editorials or excerpts from national feminists were often featured on page five or eight. One of the arrangement patterns, “sandwiching,”51 is exemplified by the above description of article placement—as official church discourse is placed between articles about local suffrage and/or the national feminist movement.
In addition to “sandwiching,” there were two other publication patterns that Wells employs to further legitimize Mormon suffrage discourse: 1) fading and 2) (im)balancing.
A pattern of “fading” is identified when a discursive strand effectively wanes in order for another strand, considered more relevant because of contextual factors, to come into view. For example, Wells publishes pieces about local women’s suffrage in sixty to eighty percent of the issues throughout one year and does not offer the same attention to national women’s suffrage because of local contextual factors like the banning of polygamy or rescinding of Utah women’s voting rights—this is fading.
The final pattern, “(im)balancing,” is demonstrated by editions that
50 The placement as well as the frequency of articles by Wells about women’s suffrage and women’s rights are demonstrated in the Appendix in the number of symbols (stars and xs) representing the content of articles published on the first few pages in the first column of each newsletter. The frequency and placement of articles about these topics highlights Wells’ attempt to legitimize local Mormon women and their bid for women’s suffrage. 51 “Sandwiching” is a term that I came up with to describe Wells’ legitimacy strategy and is unique when used in this context, on studies about arrangement patterns.
96 overwhelmingly include articles categorized as a particular type of discourse balanced or not balanced by attention paid to other discursive strands in subsequent issues. An example of “balance” as an arrangement pattern is exemplified when Wells publishes official church discourse and balances that discourse with an equal number of articles about women’s rights. An example of (im)balance involves Wells choosing to publish entire editions fully dedicated to discourse about women’s rights without any nods to official church discourse, reflected in articles written by the all-male church leadership.
Wells employs the arrangement strategy of “sandwiching,” also known as the
“regency effect” in psychology, as a pattern throughout the publication and within individual editions. 5253 Even though this strategy is evident throughout many of the volumes, this “sandwiching” pattern is best exemplified in the following editions: 1878-
01-01, 1888-12-15, and 1898-04-15.54 Wells opens the newsletter with an article that concerns local suffrage, in the middle she includes a discourse by Church President
Brigham Young about women’s place, and she ends with an excerpt from national suffragist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The next example of “sandwiching” is from the final edition of 1888 wherein Wells includes a brief paragraph about women’s rights on the second page (specifically pertaining to women’s ordination), official church discourse on
52 Please refer to the Appendix for a summary analysis demonstrated in “Mid- Grain: Publication Patterns and Placement.” 53 Please refer to “Small-grain Analysis: Individual Editions” for organizational examples of “sandwiching” in individual editions. In the “Small-grain Analysis,” it becomes clear that church discourse was sandwiched not only within the pages but also within the three columns of the newsletter. 54 Please note that there are other examples of each of these organizational strategies throughout the publication’s history. The examples included within this section of analysis were selected because they represent “bright lines” or the clearest examples.
97 the fifth page (written by Wells, detailing the effects of the Edmunds-Tucker Act), and on the seventh page, she prints notes from the National American Women’s Suffrage
Association annual meeting. The last example of “sandwiching” comes from an edition published ten years later in mid-April 1898. Here, Wells argues for women’s rights, specifically their right to be recognized as poets, on the third page. The fourth page includes official church discourse summarizing the events of the annual Relief Society meeting and the final page features information from another meeting of the National
American Women’s Suffrage Association. The publication pattern of “sandwiching” places official church discourse within the middle of the newsletter, bordered by concerns about women’s rights, both national and local. This placement leaves the reader with the impression that women’s concerns are more recent, important, and more relevant then official church discourse, as they are often the first and last articles printed. Similar to the analysis in “Social circulation,” rendering issues like women’s suffrage more important means that they should be valued and thereby legitimized.
Another publication pattern evident throughout the “Exponent” involves purposefully fading discourses contingent upon contextual events. Although Wells writes most frequently about women’s suffrage throughout the publication, her articles about the national movement starts to “fade” as the Edmunds-Tucker Act passes and Utah women have to fight for their franchise. At this point, Wells uses space typically reserved for national suffrage discourse with articles detailing local suffrage activities (such as the founding of the Utah Women’s Suffrage Association). National suffrage discourse, excerpts from famous national suffragists and notes on meetings from the national organization, take a metaphorical backseat to articles on local Peace Organizations, the
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Utah Women’s Press Corps, and the Utah Women’s Suffrage Association.
Featured at the end of this chapter, Table 1 briefly illustrates the saturation of these three discursive strands, national suffrage, women’s rights, and local suffrage, in a representative four-year selection. These years, 1889, 1890, and 1898, were all chosen for display in the table because they are consecutive while the last column, 1898, is a comparison point to the first three years.55 The saturation of this discourse, again, speaks to the importance, value, and increasing legitimacy of Mormon women’s suffrage. This discourse would not appear as vibrantly evident throughout the newsletters if it was not becoming progressively more acceptable and thus legitimate (in strands that show up in sixty-seven percent, sixty-two percent, and eighty-three percent of the editions for any given year). Also note that this bid for legitimacy does not involve downplaying official church discourse; instead, it includes arguing for the timeliness of women’s suffrage. In other words, the time was right, as indicated by the number of articles published featuring the discursive strand of “local women’s suffrage,” which relays the advocacy of local suffrage organizations— a response to events such as the founding of a local N.W.S.A. chapter, the ending of polygamy, and Utah women’s franchise taken away.
In addition to the patterns of “sandwiching” and “fading,” Wells also uses the pattern of “(im)balancing” to emphasize or understate a particular discourse. For
55 1889 and 1890 are heavily saturated with discourse about national suffrage, women’s rights, and local suffrage. These years, in particular, were saturated because more attention was being paid, nationally and locally, to women’s suffrage. In fact, a branch of the N.W.S.A. was formed in Salt Lake City in 1889 to organize support for local women’s rights. 1890 saw the President of the Church, Wilford Woodruff issue a declaration to end plural marriage in an effort to convince the U.S. government to grant statehood to the Utah territory.
99 example, Wells creates an “(im)balanced” newsletter when she publishes editions relaying the events of the National suffrage movement, covering pages of the newsletter, without much inclusion of official church discourse (please see analysis in paragraphs below for more examples of this specific arrangement pattern). Yet, when she devotes a few pages to the happenings at General Conference, Wells frequently “balances” these articles with news of local or national suffrage organizations.
There are three editions that best exemplify this pattern of “(im)balance,” which disproportionately represents women’s rights. These editions were published in chronological order on 1879-02-15, 1880-10-01, and 1889-05-01. The mid-February
1879 edition includes three articles from Wells about women’s suffrage, one article about national suffrage and, no articles concerning official church discourse. The early October
1880 edition repeats this same pattern in that it features eight articles about local women’s suffrage, one article from Wells arguing for women’s suffrage, and no articles containing official church discourse. Lastly, the early May 1889 edition was similar in that it involves ten articles about local women’s suffrage and it does not include articles relaying official church discourse.
The three newsletters that best illustrate the “balanced” editions include those published on the following dates: 1889-12-01, 1899-10-15, and 1909-09-15. The edition published in early December 1889 included two articles detailing official church discourse, one about women’s rights and one article concerning the national feminist movement. Moreover, the edition published in mid-October 1899 involved one article containing the strand of official church discourse, one about women’s rights and one written by leaders of the national feminist movement. A comparable pattern of “balance”
100 is illustrated again in the edition published in mid-September 1909, which features one article interwoven with church discourse and one pertaining to the national suffrage movement. This organizational pattern of “(im)balance”56 further legitimizes Mormon women and their cause of women’s suffrage because it functions to highlight news that is important to women over and above official church discourse. The pattern of
“(im)balance” makes women’s issues and rights just as important (if not more important) than official church discourse by spending an inordinate amount of time and space discussing women centered issues thereby rendering these issues important and hence legitimate.
The organizational patterns of “sandwiching,” “fading,” and “(im)balancing” that
I identify in my analysis function to pinpoint concerns relevant to women and their rights throughout the “Exponent.” These three patterns also serve to highlight and legitimize women’s concerns over those held by men as represented in official discourse produced by the Mormon church and their male-dominated leadership.57 This analysis section considers the mid-grain organizational patterns of the publication, overall, whereas the following analysis section considers the small-grain arrangement patterns of individual editions—specifically offering quoted evidence to demonstrate how individual editions
56 It is important to note that the arrangement patterns of fading and (im)balancing appear very similar to each other as one strand is emphasized or focused on more than the others in an effort to legitimize said strand. 57 It is also important to note that Wells draws on excerpts from various women’s magazines such as Women’s Journal and Women’s Voice and not national news outlets like the New York Times (founded in 1851) or The Washington Post (founded in 1877). This practice serves to further legitimate woman’s suffrage as it places magazines ran by women and articles written by women inside the pages of her newsletter. In other words, this practice makes these female-authored articles important through their inclusion therein referencing their value and subsequent legitimacy.
101 uses “sandwiching” as their most frequent pattern.
Small-grain: Organization of Individual Newsletters
The organization pattern of “sandwiching” is exemplified in many of the individual editions of “The Woman’s Exponent.” Based on the table in the Appendix, three individual editions were selected for further analysis because they demonstrate points where discursive strands featuring official church discourse, national and local suffrage discourse, coincide. The individual editions selected for this analysis were published on the following dates by which they are referred to throughout, in chronological order: 1878-01-01, 1879-03-01, and 1890-12-01. In these editions and throughout “The Woman’s Exponent,” Wells reprints articles from famous, national suffragist leaders and she strategically arranges these articles besides the voices of male
Mormon leaders to further legitimize women’s rights. This arrangement pattern functions to legitimize women’s suffrage by describing women’s “rights” as reasonable instead of arguing for women’s “duties”—the latter an argumentative strategy typically forwarded by official Church discourse.
In her article entitled “Washington Convention,” published in the early March
1879 edition, detailing her trip to the National Women’s Suffrage Association
Conference, Wells explicitly delineates which speeches she will include in the following newsletters. To this effect, Wells writes “we consider Mrs. Gage’s speech of so much value that we intend to publish it in full, also Mrs. Stanton’s opening address, Miss
Anthony’s lecture ‘Bread and Ballot,’ Mrs. Lockwood’s and Mrs. Slocum’s and our own delivered on the first evening of the session” (1879-03-15). Here, Wells discloses that she
102 attended this national suffragist conference and references the importance of the NWSA meeting by vowing to print all major speeches.
Over the next year, Wells does as she plans in the above excerpt when she publishes the following speeches, in chronological order: “Extracts from the Ballot Box” by Stanton (1878-01-01), “Petition and Memorials” included and signed by Stanton and
Anthony (1878-02-15), “Mrs. Stanton’s Opening Speech at the Washington Convention”
(1878-04-15), “Address of the NWSA the First of Equal Suffrage for Women” by
Anthony (1878-11-01), “Miss Anthony’s Speech at the Washington Convention: Bread and Ballot” (1879-05-01), and a “Letter from Mrs. Stanton to Mrs. Gage” (1879-07-01).
In addition to printing these articles consistently, Wells arranges the articles into a pattern that serves to highlight the importance of arguing for women’s “rights” and feminist voices over women’s “duties” and the voices of male Mormon leaders.
The consistent publication of national and local suffragist texts beside the voices of Mormon authority create a consistent pattern of argumentation, which cannot be ignored and is exemplified in the January 1878 issue, the November 1878 issue, and the
March 1889 issue of “The Woman’s Exponent.”
In the January 1st issue of 1878, Wells opens the newsletter with an article she wrote under the pseudonym “Blanche Beechwood.” “Beechwood” responds to the
“Christiancy Bill,” introduced into U.S. congress by “Mr. Christiancy,” as a forerunner to the Edmunds-Tucker Act, expressly written to deprive Mormon women of their vote within the Utah territory. Wells counters the bill by arguing that Mormon women deserve the right to vote because of the suffering they endured crossing the plains and mountain ranges into the Salt Lake Valley—it is reasoned that this suffering was equally endured
103 by both men and women and therefore renders women equal to men. Following this article, there are reports from multiple local Relief Societies and then an excerpt from a recent “Discourse by President Brigham Young.” Young’s “discourse” highlights the responsibility Mormon mothers have for their children. According to Mormon Church
President Young, it is the duty of Mormon mothers to educate their offspring in the ways of the gospel and to help them live the gospel in their everyday lives. Following this delineation of mother’s duty, Wells includes an article by Elizabeth Cady Stanton entitled
“Extracts from the Ballot Box” wherein Stanton constructs a hypothetical situation in which a woman, who is shown through labor to be more worthy than most male ministers, reasonably requests ordination and is not granted it because she was misfortunately born female.
Wells purposefully organizes this issue of “The Woman’s Exponent” in order to emphasize the dual feminist causes, suffrage and female ordination, by placing them as the opening and the closing articles. She also includes a full printed version of the text written by Stanton and herself, yet she only includes an excerpt of the longer “discourse” written by Young. This edition of “The Woman’s Exponent” is also unusual in that it involves a Mormon feminist, Wells, arguing for suffrage, while a national suffragist,
Stanton, argues for female ordination.58 Furthermore, Wells uses a pseudonym when she writes about suffrage, to distance herself from her ideas, and employs an excerpt from
Stanton to advocate for a more radical position in a Mormon context, female ordination.59
58 In some ways, this peculiarity further demonstrates the interconnections between Mormon feminism and the national feminist movement. 59 Arguably, female ordination was so radical, even for Stanton, that this argument had to be couched within a “hypothetical” situation.
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Both Wells and Stanton employ rationalization in order to legitimize Mormon female suffrage by referencing reason—women suffered as much as men to enter Salt Lake
Valley and the hypothetical female parishioner labored as much as male ministers. This is juxtaposed to Young’s discourse, which functions more as a command by declaratively stating women’s responsibility or “duty” to their children.
Wells not only draws connections between Mormon feminists and the national movement through the layout of the newsletter, but also through similarities in content.
For example, Wells and Stanton both work to persuade their audience by describing the discontent of women’s current position and asking for more rights. Moreover, they describe women’s discontent in the same way—illustrating the suffering that women endure and comparing their suffering to that of men in order to reason that the intensity of women suffering is the same, if not more. The similarities between Stanton and Wells are in strict juxtaposition to the argument crafted by Young, who emphasizes women’s
“duty” as a responsibility that they should be doing and could potentially find power in performing correctly—he does not reason but instead commands. In other issues of the
“Exponent,” Wells makes arguments about women’s duty to raise their children, yet her arguments depart from Young’s discourse as they rationalize what performing this duty will mean for women (i.e., providing them with an education and thus more opportunities) and not only command that women perform this duty.
In another issue of “The Woman’s Exponent,” published twenty-one issues later, in November 1878, Wells creates a similar constellation wherein she arranges women’s rights discourse and national feminist discourse in a way that works to delegitimize official church discourse—by sandwiching it in-between writing that employs rationality
105 to gain women more social and political opportunities.
While the first three pages of this issue are populated with letters from various relief societies, the only article attributed to Wells comes under her editorial mast on page four. Entitled “Charity of Mormon Women,” Wells praises the Mormon Relief Society for its previous charitable efforts. Here, she also suggests that Mormon identity is intertwined with a desire to act charitably and she further delineates other opportunities for this society to participate in a worthy cause. Two pages later, without attribution to any author, there is an article entitled “Quarterly Conference: Salt Lake Stake.” This article is categorized as “official church discourse” because of its title and content that describes the events of a local, important, stake meeting, which involves sustaining various authorities within the congregation and provides spiritual guidance concerning women and the priesthood. The newsletter closes with a page devoted to an “address” written by Susan B. Anthony explaining the “work done” that year by the N.W.S.A. and the “work to be done” in the coming months to ratify the nineteenth amendment. Other articles, excerpts from women’s journals, reports from local Relief Societies, letters to the editor, and advertisements, populate the remainder of the newsletter.
Similar to the January 1st issue, Wells places official Church discourse clarifying women’s relationship to the priesthood in-between the dual feminist causes of expanding women’s social opportunities (by reconfiguring charity) and depicting the accomplishments of the national suffrage movement. This placement of Church discourse, juxtaposed to these dual feminist causes, nationally and locally, serves to delegitimize this vein of Church discourse and to further highlight the contradictions inside early Mormon women’s lives. Wells further delegitimizes this representation of
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Church discourse in the space she dedicates to each cause: one column to summarizing the “Quarterly Conference,” two columns for her article reconfiguring charity, and an entire page, three columns, to Anthony’s address to the N.W.S.A. She not only gives more space and more prominent placement to these feminist causes, thereby rendering them more important, Wells also includes feminist voices, herself and Anthony, and does not filter these voices by summarizing the contents of the articles. Meanwhile, the Church discourse depicting the “Quarterly Conference” is filtered through Wells.60 Wells chose to highlight the Church’s official description of women’s relationship to ordination instead of other theological or organizational matters discussed on this occasion.
In addition to the intentional placement of the articles, their overriding content rationalizes women’s rights and attempts to transform women’s duties into rights while official church discourse works to curtail women’s rights. For example, Wells begins her article, “The Charity of Mormon Women,” by describing charity as a “positive female trait” and as a virtue that all mothers must instill in their children. The end of the article reconfigures the practice of charity not as a duty but as a “privilege” because it opens up vital social and political opportunities for women (i.e., involving themselves in storing grain, “the staff of life”). Wells reconfigures acts of charity as women’s duty to women’s opportunity or right when she argues that collecting grain will further “extend a still wider field of benevolence, and enlarge the scope of women’s labor” (“Charity” 4). She rationalizes the practice of collecting grain as an opportunity when she asks the “sisters
[if they] realize the privilege [they] have, to store up grain against a day of want?” (Wells
60 As this article is not directly attributed to any author, it is assumed that the editor either wrote the article or (at least) chose what information to include.
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“Charity” 4).61
Anthony’s address further echoes Wells with concern for women’s rights. Her address is organized into two parts: the first details the accomplishments of the N.W.S.A. and the second justifies and outlines what the organization needs to accomplish— advocating for the ratification of the sixteenth amendment.62 Placed in-between writing by Anthony and Wells is the example of Church discourse dictating women’s relationship to the priesthood. Although this article does not explicitly discuss women’s duties, it does place restrictive limits on the rights of women, as Stake President Angus Cannon warns:
“women must be careful how they use the authority of the priesthood in administering to the sick” (6; my italics). In this newsletter, Wells rationalizes women’s duties as women’s rights as she considers what performing a particular duty will mean for women—more social and political influence. Anthony also employs discursive rationality when she “references the goals and uses of institutionalized social action”—advocating for the franchise through sanctioned means. In contrast, official Church discourse enforces the limits of women’s rights by warning them about overstepping their bounds.
Twelve years later, Wells’ organizational pattern—church discourse surrounded by local and national concerns— continues to be replicated. Wells opens her newsletter
61 Arguably, describing charity as a “privilege” is similar to describing it as a “right” because the definition for “privilege” includes the term “right” as in “restricted right or benefit” and “rights enjoyed by the elite.” Yet privilege is a right reserved for a specific group thereby making this right even more exclusive (Oxford English Dictionary; my italics). 62 The sixteenth amendment in one of its iterations sought to give women the vote. Anthony describes the sixteenth amendment as such: “Jan. 10th, 1878, Senator Sargent, of California, introduced a joint resolution proposing a 16th amendment for the enfranchisement of women” (Anthony “Address”).
108 with an article written under the pseudonym “Aunt Em,” which hints to the reader that this article will contain advice for women laced with sentimental reflection. Entitled
“Young Women,” the article starts by listing off various technological inventions of her time period that have changed women’s relationship to their housework (i.e., at that time, women are no longer expected to learn to knit and sew because they had machines that will complete that work for them). Wells suggests that young women use their free time not baking sugar filled cakes, but instead furthering their own education, entering the professions, and developing self-sufficiency so they are not dependent upon a male relative. The newsletter is populated with letters to the editor, small clips of news, information about local relief societies, and a theological article detailing the potential role of Paul’s wife. On page four, under the editor mast, readers encounter official church discourse entitled “Free From Exile and Imprisonment.” This article gives details for the release of Apostle George Q. Cannon, who was convicted and incarcerated on charges of plural marriage. On the following page, church discourse is buttressed by national suffrage discourse in the form of a reprinted article that details the resolutions adopted during the National Women’s Suffrage Convention. National suffrage discourse spills onto the next three pages in the form of the following articles: “Women’s Suffrage
Association,” “The Women’s National Council: An Address to the Organizations of the
Women in the United States,” and “Notes and News” pertaining to the suffrage bill.63
Although this edition follows the same organizational pattern as the other two highlighted throughout this analysis, it serves as a contrastive example in that the church
63 This particular edition could also work as an example of “imbalance” in the previous analysis section.
109 discourse does not directly target the rights of women or enforce women’s duties; instead, church discourse in this example details how Mormons are persecuted for their beliefs— in particular, plural marriage. This example was chosen because it gives a fuller picture the strand of official Church discourse, as this discourse is not always delineating the rights and duties of women. It also begins to explain why the Mormon Church leaders did not sabotage efforts to organize for women’s suffrage, even if they did not support women’s advancement in other social or religious spheres.
Although the article featuring church discourse in this edition does not expressly delineate women’s position, church discourse is still deemphasized in relationship to the strand about local and national women’s rights. For example, Wells opens her newsletter with a headlining article she penned, spanning three columns, suggesting women use technological advances to gain further financial independence. In the center of the newsletter, there are two columns dedicated to a church gathering celebrating the release of a major Mormon leader from prison on charges of polygamy. The following three pages of the newsletter are comprised of two full-page articles about the national women’s suffrage movement. The newsletter even ends on a note emphasizing the national movement when Wells includes “Notes and News” that detail the successes and failures of the suffrage bill in the Ohio House of Representatives.
Similar to the November 1878 edition, Wells does not devote space for church leadership to express their own voice; instead, church discourse comes filtered through
Wells, as she is the purported author of the piece entitled “Free From Exile and
Imprisonment.” Based on the article’s placement, under the editorial mast, and without attribution to another author, it is assumed that Emmeline B. Wells wrote this article.
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Even if the article is written by Wells, it is still considered “official church discourse” because of its contents and the leadership position she held within the church as the
Relief Society secretary and eventually President. Meanwhile, local and national suffrage discourse is written by the women involved in these organizations, specifically Wells on local suffrage and Frances Willard, Susan B. Anthony, and May Wright Sewell on national women’s suffrage.
In this edition of the newsletter, Wells makes an analogous rhetorical move in the other editions when she attempts to transform women’s duties into rights and emphasizes the suffrage of women above the concerns of men, both in and outside of the church.
Wells reads technological innovation as a way to further promote women’s social and political advancement – she traces women’s duties (learning to knit/sew) and argues that innovations (like the sewing machine) allow women to move beyond their duties to exercise their rights (i.e., pursuing education and entering the professions). While Wells does not explicitly describe entering the professions or self sufficiency as “rights,” both facilitate women’s entry into political and social arenas thereby furthering women’s opportunities as exercising a “right” would. Although church discourse in this edition does not expressly delineate women’s duties, Wells emphasizes women’s rights over male concerns when she spends a majority of her newsletter publishing articles written by national suffragists and a fraction of the space on male concerns. These male concerns are illustrated by the release of Apostle Cannon from jail or the male congressmen from the Dakota House of Representatives, who decided not to pass a bill for women’s suffrage because of the fear that “Congress [would be] less included to admit Dakota as a
State” (“Imprisonment” 3). Wells aptly responds to the male senator from “Dakota” and
111 his concerns about statehood when she includes the following line: “The men of Dakota were so eagerly anxious to obtain full political rights for themselves that they disregarded the just claims of their wives and sisters. It is a pity” (“Imprisonment” 3). Here, she draws on rationality to suggest that women already have a natural right to express themselves through the voting process—a right taken away by the greed of their male counterparts for statehood.
Throughout the three individual editions, Wells employs organizational patterns to legitimate women’s rights by deemphasizing male concerns (thereby rendering these concerns less “valuable”), subordinating depictions of women’s duty, and transforming these “duties” into rights, which rationalizes women’s social and political opportunities.
Fine-grain: Paragraph, Sentence, Punctuation Order
In keeping with the structure of the rest of the chapter, from larger discursive features to smaller ones, this section of analysis will first include examples of strategic paragraph placement, sentence order, and punctuation order. Although these linguistic features are more “fine-grain,” their repeated presence throughout “The Woman’s
Exponent” insinuates their importance and potential to express legitimacy through rationality, moralization/value, and authority.
One strategy Wells frequently uses to order her paragraphs is reverse organization wherein she begins with the counter argument, responds to the counter, and transitions into presenting her own argument in the remainder of the article. Wells uses this strategy regularly, which means textual examples were spread throughout the life of the publication. Yet this analysis examines three from the same year so as to demonstrate the
112 frequency with which Wells drew upon this pattern. The selected examples come from the following editions: 1878-03-01, 1878-07-01, and 1878-10-01.
In “Special Life Missions,” an article printed in the early March 1878 edition,
Wells begins with a critique of women by an unnamed author, which suggests that women who claim they have a “special mission” to emancipate themselves and influence society are annoying (my italics). Wells counters this critique by pointing out that many women with “special missions” are often called by God to fulfill their missions and thereby improve society. In response to the unnamed author, she writes that these women, with special missions, “are not the ones who squander money, or dissipate their powers in the frivolities of fashionable life. It is not their highest aim to please man but to lift manhood and womanhood to a higher and purer atmosphere.” Wells closes this article by reasoning that one of these “special missions” is women’s suffrage, which she claims is on the metaphorical horizon because of recent advances.
Another example of this reverse organization pattern comes from the early July
1878 edition of the “Exponent.” In an article entitled “The Women of Utah,” Wells relays some of the misperceptions about Mormon women at the time, specifically that they are morally and educationally bankrupt and therefore their vote is determined by their husbands. Wells counters these claims by encouraging Mormon women to develop their capacities, specifically their knowledge about government and laws, so that their vote is a
“right” they hold and is not solely influenced by their partner and their opinions. Wells closes her article by drawing on Mormon and Western exceptionalism in order to claim that Utah women are better able to cast a vote than other men or women because they are
“shut up in their mountain homes, free from the evil influences which prevail to an
113 alarming extent in more densely populated and older communities.” Here, Wells again draws on reason to quell the fears of moralists by encouraging Mormon women to seek an education. She even gives a reason, “free from evil influences,” why Utah women should receive the vote before others in more “densely populated and older communities.”
The final textual example of Wells’ reverse organization pattern64 was featured in the early October 1878 edition of the “Exponent.” In “Women as Educators,” Wells opens with a critique of mothers, who are often considered to be the first educators of their children. According to Wells, “the world has become aware that there is a deficiency in society now that wants remedying and they desire better mothers.” Upon relaying the counter argument, Wells moves to defend mothers by arguing that current mothers are a “product of their time.” Instead of outwardly rebutting the counter argument, Wells works to accommodate this counter argument by agreeing with one tenent—that mothers as educators of their children are currently deficient. To remedy this situation, Wells proposes that women seek more education to better teach their offspring.
Wells hints that this path towards education will not be easy: “all brave hearted women, who incur ridicule, and opprobrium and frowns, who though wounded at every step they take, still press forward in the path of conviction and seek to educate woman up to a higher standard of intelligence.” Although the path is difficult, Wells still rationalizes it as a path of more opportunity for women. She closes her meditation on mothers as
64 Another example of this reverse organization pattern is evident in the article entitled “Agitation is Education” in edition 1880-02-01 wherein Wells rebuts counter arguments concerning why women should not get the vote (i.e., “they don’t want the ballot? The ballot is a masculine duty, it will make them unrefined”).
114 educators by thanking those who paved the path for woman’s educational advancement.
Wells frequently uses reverse organization patterns in order to legitimate her ideas for audiences that may or may not agree with her. This reverse organization pattern allows for Wells to fairly and appropriately include the other side—even giving this side the most important part of the article—the beginning. Wells also presents the counter argument in enough detail to demonstrate to her readers that she is taking the opposite side seriously and not purposefully constructing this argument as fallacious (i.e., as a straw man). In addition, this reverse organizational pattern gives Wells the space to spend the rest of her article deconstructing/responding to the counter argument with rationality and moralization.65 Moreover, for readers who already support Wells’ progressive ideas, this organizational pattern allows them to have lines of reasoning to respond to those that disagree and therein further advocate for women’s rights.66
In addition to reverse paragraph organization, Wells also draws on purposeful sentence order, point of view, and punctuation placement as strategies to further legitimate Mormon women and suffrage. These linguistic devices, employed throughout her publication, function as a bid for legitimacy because they present Wells and her cause in the best light possible—solid, humble, competent, and most importantly, authoritative.
65 This response does not always resemble a direct rebuttal but sometimes an accommodation, as in the last example. 66 Although not integral to reverse paragraph organization, Wells posits that Mormon, Western women occupy a special position and from this position, she suggests that now is the time and they are the women that “deserve” the right of the franchise. This argumentative strategy, drawing on Mormon exceptionalism and kairos, further legitimates women’s suffrage by reasoning that Mormon women are more pure and responsible, “shut up in their mountain homes,” and it places pressure on decision makers since the time is nigh (and may pass them by).
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For example, Wells uses sentence order to create a comparison which functions to present a picture of solidarity for the cause. In an article describing her trip to the
National Suffrage Association annual conference in Washington, D.C., Wells recounts the following:
Mrs. Wells of Utah, was the first speaker. Miss Anthony followed, delivering her very celebrated lecture, “Bread and Ballot.” She is a very earnest woman and impresses everyone with her individuality. She was frequently applauded, and certainly made some strong arguments and good points. Mrs. Wells made a few more remarks. (4, 1878-03-01; my italics)
The amiable terms used to describe Anthony and her words are highlighted throughout the excerpt in italics as the sentence order juxtaposes how Wells describes her own address versus the “celebrated” Anthony. This contrastive description has a dual function: it figures Anthony, the leader of NWSA, in a positive light as an authority while presenting Wells as gracious, humble, and understated. Here, Wells is not prideful as she does not highlight her own accomplishments but instead points to the achievements of another. Together, the dual functions of this contrastive sentence order set up opposing descriptions of Wells with Anthony, which speaks to the overriding solidarity of the
NWSA. Even if Anthony is figured as an competent authority, this contrastive sentence order constructs the women’s suffrage organization as populated with members who protect and support one another instead of competing—members who are concerned with solidarity.67
67 Wells also draws on other discursive strategies to highlight the important work of her fellow suffragists, such as local suffragist Zina D.H. Young. In an article entitled “Women’s Suffrage Meeting,” Wells places Young’s name in full capitals when describing her actions during a legislative meeting. “The meeting was then addressed by MRS. ZINA D.H. YOUNG, who deplored the injustices of depriving women of Utah the right of suffrage, which they had exercised for many years without abusing it” (6; 1889-
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As illustrated in the above excerpt, Wells not only draws on contrastive sentence order, she also employs third-person point of view throughout her articles to describe her actions. In an article entitled “Memorial,” Wells portrays herself in the third person: “The speaker laid before the House the memorial of Emmeline B. Wells and Zina Young
Williams, of Salt Lake City, Utah Territory asking for the repeal of the antipolygamy law of 1862, and for legislation to protect the women and children of the Utah Territory” (5,
1879-02-15). Again, the use of third person functions similarly to the use of contrastive sentence order in that it allows Wells to appear competent and among the leaders of the movement without seeming immodest or arrogant.68
Wells further distances herself from appearing arrogant by asking friends to pen articles that delineate her actions and impact. Lydia D. Alders, in her article “Emmeline
B. Wells: Written by Request,” writes a glowing tribute to her “esteemed friend” wherein she portrays Wells as a “woman who is associated with two clubs... [She is the leader] of women of intelligence, poets, writers and thinkers, whose common aim it is to elevate themselves to understand and further develop the God given talents given to them” (3,
1898-04-15). This excerpt effectively functions as a tribute for Wells—one that details her leadership positions, authority, and actions filtered through the authorship of Alders.
Like third-person point of view and contrastive sentence order, this tribute serves to further legitimate Wells by shaping her ethos as one who is competent and reasonable yet
05-01). Here, Wells not only highlights Young’s name but also skips a line in the typeset format to emphasize who completed the action, advocating for Utah women. 68 I would also argue that her use of three different pseudonyms, Aunt Em, Blanche Beechwood, and Emile, works in the same way—to create distance between Wells, the writer, and the actions and thoughts of Wells, the authority/suffrage leader.
117 humble. Van Leeuwen describes legitimacy through appeals to authority as “legitimation by reference to authority, custom and law and of whom institutional authority is invested”
(91). Wells shapes national suffragists and draws on her friends to figure herself as those in whom “authority is invested” as women who are “celebrated,” “leaders,” “frequently applauded,” and “make strong arguments.” Ultimately, Wells employs multiple discursive strategies (contrastive sentence order, third-person point of view, pseudonyms, and requested articles) in order to figure herself as an unassuming authority and the suffrage movement as one led by reasonable women who privilege solidarity.
The last fine-grain example considers punctuation order that is placed strategically to pinpoint the irrational spaces in a legislative bill. This bill is entitled “The
Christiancy Bill” and Wells harpoons it throughout an article of the same name published in the early 1878 edition of the “Exponent.” Wells begins her article by introducing her opinion of the bill through hyperbole and sarcasm, with an opening sentence that reads
“What a wonderful bill!” She employs this exclamation to mean the opposite, made clear when she continues to explain in the same sentence that this bill “purports to disenfranchise the women of Utah, and also to deprive the people of rights and privileges” (1, 1878-01-01). Wells employs unexpected punctuation a number of times throughout her article, including in the following phrases: “among other artistically (?) written clauses,” “most honorable (?) gentleman,” “right honorable (?) Mr. Christiancy,” and “brave (?) legislation.” Although the punctuation mark changed from an exclamation point, the use of unexpected punctuation surrounded by parenthesis serves to set off the punctuation and call into question the reasonableness of this bill and in turn the senator who proposed it (i.e., is the senator really honorable? Is this legislation honorable? Is this
118 bill reasonable and fair or creative in how it restricts the rights of others?). The interrogatory tone created by the question marks, paired with the sarcastic one facilitated by the exclamation point, further bolsters Wells critique of the legislation and its reasonableness therein delegitimizing the bill and questioning the authority of Mr.
Christiancy, himself.
The fine-grain discursive strategies of paragraph, sentence, and punctuation arrangement work to legitimize Wells, her suffrage organization, and their cause—the franchise for women. These three discursive strategies emphasize the reasonableness of women’s suffrage as well as the authority of those associated with the cause and their interaction with each other (read: solidarity). Wells artfully juxtaposes this portrayal against critiques of the counter argument and their persons in order to figure antisuffragists as unreasonable, dishonorable, and thereby illegitimate.
Conclusions: Descending Scales of Arrangement
Through multiple types of evidence, both quantitative and qualitative, this chapter demonstrates how Wells draws on descending scales of arrangement to legitimate herself, fellow suffragists, and the cause of women’s franchise. These scales are purposefully described as “descending” because they range in scope from large discursive strategies, concerning social circulation, to fine-grain strategies, which involve paragraph structure and punctuation. History remembers Wells, or “Aunt Em,” as successful in legitimizing herself and her cause on two fronts: inside the Church hierarchy and the National
Suffrage Association, wherein she held important leadership positions and cultivated her influence. Wells draws on various discursive strategies that she connects with appeals to
119 authority, rationality, and moralization (value) in order to legitimate herself and the suffrage cause. These discursive strategies include but are not limited to: “fading,”
“sandwiching,” “(im)balancing,” reverse organization, sarcastic punctuation, third-person
P.O.V. and attending to social circulation.
The writing and life of Emmeline B. Wells epitomizes the first slice of discourse within the strand entitled “Twentieth-century Mormon feminism.” The second slice comes sixty years later when another Mormon woman—Sonia Johnson—starts to question her position in society. Although she is met with a much different response from the Mormon Church hierarchy, Johnson’s writing is no less important as she works to further herself, her cause, and her political organization, ex-Mormons for ERA. Yet
Johnson’s discursive strategies intentionally depart from Wells, as she fosters varieties of invention processes in lieu of arrangement patterns.
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Table 1: Summarizing Number of Articles Illustrating Each Strand
Discursive strand Year-1888 Year-1889 Year-1890 Year-1898
National Suffrage 12 67% 12 24% 6 13% 2 14%
Women’s rights 2 11% 7 14% 1 1% 3 21%
Local Suffrage 4 22% 31 62% 36 83% 9 64%
Totals 18 issues 50 issues 43 issues 14 issues
Twentieth-century Mormon Feminism
E.B. Wells Sonia Johnson Kate Kelly (1828-1921) (1936-present) (1980-present)
Strands of Discourse: Strands of Discourse: Strands of Discourse:
1) Wells on Suffrage 1) Awaken to Illegitimacy 1) Separation from Past 2) Wells on Women’s Rights 2) Legitimacy in Mormonism Mormon Feminism 3) Church Discourse 3) Eschew Legitimacy in Mormonism 2) OW as Nonthreat 4) Women’s Journals 4) Extrication from Mormonism 3) OW as Priesthood 5) Local Suffrage 5) Legitimacy in Feminist Movement 4) Apostasy/Emotions 6) Women in War 6) Eschew Legitimacy in Lib. Feminism 7) National Suffrage 7) Invention 8) Separation
Figure 2: Discourse Historical Approach
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Citing nature drawing on delivery gaining associating arrangement or being context strategies visibility with others patterns
External à
gaining through performing/claimin citing people citing texts citing experience inventing legitimacy popularity g legitimacy
ßInternal
Figure 3: Continuum of Legitimacy Pointing out Arrangement Patterns
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Fine-grain
i.e., punctuation, sentence variety, paragraphing
Small-grain
i.e., organization of individual articles
Mid-grain
i.e., publication patterns and placement of articles in newsletter
Large-grain
i.e., social circulation, traveling, material embodied speeches
Figure 4: Illustration of the Descending Scales of Arrangement
CHAPTER 4
SONIA JOHNSON: ESCHEWING LEGITIMACY FOR INVENTION
“First, my motive was wrong. I was giving in to the pressure to ‘give examples’ of what might ‘really’ be done, trying to alleviate the anxiety that is natural to the terrific ambiguity of being feminists at this moment… Second, in giving examples I limited the possibilities… Third and most important, I had not thought wildly enough myself… As usual, it had taken my mind a couple months to digest, understand, bring to consciousness the significance of an idea that…[works] toward recreating women’s abundant universe”
—Sonia Johnson from Wildfire: Igniting the She/Volution
Introduction
Like suffragist Emmeline B. Wells, radical feminist and ex-Mormon Sonia
Johnson worked to legitimized Mormon women on two fronts—inside their religious faith and in the Women’s Liberation Movement, specifically in the liberal feminist association, the National Organization for Women (NOW). Unlike Wells, Johnson did not employ subtle arrangement patterns as her primary rhetorical strategy; instead her rhetoric is marked by embarking on a process of courageous and daring invention through which she ultimately disavows legitimation in a male-dominated society by constructing communes where women live beyond patriarchy. The above quote represents one of her later attempts at facilitating this invention process for herself and her followers and in it she presents guidelines for the revolutionary thinking that came in
124 the final section of Wildfire, “Women’s Abundant Universe.”
Yet before eschewing legitimacy, Johnson’s earlier writing carved a position of authority for Mormon women. The first cycle includes the following steps:
1) focusing attention on how they are initially rendered illegitimate
2) arguing for their legitimacy
3) critiquing the patriarchal authority characteristic of the Mormon Church
4) extricating herself from Mormonism; eschewing legitimacy within this context
The second cycle includes the following steps:
1) legitimating herself within liberal feminism
2) criticizing liberal feminists for their reformist activists; eschewing legitimacy
3) turning to invention as a way to build a more equitable world
4) withdrawing from liberal feminism for a more radical, separatist ideology.
Ultimately for Johnson, each of these spaces and their subsequent responses to her arguments are found lacking and flawed—as such, she turned to the process of invention to imagine a more equitable world outside of Mormonism or liberal feminism. Johnson’s process, outlined above, is one of invention in that it considers omissions or oversights in the status quo, focuses attention on these omissions through critique, and presents original ideas that function to rectify the original oversights—albeit with a specific interest in how patriarchy omits women from positions of legitimacy.
This chapter will follow an outline similar to the proceeding chapter on Wells. In order to fully understand the exigency of Johnsons’ bids for legitimacy and the process of invention she employs, these two precontexts, Mormon history during the mid-1900s and
Johnsons’ personal history from 1979-1990, are essential reading. Moreover, the
125 discourse-historical approach I employ, articulated by Wodak and Meyers, asks that the researcher integrate “the available knowledge about the historical sources and the background of the social and political fields in which these discursive events are embedded” (52). What follows is my attempt to embed the subsequent analysis in historical sources describing three intersecting contexts: political history, institutional- religious history, and the rhetor’s personal history.
Pre-Textual Context: Otherwise Historical Context
Correlating the Church’s Efforts Translates Into Forgetting Women
According to LDS.org, the program of Priesthood Correlation entails a comprehensive effort to clarify and solidify the message of the Mormon Church, to replicate the structure of the church because of an increase in converts during the mid- twentieth century.69 According to the “Church History in the Fullness of Times Student
Manual,” the Church’s population doubled in a short fifteen years, counting over two million members in 1963. This rising tide of converts provoked the Mormon leadership to solidify the message of the Church and place different programs and organizations under the direction of the all-male priesthood (Bowman). The all-male leadership developed this program to further “perfect the Saints” by which they created a series of initiatives, which involved: 1) creating a council to lead the efforts (1961), as well as the priesthood
69 Yet the Mormon Church adopted some of the same principles to facilitate correlation well before the founding of the Correlation Council in 1961 as E.B. Wells sufficiently documents in The Women’s Exponent (written during the late 1800s-early 1900s). Although correlation reaches back into the early twentieth century, this process came to an apex in the late 1960s-early 1970s, when Johnson was an active Mormon.
126 executive committee and the ward councils, 2) developing the practice of home teaching and distributing the first “family home evening” manuals (1964), 3) publishing a new
Melchizedek70 Priesthood Handbook (1964), 4) founding the Unified Social Services
Department (1965), and 5) organizing bi-annual conferences (1971) (lds.org).71
Arguably, the process of correlation helped initiate and invoke a nascent feminist consciousness in Johnson. Feminist depictions of the correlation process,72 specifically from Wells, Johnson, and Kelly, are expectantly different than those officially dictated by the Mormon Church. These differences are stark as the feminist depictions are cognizant of patriarchal power and how it is deployed in seemingly innocent directives from the official Church leadership. During the late 1970s, Mormon women’s role became increasingly circumscribed as they were no longer allowed to pray in major church meetings, to control their own auxiliary money or programing, and publish their own magazines. Johnson notes that her fellow female Mormons were “put under total male control, requir[ed] to ask male permission for even the smallest of matters” (“Patriarchal
Panic,” 3). In her speech “Another uppity Mormon Woman,” Johnson writes about the impact of correlation on female members when she warns: “catch the lesson on
70 In Mormon Church doctrine, there exist two different types of priesthood; one is called the Melchizedek Priesthood and the other is called the Aaronic Priesthood. The Melchizedek Priesthood is reserved for older, male members of the Mormon Church who are deemed “worthy” and therefore able to hold positions of authority, bestow spiritual blessings, and participate in sacred rituals (lds.org). 71 Although I recognize that including the date after each of the archival sources is not MLA style, I have done so in order to demonstrate how the correlation process evolved throughout this time period. 72 Again, the “correlation process” in the Mormon Church was part of expanding the faith and replicating its structure in other contexts. Yet this expansion translated into solidifying its message and bestowing more authority with male leaders of the Church.
127 correlation! Talk about a power grab, and right there in our little manuals… The dresses
[female members] do all the losing” (4; my emphasis).
As mentioned previously, some Mormon feminists claim that this “power grab” happened well before the establishment of the official Priesthood Correlation Council.
Threatened by the large number of female members coupled with the “wide and extensive sphere of action” cultivated by the Relief Society, then Church President,
Joseph Felding Smith, sought to reinvigorate the shrinking priesthood (Brooks 12). In an effort to strip power from the women’s organization, Smith reversed his predecessor’s,
Lorenzo Snow, decision and forced the women to relinquish the funds they earned73 and the land originally intended to be their headquarters (Brooks). These assets were instead reassigned to build a Bishops’ Building that would house the Presiding Bishopric as well as other male priesthood members and activities (Brooks).
Almost a decade later, a similar incident occurred when the Mormon leadership used its authority to further erase the contributions of their female members. In 1918, instead of consulting any female members, the First Presidency sold the Relief Society’s entire grain supply to the United States Government to address worldwide grain shortages
(Brooks). Originally collected and maintained by E.B. Wells, the grain initiative represents four decades of hard labor by the women’s organization. To exacerbate this affront, funds from the sale of the grain went into an account controlled by the all-male leadership (Brooks). This dually articulated depiction of correlation, spoken with a
73 Please see the historical context section in Chapter 3 on Emmeline B. Wells for more concerning this controversy surrounding Church correlation and taking funds away from the women’s Relief Society.
128 metaphorical forked tongue, demonstrates the ways in which history diverges depending on who tells it.
Sonia Johnson: Irreverent, Imaginative, Equal Rights Feminist
Sonia Johnson was born into a long lineage of practicing members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Born on February 27, 1936, Johnson was a fifth- generation member of this faith and held all of the indications of someone living a righteous life—baptized, married in the Temple, 74a mother of four, a faithful wife, and an active calling in her local ward as a primary school teacher. Johnson also lived a life outside of her religious duties—she was well educated, earning a Doctorate of Education from Rutgers University, and living abroad with her family, working as an adjunct professor. Upon her return to the United States, she began to actively and publically criticize her faith on issues of gender; she was specifically critical of how women were prohibited from leading inside this religious organization.
Upon her return to the United States, debates regarding the Equal Rights
Amendment were raging throughout the country. Originally crafted by Alice Paul Stokes in 1923, ERA would not find its way onto the US Senate floor until the 1970s. At this point, the simple three-section bill, ensuring that “equal rights shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex,” ignited a firestorm of controversy (U.S. Cong. House.
74 “Marrying in the temple” means the leaders in the Mormon Church, specifically those in the local all-male priesthood, support and actively promote the union between the couple by granting them access to the temple, a sacred space. In addition to the bride and groom, only a few family members, with permission to enter the temple, are allowed to attend and watch as the couple performs a series of rituals that “seal” their bond for eternity.
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Comm. on Ways and Means). In 1980, the firestorm blazed as the U.S. Senate and House passed the amendment, yet was eventually extinguished when the amendment could not gain the support of thirty-eight state legislatures (falling short by three) (Rosen). Many attribute the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment to the Conservative Right, especially
Phyllis Schlafly and her “STOP ERA” organization (Rosen). As the founder of the Eagle
Forum and later “STOP ERA,” Schlafly used her position to oppose the ratification of the amendment, arguing that ERA would take away gender-specific privileges (e.g., not being forced to register for Selective Service) (Rosen). Along with Schlafly, many religious institutions joined the fight against ERA, including: Evangelical Christians,
Orthodox Jews, Roman Catholics, and Mormons.
With her conservative Church organizing against ERA, Johnson co-founded a political group entitled “Mormons for ERA” in 1977. She used this group to protest the secretive actions of the Mormon Church to lobby against the passage of ERA.
Subsequently, the Mormon Church initiated disciplinary proceedings against Johnson for her organizing efforts with “Mormons for ERA,” coupled with accusations she levied against the Church in her public testimony to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee and a scholarly presentation to the American Psychological Association’s Annual
Conference. Johnson’s battle to maintain her status as an active member of the Mormon
Church was short-lived as she was officially excommunicated in December 1979.
Johnson funneled her anger over her excommunication into her speeches and soon reorganized Mormons for ERA into Ex-Mormons for ERA. For the next three years, she traveled throughout the United States speaking to groups about the patriarchal and reactionary leadership of the Mormon Church, drawing attention to Mormon patriarchs
130 and how they manipulated their female members into a type of “silent somnambulism”
(Johnson, “Patriarchal Panic”). Once the ERA was officially defeated, Johnson took a more active role in the National Organization for Women (NOW). She used her connections with NOW to become nominated for President as a candidate of the national
Citizen’s Party. Although Johnson was never elected, she used her position as a candidate to draw necessary awareness to how women are treated unfairly in society and in politics.
Johnson later founded a separatist feminist commune in New Mexico, which she called
La Casa Feminista, where she hosted “feminist women only events,” such as the 2007
Feminist Hullabaloo. Unfortunately, La Casa Feminista is now defunct and Johnson no longer lives in the United States; she is currently an expatriate living in Latin America.
The writing, presentations, and speeches examined in this chapter trace the development of Johnson’s feminist consciousness. She not only advocates for ERA, she later disavows ERA for more radical, fundamental changes in society and even goes so far as to hypothetically construct a world where men do not exist. This chapter will focus on her earlier writing that outline her critique of the Mormon Church, her work on behalf of ERA, and her involvement with liberal feminists in NOW.
Publications: Books, Presentations, Speeches
In this chapter, I examine Johnson’s speeches and public presentations delivered from 1979-1982 and her published monographs released from 1981-1990. Together, these written documents make up the core of her rhetorical activity spanning a decade and centering on her excommunication trials, the Equal Rights Amendment, and her
131 participation in the women’s liberation movement.75 Over a thousand pages of Johnson’s writing, selected from three monographs, seven speeches, and three presentations, were analyzed. Arranged chronologically, the selected monographs include: From Housewife to Heretic (1981), Going Out of Our Minds (1987), and Wildfire: Igniting the
She/Volution (1990). The selected public presentations include: “Patriarchal Panic:
Sexual Politics in the Mormon Church” (presented at the APA meeting in September
1979), “Off Our Pedestal, or Chronicles of the Uppity Sisters (presented at Utah
Women’s Conference in October 1979), and “The Last Great Western Patriarchy”
(presented at the Washington Institute for Women in Politics in February 1982). Lastly, the selected speeches analyzed in this chapter include: testimony to the United State
Senate Subcommittee (1978), an untitled speech given at the National Organization for
Women’s Religious Panel (1978), comments given at the “Labor for Equal Rights Now” press conference (1979), comments at an ERAmerica strategy session (1979), a speech at the Montana NOW state conference (1979), and a speech delivered to the Alice Louise
Reynolds Women’s Forum (1979). The core of Johnson’s rhetorical activity, these thirteen texts, are wide-ranging in format and date of publication or delivery, yet they overlap in their arguments and are reiterative in their use of rhetorical strategies. These documents were strategically selected because they demonstrate the majority of
Johnson’s rhetorical work and they vividly illustrate the process Johnson develops to
75 Three of her monographs written after 1990 (specifically The Ship that Sailed into the Living Room, Out of this World: A Fictionalized True-Life Adventure, and The SisterWitch Conspiracy) were purposefully excluded because they focus on issues not directly pertinent to Mormon feminism or the Equal Rights Amendment—such as the expression of lesbian love in patriarchy and imagining a hypothetical world without men.
132 legitimize herself within and outside of the Mormon Church.
Although she is critical of programs advocating a “twelve-step process,” it is within these texts that Johnson delineated her process for legitimation. Johnson’s process included a series of reiterative steps: enlightenment, where she demonstrates to Mormon women how they are made illegitimate inside their religion and society; 2) legitimation inside, where she employs strategies to argue for women’s authority and legitimacy inside the Mormon church; 3) taboo breaking, where she works to delegitimize the patriarchy through deconstructive critique; 4) eschewing legitimacy, where she gives up on legitimacy within Mormonism; 5) legitimation outside, where she works to legitimize herself within liberal feminism; 6) eschewing legitimation inside liberal feminism, wherein Johnson finds the reformist measures of liberal feminism lacking; 7) invention, where she draws on the process of invention to imagine a more gender equal world; and
8) separatism, where Johnson abandons society as it is currently structured and creates enclaves guided by radical feminism.
Methods: Studying the Rhetorical Core of Sonia Johnson’s Work
Similar to the chapter on E.B. Wells, my method was specifically designed for analysis of Johnson’s archive as I employ a method that accounts for the size, scope, and variability of genres in the documents populating her archive. Since Johnson’s archive incorporates different genres, I do not examine arrangement patterns throughout the archive as the arrangement patterns between genres would demonstrate little about legitimacy strategies and more about the affordances and limitations of her specific genres. Instead I use a method that accounts for the variability in genres by analyzing an
133 overarching rhetorical canon, which permeates throughout Johnson’s archive—the process of invention. Instead of engaging subtle arrangement patterns, Johnson specifically draws on a courageous process of invention to craft a new space for women in the public sphere.
Settling on invention as the most important and frequently used legitimacy strategy meant analyzing Johnson’s extensive archive, focusing on documents she wrote, and searching for linguistic patterns therein. The documents examined span a total of twelve years, from 1979-1990, years that effectively represent a time when she was most engaged with the Mormon Church and the national feminist movement. Unlike Wells’ chapter, the only documents excluded were done so because they were written after her excommunication trials and interactions with the feminist movement (1991 and 2010) and engaged topics not directly relevant to legitimizing Mormon feminists. This chapter then represents more than a representative sample of her discourse— it effectively characterizes the rhetorical core of her work as I examine over eighty percent of her total writing. Like the method designed for Wells’ chapter, this one is purposefully comprehensive so that it allows me to understand both the diachronic and synchronic features of legitimacy discourse in this slice of Mormon feminist writing.
The archives used to access Johnson’s writing are in the manuscript division of the Special Collections housed on the fourth floor of the J.W. Marriott Library at the
University of Utah. The finding aid used to discover Johnson’s archive was “Archives
West: Orbis Cascade Alliance,” wherein I searched the name “Sonia Johnson” and discovered the archive entitled “Sonia Johnson papers, 1958-1983”. While the documents included in the archive span the above date range, most of Johnson’s writing falls
134 between 1978-1982. 76 The time logged examining these documents in the Special
Collections was approximately sixty hours from Fall 2013 until Spring 2016. There was additional time spent examining three of her monographs outside of the Special
Collections. Total time spent examining Johnson’s documents in preparation for this chapter and earlier scholarly work was approximately ninety hours. The provenance of the archive was from the source, Johnson; she donated the entire archive before moving to New Mexico.77 The archive is housed in the Automatic Retrieval Center (ARC) as it takes up 21.75 linear feet and requires twenty-four hours notice to access.78
Upon locating and selecting these documents, I created a large corpus and examined each text for strands of discourse that illustrate a struggle for legitimacy. Since legitimacy is fundamentally tied to the exercise of power, these strands devolved into a diachronic theme that continually and frequently reiterates the process of invention as a way to combat oppressive, patriarchal power. This invention process is cultivated both linearly and circularly through synchronic, repetitive snapshots of discourse. These repetitive snapshots represent a series of discursive threads, which are operationalized in
76 Please note that the University of Utah Special Collections is also home to the “Sonia Johnson’s photograph collection from 1971-1981,” a digital collection that houses images which document her time with Mormons for ERA. Although interesting, this digital collection is not the focus of this chapter and instead represents directions for future research. 77 The information about provenance is known through conversation with Betsey Welland, the University of Utah archivist who is in charge of Johnson’s archive. Interestingly, she also mentioned that a decade after donating the archive, Johnson came back to the library to visit her collection. 78 The specific details about archival work may seem excessive, but they are in response to a call made in Barbara L’Eplattenier’s “An Argument for Archival Research Methods: Thinking Beyond Methodology.” Overall, these detailed methods sections are designed to increase the reproducibility of the results of archival research and thereby increase the validity of the field.
135 the following section and include: awakening, fostering legitimacy for religious women inside the Mormon Church, eschewing legitimacy inside Mormonism, extrication, cultivating legitimacy within the National feminist movement, eschewing legitimacy in the movement, system-splitting invention, and separatism. Although Johnson’s archive involves other discursive strands outside of those exclusively examined in this chapter, these strands were selected because of their prevalence, frequency, and relation to legitimacy, and Mormon feminism.
This method proceeds by asking a series of questions that function to analyze the frequency of linguistic strategies depicting the process of invention inside Johnson’s writings and their relationship to legitimizing women inside and outside the church. The following is a series of questions designed to analyze legitimacy within Johnson’s archive, especially inside each step of the invention process: 1) What discursive strategies does Johnson employ most frequently in her writings? 2) Are there any noticeable linguistic patterns or strategies that work towards legitimizing women? 3) How and in which ways do these strategies challenge patriarchal power and effectively function to legitimize women? 4) Does one of these strategies delineate the process of invention and if so, what does that entail?
After settling on “invention” as the important rhetorical canons that Johnson employs to cultivate legitimacy, I asked the following questions to further operationalize and understand the invention process: 1) What are the steps Johnson delineates that move her readers through this daring process? 2) Why is this process considered threatening to the patriarchy and in which ways does that danger signal an effort to garner power and in turn legitimize women? 3) Is there any particular sequence or order in which these steps
136 are typically used in? 4) Do these steps reflect a linear process or one that is repetitive, changeable, and circular?
Stemming from answers to the above questions, I use the remainder of this chapter to trace multiple threads of discourse that delineate the invention process and contribute to legitimizing women in the Mormon Church and the national feminist movement. What follows is an effort to operationalize the strands and explain how the evidence was classified according to the content it best exemplifies:
• First discursive strand: awakening to illegitimacy
Textual evidence was categorized as part of this discursive strand when it
encouraged an awareness of how women were made illegitimate through official
and unofficial church and societal dictates. This strand was marked by the
frequent use of contrary terms to represent women’s illegitimacy as well as their
emergent consciousness. On one side of the spectrum, these terms include:
“controlled,” “forced,” “prevented,” “invisible,” “sleepwalking,” and
“somnambulism.” While on the other, the terms involve more active words, such
as: “awakening,” “awareness,” “epiphany,” “psychic explosion,” and “quiet
unrest.”79
• Second discursive strand: arguing for legitimacy in Mormonism
Textual evidence was representative of this second discursive strand when it
moved beyond an initial awakening and critique to imagine, construct, or develop
79 It is important to note that none of these discursive strands are limited to using the words featured in this chapter. These example words are only representative and therefore, the discursive strands might employ similar words not limited to the representative ones.
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a space of legitimacy for women within the Mormon Church. The terms used to
characterize this strand include: “redrew,” “reorganized,” “Mormon foremothers,”
“Mother-in-Heaven,” “similar experience,” “truth squad,” “female deity,” and
“less herdable.”
• Third discursive strand: eschewing legitimacy inside Mormonism
The textual evidence in this strand moves beyond a simple awareness and instead
offers a deconstructive analysis to establish how patriarchal society permits and
facilitates female illegitimacy. The deconstructive critique embedded within this
strand relies on a comparison of opposites to expose how society and the Church
unjustly treat women. The variety of terms used to characterize this strand
include: “patriarchal reversal,” “taboo breaking,” “myth,” and “enculturation.”
• Fourth discursive strand: extricating self from Mormonism
This is a less dominant strand than the others featured in this analysis of
Johnson’s rhetoric. Although she decidedly extricates herself from Mormonism,
she does not dwell on this after her excommunication. The terms and phrases used
by Johnson to depict this strand involve: “divesting,” “throwing out,” “outside the
system,” and “the church loses.”
• Fifth discursive strand: legitimacy inside the feminist movement
Johnson’s discourse takes a distinctive turn once she is excommunicated. Instead
of working to legitimize women within the Mormon Church, she eschews
legitimacy inside her faith and turns her attention to invention processes
advocated by the second wave feminist movement, particularly the liberal NOW.
Terms and phrases frequently employed to depict this discursive strand include:
138
“historical precedent,” “become aware,” “support,” and “all women all times.”
• Sixth discursive strand: eschewing legitimacy in liberal feminism
Johnson takes issue with the reformist measures advocated by NOW and insists
that these measures will not lead to real change. The terms frequently employed to
depict this discursive strand critiquing liberal feminism include: “not liberal,”
“radical,” “societal roots,” “imaginative,” and “beyond legality.”
• Seventh discursive strand: turning to invention as a way to build equality
Inside this strand of her rhetoric, Johnson draws on the canon of invention to
create a structure for women that is more equitable and does not rely on the
reformist measures of liberal feminism. Terms and phrases used to delineate this
strand include: “ambiguity,” “hearing into being,” “no examples,” “without
interruption,” “without hierarchy,” and “past known territory.”
• Eighth discursive strand: separatism
Within this strand, Johnson moves away from trying to reform or critique liberal
feminism and instead withdraws in order to invent a society that is guided by
radicalism. The terms or phrases frequently employed to depict this discursive
strand, withdrawing from liberal feminism and society, include: “freedom,”
“restructured,” “interconnectedness,” “does not exist in patriarchy,” “space inside
and around,” “womanhelixes,” and “separatist.”
Theoretical Underpinnings of This Method
The method developed to explore Johnson’s archive is informed by critical discourse analysis, with its focus on legitimacy and power and feminist archival research,
139 with attention paid to amplifying marginalized voices. For historical discourse scholars,
“resistance means a breaking apart of convention, of stable discursive practices, in acts of creativity” (Wodak and Meyers 52). For feminist archival scholars, resistance and its exploration are fundamentally ingrained in the study of women’s rhetoric, as these female rhetors employ both to combat a history of erasure. Similarly, historical discourse scholars are concerned with exploring power as a “central condition of social life” and integrating an understanding of power into a theory of language (Wodak and Meyers 11).
Feminist historiographers are also interested in power and how it manipulates and distorts women’s position in rhetorical history. Ultimately, scholars from both fields are intentionally advocates for groups who suffer from social discrimination with the questions they ask and the work they contribute. Historical discourse scholars, informed by CDA, examine marginality within multiple social identities whereas feminist archival scholars focus on gender as an overarching lens of analysis. The method designed for this chapter draws on theory from both fields, specifically: paying attention to resistant discourse that combats erasure, focusing on power and how Johnson engages with it through her process of invention, and asking questions about women’s legitimacy in order to advocate for Mormon women who suffer from discrimination.
Mirroring the chapter on E.B. Wells, I employ in this chapter a discourse historical approach influenced by CDA scholars Wodak and Meyers, which includes
“historically oriented analysis” and asks researchers to “conduct several synchronic cuts through a discursive strand” (Wodak and Meyer 52).80 Feminist archival researchers are
80 In future chapters, this discourse historical approach will continue to develop by “subsequently comparing these strands to one another” (Wodak and Meyer 52). Please
140 similarly interested in the synchronic and diachronic capabilities of discourse. For example, Graban writes in Women’s Irony: Rewriting Feminist Rhetorical Histories that analyzing discourse as both “synchronic and diachronic allows critics to read texts as moving assemblages of loyalties and interests” (9). For example, the synchronic cuts in
Johnson’s chapter demonstrate her moving loyalty and interest from legitimizing women in the Mormon Church to the national feminist movement as opposed to understanding her effort to legitimize women inside only one context.
Depending on the contents and scope of the discursive strand, these synchronic cuts will appear different when compared to each other. For example, “awakening to illegitimacy” is a synchronic cut in the discursive strand representing the invention process and it is strikingly different than “deconstructive critique.” Outside of this chapter, Johnson’s invention process is a synchronic cut in the overarching discourse on
Mormon women’s legitimation and it is distinct from Well’s subtle arrangement patterns.
As mentioned previously, this chapter’s method is influenced by CDA as it considers the macro issue of legitimacy through linguistic strategies that form the invention process.81
In addition, I triangulate my findings by examining a number of examples of each of those genres (three monographs, seven speeches, and three presentations). This purposeful triangulation renders my results representative of Johnson’s discourse, reliable
note that the concluding chapter will involve an overarching comparison between the discursive strands of arrangement, invention, and delivery as they interface with historical context. 81 An example of a linguistic strategy inside the invention process comes in Johnson’s first monograph from Housewife to Heretic. In this text, she imagines a space for women by referencing historical examples of feminist Mormon foremothers. Through an analysis of this linguistic strategy, referencing past authority figures, one starts to understand how Johnson uses discourse to construct legitimacy for women.
141 in the case of future research, and valid in the scholarly field’s to which this research contributes. In addition to employing triangulation, this chapter is designed to counter major critiques of the discourse historical approach, particularly the critique that these scholars are prejudiced on the basis of ideological commitment and “cherry pick” their texts to analyze in support of that position. By examining the majority of Johnson’s rhetorical work (eighty percent), I am not selecting texts to support a personal prejudice but instead constructing an argument built from careful analysis of a large corpus (over
1,000 pages).
Throughout the remainder of this chapter, I study how Johnson participates in a discourse of legitimacy by strategically employing the process of invention to construct a new space for Mormon and radical women. Moreover, I closely examine how invention is outlined in four discursive strands that depict this process—these discursive strands effectively represent synchronic cuts in the diachronic strand of Mormon Feminism. To a certain extent, I compare these strands of discourse to one another and make inferences about their influence based on these comparisons. Please see Figure 4, featured at the end of this chapter, because it illustrates where the strategy of unevenly using the canon of invention falls along the continuum of legitimacy.
Illegitimacy Leading to Awareness
Johnson delineates a process of invention that involves describing women’s illegitimacy through which she initiates an awakening for women, including herself.
Here, Johnson argues that women are actively made illegitimate within the Mormon
Church and in larger society. To this effect, she begins her “process of invention” by
142 outlining how women are rendered illegitimate in these dual overlapping contexts, with moves that include: 1) outlining women’s dependence upon men, 2) erasing women’s
“selves,” 3) obliterating evidence of their contributions, or 4) restricting any future efforts to contribute, and 5) figuring their dissent as frivolous.
First, Johnson sketches the ways in which women are made dependent on their male counterparts. In From Housewife to Heretic, she writes “I always accepted the concept that I needed a man to ‘complete me.’ I believe I could only exist through the name and eyes of a members of the superior, the acceptable-in-themselves, male race”
(29). Johnson initially reveals an extreme dependence on the “male race,” so much so that she is not “complete” and would not “exist” without her attachment to a man.
Furthermore, she points out that this dependency is only one-direction, as men are
“acceptable-in-themselves” and do not need to rely on women.82
For Johnson, a consequence of women’s extreme dependency means obliterating their selves and emotions thereby leading to the “problem with no name,” the feminine mystique, or “the housewives’ problem,” which are internally designated by diminishing personal ambition, withdrawing self confidence, and inflicting masochistic pain
(Friedan). She further depicts this contingent understanding of herself when she queries,
“who was I? Rick’s wife, the kids’ mother, a housewife—not a person with value in her own right outside of the family” (Housewife to Heretic 46). This parallel sentence arrangement demonstrates her dependent identity in which larger society only knows her through her relationality—as a wife, mother, and a housewife. Johnson further
82 Johnson later deconstructs men’s not-so-hidden dependency on women in her invention process.
143 emphasizes the erasure of women’s identity when she explains that in patriarchal society, women are taught from their earliest days that “she does not belong to herself” and instead is beholden to those external from herself, like her husband and children (Wildfire
22). Johnson further feels obliterated as a female “self” when she considers how Western
Civilization, and the Mormon faith as an extension, were created by men: “the fact is that we have been excluded from it… I have no history. I have no heritage. I have no civilization… by cutting me off from my history, I felt that the church men had cut me off from myself” (Housewife to Heretic 159). Johnson makes clear that her psychological and historical perception of herself as a woman is diminished living in a patriarchal society—a diminishment that translates into illegitimacy.
Not only are women made harmfully dependent, Johnson argues that they are illegitimate because patriarchy functions to circumscribe women’s present and future contributions. Within Mormonism, in particular, Johnson notes that they “have been all but stripped of their rights already; our great Mormon foremothers would not recognize their place in the church if they came back” (Housewife to Heretic 145). How Mormon women were circumscribed to prevent present and future contributions is described in detail in the historical context section (Housewife to Heretic 145). If women do express dissent within this current configuration of power, their concerns are figured as frivolous because “women’s problems do not need to be taken seriously [as they] must continue to put their needs and desires last for the sake of the kingdom, which belong[s] to and benefits men” (Housewife to Heretic 104). Again, women are illegitimate when their concerns are not considered and they are not the owners of the “kingdom;” instead, they reside in it, forever dependent upon men.
144
After explaining women’s illegitimacy, Johnson transitions into portraying her epiphany or awakening to women’s marginalization. Johnson’s “awakening” is marked by three overriding characteristics: 1) a reference to nature/color, 2) an overwhelmingly emotional response, and 3) a recognition of one’s own thoughts and the impact of those thoughts.
While her depiction of women’s illegitimacy is plagued with allusions to women sleepwalking or somnambulism, Johnson’s portrayal of “awakening” involves a burst of nature. For example, she writes “feminism, like sunshine on growing things in spring, kissed me and woke me up. And the world I wakened to is no longer flat, gray, featureless plain I knew for so long” (Housewife to Heretic 162; my emphasis).
Connecting the awakening of spring to an internal awakening occurs again in Johnson’s second monograph, Going Out of Our Minds: The Metaphysics of Liberation. “Sprung up by the patriarchs themselves from the dark, airless little box called patriarchy,” Johnson explains that upon her awakening, she views her “possibilities suddenly as limitless as the sunshine and the wind” (7; my emphasis). Although who initiates the awakening shifts between these two examples,83 the connection from the awakening and the comparison between a confining and liberating position remains: “sunshine” as opposed to a “flat, gray, featureless plain” and “sunshine and wind” compared to “a dark, airless little box.”
In addition to allusions to nature, Johnson’s “awakening” is characterized by extreme and uncontainable emotional response. She depicts her process of “Speaking into
83 Who initiates the awakening shifts as Johnson attributes her awakening to feminism and then to recognizing the patriarchs. Yet these two are arguably the same because without feminism, one would not be able to recognize patriarchs for who they are.
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Being” which parallels second wave raising consciousness, but instead encourages listening without dialogue as conversation can become hierarchical and dominating.
Johnson relays that after “being seriously and completely listened to, being genuinely heard… Many women cry the first time they try this process” (Going Out of Our Minds
133). This form of awakening, “speaking into being,” provokes an emotional response, as
“women cry” because genuine listening validates their selves. Ratcliffe, in Rhetorical
Listening: Gender, Identification and Whiteness, supports Johnson by emphasizing the importance of active, rhetorical listening when she describes listening as a “trope for interpretive invention” (21). According to Ratcliffe, listening is more than validating as it facilitates invention—an invention that works to construct a world where women have authority. An overpowering, emotional response is similarly featured in Johnson’s third monograph, Wildfire. “Despite, or perhaps partly because of, very legitimate and healthful anger,” writes Johnson, “women were fairly bursting with energy and enthusiasm. Euphoria and elation might best describe the general atmosphere” (19).
Upon their awakening, women are overcome, or are “fairly bursting,” yet this time they are not “crying” but instead full of “euphoria and elation” mixed with “energy and enthusiasm,” all emotions that could initiate and promote internal and perhaps external change.
Lastly, Johnson’s depiction of “awakening” involves recognizing and attributing one’s thoughts to one’s self—in other words, taking credit for one’s intellectual creations.
At the end of describing the process of “speaking into being,” Johnson further relays that
“most women have been amazed at themselves in the first half hour. They have hardly been able to believe they are the source of such fascinating insights” (Out of Our Minds
146
133). There is an under current of tragedy running throughout this depiction— as women cannot “believe” and our “amazed” at their own intellectual capabilities—delineating the profound extent to which women are marginalized. Yet the flipside to this tragedy is the hopefulness that comes through awareness—as women recognize their intellectual creations as their own, they can start to claim ownership over their creations, other objects, and potentially their selves.
Legitimating Women in Mormonism
It is important to note that all of these discursive strands are intertwined, which means I discovered multiple strands on Johnson’s pages in a different order than is reflected in this analysis section. With this in mind, Sonia Johnson employs a variety of linguistic moves to legitimate women in the Mormon faith— the ones used most frequently include: 1) referencing historical authority figures, 2) gesturing to authority through spiritual enlightenment, 3) offering a bandwagon appeal, and 4) arguing for legitimacy by drawing from Mormon texts and practices.
Most commonly, Johnson draws from the authority of her ancient foremothers, such as Emmeline B. Wells, to further legitimize women inside the Mormon Church.
These references to female historical figures permeate throughout her rhetoric. She even displays awareness of her attempts to build authority by referencing earlier Mormon suffragists when she writes: “I invoke the great women of our past, because I think it is legitimate to invoke any good and caring souls in this work” (Housewife to Heretic 409; my italics). She specifically references historical figures, women in particular, who held positions of authority in the Church and are remembered as influential and powerful
147 leaders. For example, Johnson notes that the rest of her address to the United States
Subcommittee consists largely of “quotations from my great Mormon foremothers of the late nineteenth century, who not only fought for suffrage but, who with all their souls, wanted equal rights under the law as well” (Housewife to Heretic 125). This reference to
“Mormon foremothers” functions to legitimizes Johnson, her cause, and Mormon women in general, by delineating their historical roots.
The references to historical figures intensify as Johnson not only alludes to them but acknowledges that she is inspired by them. Upon praying for guidance before offering her statement, Johnson admits that her prayers were answered as these early Pioneer women came to her and encouraged her words and actions: “hearing a rustling, I opened my eyes, and there around the three sides of the room, with their heads about six inches from the ceiling stood a throng of women in old-fashioned dress… I knew who they were” (Housewife to Heretic 127). In effect, she uses the religious practice of revelation,84 guidance from early female Mormon leaders, to suggest that these deceased authority figures want women to hold a more legitimate position inside the faith. She employs a method of empowerment that is spiritual and very Mormon: asking advice from a higher power and being granted it. By being granted this visit, she is in effect gaining permission from her Mormon audience through these deceased women, who once
84 In Mormonism, revelation and testimony are two distinct practices that break across gendered lines—women are allowed to give testimony but only men are permitted to engage in both practices. By claiming that she had a “revelation,” Johnson is demonstrating her ability to participate in both sacred practices. For members of the Mormon Church, the difference between testimony and revelation is that testimony is a public recounting of a religious experience, usually coupled with evidence, whereas revelation involves a spiritual entity speaking to a faithful (male) follower and offering them religious guidance.
148 held positions of authority inside their community.
These women not only inspire Johnson’s rhetoric, they also influence the subcommittee audience by speaking through her: “coming from them, the ideas in my testimony had the force of their known piety and of their honored position in the present- day church. After all, I Sonia Johnson, was not saying it. Emmeline B. Wells was”
(Housewife to Heretic 125). Again, she works to authorize Mormon women by building off the words of earlier Mormon suffragists, through which she remembers and attempts to recover their early, honored position. Yet this move departs from her earlier strategies because Johnson suggests that Wells is speaking through her, which sidesteps responsibility for her words— thereby rendering Wells, and not Johnson, to blame.
Another rhetorical strategy Johnson employs includes a bandwagon appeal or majority appeal. In an edition of the Salt Lake Tribune, Johnson writes that “Sen. Orrin
Hatch is wrong in assuming that only 1/10th of 1 percent of Mormon women support
ERA” and she proves this by attaching a list of names that belong to a large segment of the female Mormon population in support of ERA (Housewife to Heretic 143).
Furthermore, this bandwagon appeal is also reiterated in the speech she gives to the
Senate Subcommittee. Here, Johnson purposefully forgoes references to historical authorities and instead “quotes present day ones, those I had been hearing from by the hundreds all over the church” (Housewife to Heretic 201). In this speech, she continues on to delineate the ways Mormon women’s positions are constrained and their subsequent frustration with their marginalization. In stating that she has encountered hundreds of these voices throughout the organization, Johnson is again crafting a bandwagon appeal.
This large number of supporters demonstrates that the women are a united front by
149 drawing upon others to effectively “get on the band wagon,” which enacts legitimacy as social consensus.
In addition to drawing on historical and current feminists, Johnson legitimates
Mormon women by employing authorizing language and drawing from texts, rituals, and practices that are considered sacred and powerful. In her first monograph, Johnson admits that she “always spoke [Mormon men’s] language when [she] was with them so as not to shock and offend” and I would add that she used this language not only to avoid shocking but also to communicate with authority (Housewife to Heretic 141). Moreover, Johnson crafts a legitimate place for women within the Mormon faith by recovering the female deity, or “Mother-in-Heaven,” inside scripture. She not only notes how “the concept of the female deity was revolutionizing the religion” but considers the ways in which this was happening:
[p]raying in this way should help us imagine and accept a deity as also female, should help us see the potential in women as well as in men. When we can visualize a female God with all the power, all the strength, all the glory and wisdom we now attribute to a male God, we are well on our way to being able to value and love women. (Housewife to Heretic 247 and 377)
Here, the practice of praying and acknowledging a female deity creates a position of authority for women in the faith by recognizing their potential, valuing and loving them.
What is more, Johnson moves past scripture to argue for women’s legitimacy directly by drawing from sacred Mormon rituals and practices currently enacted. She describes the practices that occur in the initiatory rooms in the temples: “women hold the priesthood; hold it in themselves as Mother in Heaven does, not ‘through’ men. They lay their hands on our heads and forgive our sins. No greater priesthood power than that is claimed by men anywhere in the world” (Housewife to Heretic 375). She not only
150 references a female deity but claims that women are directly legitimized by holding the priesthood and performing actions that only ordained members are allowed—specifically forgiving sins. According to Johnson, women are allowed in this sacred space and given the same powers in this space as ordained male members thereby rendering Mormon women as legitimate authorities.
Before her excommunication, Johnson further works to legitimate women inside her faith by referencing a number of current and historical Mormon feminists and drawing evidence from scriptural texts and practices that authorize women in these sacred spaces.
Eschewing Legitimacy Within Mormonism
Throughout her rhetoric, Johnson crafts a critique of Mormon patriarchy as a religion of control that purposefully and structurally diminishes dissent. She illustrates the extent of this control with evidence from her excommunication trials wherein the
Mormon leadership purposefully changes the terms of their engagement.
Johnson explains that the leaders of the Mormon Church exert control over their members by deferring to male leaders for all matters of spiritual direction and organizing rituals such as testimony meetings.85 She argues that “to rely more upon our leaders for spiritual direction and less upon our own personal relationship with deity, stems from a
85 Testimony or fasting meetings typically occur once a month in most Mormon wards. During these meetings, held the first Sunday of each month, members are invited to bear verbal witness to the truth of the gospel according to the Mormon Church. After bearing their testimony, faithful members are asked to fast for two consecutive meals, which means not consuming any meals or liquids.
151 desire in the hearts of the leaders to gain ever more control over our lives” (Housewife to
Heretic 65). Here, she points out that this reliance is not a directive from a higher source but is instead a man-made initiative designed to further control members instead of helping them cultivate their personal relationship with God. According to Johnson, this system of control is also evident in the ritualistic programming observed by the Church.
These rituals include “fast and testimony meeting [which] is a perfect method for keeping social control of members of the church, by encouraging them to reaffirm their orthodoxy and squelch any nagging doubts” (Housewife to Heretic 69). A testimony meeting asks members to declare their faith in the religion and gospel in front of the entire ward; as such, this practice does not permit dissenting voices and serves to control members by reaffirming the faith of those who testify and publically pressuring those who do not testify into doing so.
Programming, like testimony meetings, controls members by further disallowing dissent—a common theme throughout the Mormon religion. Since members have no means of expressing dissent, Johnson rationalizes picketing Mormon meetings:
we have always felt profoundly guiltless about picketing Mormon meetings because there simply is no other avenue through which to express dissent in the church. We would have preferred other ways; we tried to find other ways. But the whole church system is set up to quash dissent, not to channel it and use it for growth. (Housewife to Heretic 196; my italics)
Here, Johnson displays some respect for the Mormon faith by trying to keep the testimony meetings sacred and without opposition. Yet, despite her attempts to find a different avenue, Johnson justifies protesting in these spaces because dissent does not have to work destructively but can function as an impetus for future growth.
Later, Johnson’s critique takes a more personal bent when she brings in evidence
152 from her excommunication trials to further explain how she, and others whose membership is in question, are controlled by this religious organization. This male leadership controls Johnson by not providing an impartial judge for her trial, continually altering the charges levied against her, misconstruing or not presenting facts in support of their decision, and later, holding a later appeals court without her. Johnson details how her Bishop, Jeffrey Willis, was not only her accuser, the one who brought her to trial, but also her judge—a coincidence that exposes the discrepancy between the power wielded by the male leadership and that by the female defendant (Housewife to Heretic 278).
Johnson notes that for a male member accused of apostasy, this would not be the case— his accuser would not be his judge. Mormon men are tried in courts presided over by their stake president,86 a position of more authority than that held by their bishop, who is usually the one accusing the member of apostasy.
In her case, Johnson also notes the evolving charges levied against her, as she was invited to attend the initial trial but not subsequent trials involving her appeal. She writes that “never having heard them before or since, and never having seen a copy of them, I can only say that I recall that there were many and that I was very surprised to have them appear suddenly at that time when I could not prepare a defense against them, or even understand them fully” (Housewife to Heretic 325 and 215). As such, she is left without a defense—she is not offered a chance to properly rebut or even understand these evolving charges. Without a rebuttal, this trial becomes a place where the all-male leadership, levying the charges, is in full control.
86 These disciplinary processes for female members are referred to within Mormonism as “courts of love.”
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Not only is this control evident in the evolving charges but also in the lack of evidence used by the leadership to support the charges. When reflecting on her initial trial, Johnson realizes that the leadership “does not need evidence. They do not need proof; they would and could say anything they pleased without a single scrap of evidence, and the members of the church would believe it implicitly” (Housewife to
Heretic 298). Furthermore, she claims that by not “having evidence, the [leadership] did most of their discrediting by insinuation and rumor… I began to hear echoes from all over the church” (Housewife to Heretic 358). Here, the all-male Mormon leadership exercises so much control over their members that excommunicating one does not require a proper reason or supporting argument and they can instead justify excommunication through insinuation and rumor.
Johnson is not only manipulated and silenced in this trial, especially when the male leadership changes their charges against her or refuses to give evidence in support of these charges, but also when this leadership holds a hearing in an appeals court without inviting her to attend. Upon her excommunication, Johnson requests an appeal of the leadership’s decision to her Stake President, Earl Roueche. Johnson writes that “when
[she] appealed Jeff’s decision to him, Roueche held a secret high council court87 for me, to which I was not invited and about which I had no knowledge at the time, a procedure that openly flouts Mormon scripture (Doctrine and Covenants 102:13 and 18)”
87 In this religious tradition, a high council court is typically reserved for male members, while female members and children must go through a Bishop’s court before they can request a high council court. Johnson tried to request a high council court, because she believed her judge was partial as he was also her accuser, yet she was denied a hearing by this court until her appeal.
154
(Housewife to Heretic 328). She proceeds to quote the passage verbatim from the gospel to demonstrate how Roueche’s decision to exclude her was out of line with Mormon scripture. Her exclusion from the trial signals the complete control wielded by the male leadership – since their decision is already made up, they do not need the defendant to even show up to testify in her appeal. Furthermore, Johnson’s experience, specifically forcing her to go through a Bishop’s court and excluding her from the appeals court, hints that this control breaks across gendered lines. Typically, Mormon males are given an impartial judge and jury at a high council court, and their judge is usually a stake president and not their bishop, who is frequently the man accusing them of apostasy.
Johnson critiques the Mormon leadership for the extreme amount of control they wield over their members, particularly their female members. Following her excommunication, Johnson’s rhetoric shifts as she no longer focuses on critiquing
Mormonism and instead directs her attention to liberal feminism and establishing herself inside this new sphere.
Legitimating Herself Inside Liberal Feminism
For Johnson, her excommunication meant a turning away from religion. She no longer believed in God and in her mind, the Mormon Church was divested of its holy power (Wildfire 137). At this point, she began to substitute liberal feminism for the
Mormon faith and use her rhetoric to legitimate herself inside this social space. More specifically, Johnson works to legitimate herself inside this space by relaying the social support she received from a large number of liberal feminists, including those who were public “stars” of feminism and even some Mormon feminists. She also works towards
155 legitimation by reiterating tenents of liberal feminism such as systematically critiquing gender inequality, empowering women to action, and offering them an established avenue to express their experience with subordination.
Johnson forms her legitimacy through a bandwagon appeal by mentioning that she received validation in varying amounts from liberal feminists. Nominated by the
Citizen’s Party, she runs for U.S. President, a position of authority within the existing structure. At this time, multiple feminist “stars” offer their names in a letter of support for
Johnson’s candidacy, including Mary Daly, Barbara Deming, Andrea Dworkin, Leah
Fritz, Robin Morgan, and Gloria Steinem (Going Out 225). Other feminists, including some Mormons, showered her with letters of support. According to Johnson, she received over “5,000 letters, cards, and telegrams. Of these, at least 85 percent are supportive of both ERA and of me, and more than half the Mormon mail is positive” (Housewife to
Heretic 354). This endorsement by the “stars” of liberal feminism and others who wrote in is a form of social consensus that functions to legitimize Johnson and her standing in liberal feminism. In these examples, social consensus works as a joint appeal to authority, with the stars of liberal feminism supporting Johnson, and as an appeal to popularity, with a large number of feminists writing to support her.
In addition to receiving support from many liberal feminists, Johnson legitimates herself by reiterating tenents of liberal feminism—specifically explicating a critique of women’s position in society, giving women a voice when they are silenced and encouraging women to advocate for their equality.88 Johnson explains that feminism
88 Here, I am claiming that Johnson works to legitimize herself and not other Mormon women within liberal feminism. After her excommunication, she is less
156 requires an “end to the global up (male)/one-down (female) mentality of male supremacist should involve the participation of all human beings in the affairs of the world” (Going Out 277). Here, she calls for an end to gender inequality by including “all human beings in the affairs of the world” but does not expressly explicate how to achieve this goal. On this same page of Going Out of Our Minds, she rectifies this absence by relaying a potential solution to gender equality that works through the current system and could therefore be considered reformist or liberal feminist. At one point when appearing before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee about ERA, Johnson condescendingly claims that
“too many women in this country live in abject poverty and despair, and where they live and die no legislator sees them. I am here to bring you their lives, to help men like you become aware of the crucial urgency at the heart of the ERA” (Going Out 87; my italics).
Johnson expressly attempts to work through the current system, by appealing to senators, to bring to light women’s position of abject poverty. Towards the end of her time with
NOW, she exposes the gaps in reformist activism and starts to support more radical action that would change the entire structure as it stands. In fact, Johnson not only ran for
U.S. President, she also ran for president of NOW and in delineating her platform for the presidency, she hints at her advocacy of more radical involvement. She states that she intentionally ran for the NOW presidency because “the other candidates stood for reform and white gloves and making the men respect us. Because I didn’t—and perhaps for other reasons as well—I lost” (Going Out 125). It is clear that Johnson does not stand for reform or working through the system to make “men respect us.” Instead she substitutes a
interested in including Mormon women within a larger national conversation regarding women’s rights.
157 more radical version of gender equality that involves critiquing the current system and advocacy organizations that work within the system.
Towards Invention: Eschewing Legitimacy Inside Liberal Feminism
Johnson develops her critique of liberal feminism throughout the later half of her writing—specifically throughout Going Out of Our Minds and Wildfire. She shapes her critique by drawing similarities between the NOW organization and Mormonism and displaying these similarities by examining how power flows throughout NOW.
Additionally, she also uses her critique of NOW and current governing structures to argue that the present structure is too flawed to create gender equality—a realization that leads her to abandon liberal feminism in order to invent a more equitable world based on a radical, separatist ideology.
During a NOW meeting, Johnson is struck by the similarities between
Mormonism and the feminist organization when she disagrees with the NOW leadership about their work towards passing ERA. Although she does not mention her name,
Johnson relays that during a meeting, the NOW president went on to “bear testimony to the truthfulness of the gospel according to the NOW leadership and the necessity of following them in all things,” in effect asking feminist members for blind allegiance to the organization’s leadership. Throughout this conversation, Johnson recalls that she
“found [her]self awash in more déjà vu. [As she] knew this scene, almost word for word, from beginning to end. [She] had been through it innumerable times with the Mormons”
(Going Out 38). Johnson eventually realizes that the NOW leadership was using “the same methods of intimidation and fear to control the group that [she] had watched the
158
Elders use all of [her] life in the church” (Going Out 38). These tactics include the above blind, unquestioning allegiance to the leadership’s decisions, and facilitating a hierarchical structure that intentionally subordinates certain members.
Johnson realizes that the same hierarchal structure in place in Mormonism is also in place in NOW, just with different leaders directing the organization. At one of the
NOW meetings, she has a sudden realization about the practice of “consciousness raising” in which feminists discuss topics related to gender in a nonstructured, discussion setting. During this session, Johnson wonders: “how could I have not noticed how hierarchal this way of talking was, how much power jockeying went on? I saw with dreadful clarity how completely we didn’t hear one another, let alone hear one another out” (Going Out 134). Later, this realization motivates her actions as she invents an alternative to consciousness raising that she deems “hearing into being.” Johnson further reflects on why power jockeying between women is occurring inside an organization that advocates for gender equality. She explains this is happening because “it feels wonderful to control other women, to keep them in the position where we can tease and torment them… for the good of the movement” (Going Out 58). Relishing this feeling of control is insidious in any setting but especially within NOW as an organization founded to advocate for gender equality. The hierarchical structure, which dominates women by asking for blind allegiance and silences them through “consciousness raising” sessions because it “feels wonderful,” is similar to the Mormon Church with its infallible leaders, who organize testimony meetings to shore up faith.
Understanding that women also take pleasure in power, Johnson begins to argue for advocacy outside of NOW and its reformist measures that work inside the hierarchal
159 power system. Not only does Johnson draw on Audre Lorde’s famous line,89 she delineates the futility of reforming a fundamentally inequitable system (Going Out 154).
Johnson argues “there is simply no getting to a feminist values system by acting out of the old patriarchal values of competition, expediency, hierarchy” (Wildfire 41). She even goes so far as to call the liberal feminist modus operandi, political and social reform, dangerous and unfounded (Going Out 161). Although some are fearful of leaving behind the current, hierarchical system (Going Out 50), Johnson insists on more radical change instead of political and social reform, in order to fight “the symptoms of inequality and not the cause” (Going Out 152). Upon feeling burned out from her activism, Johnson discovers that all the members of NOW, including herself “were collaborating [in patriarchy]. We saw more and more clearly that we were using all our energy to treat the symptoms, and had none left over to do anything about the cause” (Going Out 152; my italics). Here, Johnson explicates the difference between the symptoms and the causes of women’s oppression, which effectively highlights the major difference between liberal and radical feminism. Key to understanding Johnson’s articulation of liberal feminism is her claim that political reform is inadequate as it involves “treating the symptoms” of a more fundamental cause whereas treating the cause would call for a radical reordering of society by challenging existing social norms that undergird various social institutions.
In addition to her critique of liberal feminism, Johnson further legitimates her move towards more radical advocacy by framing radicalism as an “American tradition”
89 “A master’s tools will never dismantle a master’s house” from Lorde’s Sister/Outsider: A Collection of Essays and Speeches. Published by Crossings Press, the same publishing company that published Johnson’s Going Out of Our Minds: The Metaphysics of Liberation.
160 and drawing on historical feminists who similarly advocate a turn to radicalism. Johnson hints at her impending radicalism at the end of Housewife to Heretic when she writes:
“immoderation—radicalism, if you will—is in the mainstream of the most hallowed
American traditions” (403). Indeed, juxtaposing the terms “radicalism” with
“mainstream” may appear contradictory, as “radical” connotes the fringes of society and is not inside the “mainstream.” Yet remembering “radicalism” as “a most hallowed [of]
American traditions” renders the movement more palpable to a larger swath of the population as it is framed as already existing in the American tradition.
Moreover, Johnson legitimates her turn to radicalism by drawing from various suffragist figures that offer a historical precedent for turning to radical feminism. In particular, she notes that suffragist Elizabeth Oakes Smith, who addressed the 1852 women’s rights convention, asks those in attendance if they “fully understand that
[feminism] aims at nothing less than an entire subversion of the present order of society, a dissolution of the whole social compact?” (Going Out 182). Here, Smith is supporting a radical reordering of society that reflects the same reordering Johnson calls for 150 years later. Eventually, Johnson realizes that liberal feminism, embodied by the NOW organization, will not change by accepting a more radical ideology and she quickly decides “there was no place for me” (Going Out 178). This inspires her to turn to the process of invention to work outside of existing structures and thereby build a more equitable world, so as to “let go” of existing structures in patriarchy, “before there’s an alternative to hold onto” (Going Out 324). In understanding Johnson’s invention processes, it is key to acknowledge that women must go through a free fall where they
“let go” of patriarchal structures—a type of destruction that makes way for more gender
161 equal alternatives.
The System-Splitting Turn to Invention
Written after her popular text From Housewife to Heretic, Going Out of Our
Minds traces Johnson’s involvement inside the National Organization for Women while
Wildfire considers her life as a radical feminist, outside the liberal feminist movement. In these consecutive texts, Johnson integrates herself into the national feminist movement, critiques this movement as not radical enough, and cultivates an invention process that constructs a more gender equal world. More specifically, her rhetoric circulating around invention involves three stages. First, she explains that this kind of feminist invention does not have a historical precedent and therefore, women involved in this process are eschewing legitimacy and mired in terrifying ambiguity. Second, she delineates this feminist invention as a process that involves a series of steps, which can be described and worked through (see epigraph for example). Lastly, she revises her invention process and critiques the earlier need for a step-by-step prescription—she effectively ruptures the process of invention with the practice of instantaneous change.
Johnson starts by describing her invention process as having no historical precedent thereby marking this segment of her rhetoric as different than that which precedes it. Although she characterizes historical figures, like Susan B. Anthony,90 as
90 Particularly when she offers the following quote from Anthony: “cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve their reputation or social standards can never bring about reform” (Housewife to Heretic 399), thereby implying that feminists who intend to change the system must not care about their reputation and be brave enough to forge a new path. Yet it is important to note that Anthony, herself, did not retreat into seclusion or develop a feminist commune to promote elements of gender
162 potential radicals, Johnson argues that this radical invention has no precedent, and as such is eschewing legitimacy because there exists no place to draw from in the current system that would permit this kind of radical invention. To this point, Johnson writes,
“we search frantically for historical models, but there are none. We must create the models as we go, and we are numb with terror at the challenge. Nothing in our culture tells us this is even possible, to say nothing of giving us a hint about how we do it”
(Going Out 50). Here, she emphasizes the feelings of terror and fear that permeate the invention of a new, feminist world without historical precedent and thus legitimacy as it involves creating a new system altogether. She again reiterates this sense of ambiguity, of proceeding into unknown territory with no known grip or purchase. She explains that feminists must call forth their bravery and relinquish their reliance on the past: “what we see before us then is a new, barely perceptible ‘reality’ that we ourselves must now call into clarity and power, a place where we have no firm foothold yet” (Going Out 50). For
Johnson, radical feminist invention is a “barely perceptible” form of reality because it demands a “system-splitting dream,” a direct movement away from current reality (Going
Out 156). In order to guide other feminists in this invention process, she outlines a step- by-step method that further fleshes out how the process could proceed.
For women, the act of invention is inherently different than that presented within the traditional, masculinized canon. Ritchie and Ronald note that the “act of invention for women… begins in a different place from Aristotle’s conception of invention: Women must first invent a way to speak in the context of being silenced and rendered invisible as
equality—instead she continued to work through the legislative system to create change for women.
163 persons” (xvii). Johnson creates an invention process for women that renders them visible, exemplified in the epigraph beginning this chapter and in a process she advocates, that builds on second wave consciousness raising, entitled “hearing into being.” Johnson describes “hearing into being,” as part of the three-step series that involves: 1) “relearning abilit[ies] that patriarchy says are irrelevant and that it scorns,” 2)
“freeing ourselves from internalized oppression’ through deconstructive critique,” and 3) practicing “hearing into being” with small groups of women (Going Out 155).
Instead of the dialogue integral to consciousness raising, “hearing into being” requires that a group listen in silence for thirty minutes as one woman thinks and speaks her way through a topic of her choice. Johnson reports on the revolutionary and personal upheaval that happens when women engage in this activity. She explains, “being seriously and completely listened to, being genuinely heard, hardly ever happens to women in ordinary everyday life. Many women cry the first time they try this process”
(Going Out 133). Later on this page, Johnson reiterates the importance and potentially revolutionary nature of this invention process: “this is a powerful process. Being heard in this way lets us peel off the layers of our minds, come closer and closer to what I call the old wise woman’s mind” (Going Out 133). This powerful process, “hearing into being,” does not involve competitive dialogue or conversation where certain, aggressive voices dominate; instead it permits even the most demure women to break through their silence and invent a way to be heard. Each is given their own turn. Ede, Glenn, and Lundsford argue that feminist theory/invention requires “knowledge based in the personal, in lived experience, be valued and accepted as important and significant” (412). This comment is echoed in Johnson’s invention process as she calls for women to acknowledge their
164 personal lived experience by requiring listeners to sit in silence and to not offer preconceived examples—in other words, to relish in the ambiguity of their lived experience.
Johnson notes that “Hearing into Being” requires that the various conditions listed above are met and if so the women involved “quickly move past known territory out onto the new frontiers of our thought” (Going Out 132). Here, she reemphasizes the bravery and uncertainty marking the entire endeavor of feminist invention. For Johnson, female invention, as described in the process of “thinking into being,” is frightening because it requires eschewing and abandoning legitimacy in order to overcome existing hierarchal structures such as competitive dialoguing and giving examples. She encourages her readers to create literal and metaphorical space permeated with ambiguity that allows for the emergence of possibility through radical thinking and speaking outside of traditional, masculine norms.
After delineating feminist invention as a process, Johnson realizes that her reliance on a step-by-step process and her faith in a changeable future are examples of traditional, masculine norms. Instead she begins to advocate in Wildfire for instantaneous change—a type of change that does not rely on the development of a process terminating in the hopeful promise of a bright future. Johnson draws attention to the importance of the present when she notes that this “moment is the only time we have” (Wildfire 38).
This emphasis on the instantaneous potential of the present is reiterated again when
Johnson argues that the “future reality is transformed when we change our feelings about ourselves—and hence our behavior—in the present” (Wildfire 48, 197, and 13).
Therefore, feminists, and women in general, should not rely on a set process, but instead,
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Johnson suggests, they should invent a more equitable world in the present by changing their behavior and feelings about themselves currently.
Johnson explains that her focus on instantaneous, personal change in the present is in reaction to patriarchy, which fronts the promise of an equitable future as a method to control revolutionary activism. Johnson posits, “focusing on the future is precisely what patriarchy wishes us to do because it robs us of our greatest asset and ally, the present.
Since it is the only time we’re alive and therefore the only time we can act, the present is the only time we can change anything, the only time we can have real power” (Going Out
304). Instantaneous change is crucial for Johnson because the present is all that is theoretically available. Believing otherwise or preparing for some illusory future is too hopeful and a patriarchal distraction from what can happen in this moment. In addition to focusing on the present, Johnson also emphasizes that this change should begin within ourselves. “The truth,” explains Johnson, “is that we can only change ourselves, nothing or nobody else. This is not a bleak view, however, but quite the contrary, because the change in ourselves not only can but always does change something or somebody else, and it is the only thing that can” (Going Out 306). Although her clarifications for change appear limiting at first glance, they are important because they help radical feminists focus their attention on what can change and the potential implications of these changes for others.
In many ways, Johnson’s daring and courageous invention process is strikingly distinct from the rhetorical strategies presented by former and later Mormon feminists, specifically Wells and Kelly. Johnson’s rhetorical strategies are unique because she is inventing a more equitable societal structure for women, instead of attempting to
166 legitimize women within the existing structure. As an advocate for building this new structure from ambiguity and personal experience, Johnson’s invention process does not legitimize women inside the existing structure as she calls for an eschewing and not a reforming of patriarchy, hierarchy, or traditional, masculine norms.
Following Invention: Seclusion and Inventing Feminist Communes
Inventing a new, more equitable structure, for Johnson, involves separating herself and her community and drawing on space and ideology that is purposefully different from the older, patriarchal system. Indeed, Johnson calls on women to separate themselves from men in order to create a world that is based on their radically different values and modes of being. In the end of Wildfire, she not only crafts this call, she starts to imagine the shape that these separate, feminist communes might take.
Johnson does not prefer to call herself a “separatist” because it places the patriarchal society as the center, as something her imagined community is separate from.
None-the-less, she describes these imagined communities as spaces outside of patriarchy, where “women of all varieties, colors, abilities, ages and classes, whether Lesbian or separatists or not, must come together in harmonious diversity to restore and rebalance women’s ecology of values” (Wildfire 267). Here, these women of diverse ideologies and sexual orientations work to reestablish women’s values through which they bring about a more equitable world. Again, Johnson highlights the importance of women’s communities, apart from men, when she imagines them as the “surest, fastest and most effective way to bring about the new world, the world in which women are free”
(Wildfire 263). Johnson emphasizes that this new equitable world is based “on women’s
167 values, modes of being and world view, [in effect] building communities to provide for women what we want and need” (Wildfire 263). Restoring, reestablishing, and rebalancing this new world on what women already value and their current ways of thinking suggests that there are elements of an equitable world are already at play, yet they must be uncovered (possibly) through her invention processes and instantaneous change.
In her writing, Johnson is hopeful that these communities will develop and flourish. She poetically describes their development as “womanhelixes strewn starlike across the Milky Way of the world’s cities, towns, countrysides, each autonomous in its particular purpose and design but connected to all the others… [through] frequent visits and living exchanges, by lively interactions, and most important, by intuitive genius”
(Wildfire 249). These starlike communities, punctuating already existing areas of civilization, are in effect a call for feminist communes separate from men— similar to the one Johnson creates when she founds La Casa Feminista in New Mexico. Johnson further describes the new gender equal world as a female invention: “I dream of the world they spin, the universe they weave, out of the strands of their splendid women’s minds and spirits” (Wildfire 272). Stemming strictly from women, their minds, spirits, values, and modes of being, Johnson imagines that these separatists’ communities have the potential to develop a new, more gender equal system outside of patriarchy and the activism it permits (i.e., liberal feminism).
In addition to these brief descriptions at the end of Wildfire, I look to depictions of the feminist commune Johnson established for more evidence illustrating what she is inventing or imagining for women. After eschewing legitimacy in the Mormon Church
168 and the national feminist movement, Johnson is more interested in structures that are lateral and allow for broad-based forms of consensus instead of those that are hierarchal and enforce top-down decision making. Even the term that she frequently uses,
“commune,” suggests an emphasis on lateral organizational structures as the Oxford
English Dictionary defines “commune” as “a small community whose members share common interests, work, and income, and typically own property collectively” (my italics). As previously mentioned, Johnson created a commune for women in New
Mexico called La Casa Feminista, where she held conferences like the “Feminist
Hullabaloo.” In her later work, specifically The Sisterwitch Conspiracy, Johnson starts to imagine a world full of these feminist communes.
For women, Johnson argues the world was once female centered and pre- patriarchal. In an interview for Off Our Back about Sisterwitch, she posits that “once upon a time there was a totally unified female-centered world in which a bond among females of every species existed (Weinbaum 81). Therefore, Johnson advises that women need to either remember this time before patriarchy divided women or they need to invent, “to get to the life of the female species to help us go forward” (Weinbaum 81).
And through events like the “Feminist Hullabaloo” and other consciousness raising activities, the memory of the female species “is starting to come back” (Weinbaum 81).
At the last Hullabaloo in 2007, Johnson posited that part of inventing this new world means fighting for environmental justice, as the “planet is fighting for her life and we must fight for her” (Seelhoff 57). Other speakers at this conference built upon Johnson’s ideas to articulate what this “new world” will entail. Hye Sook Hwang suggested that feminists “redefined [our organizational structures] according to gynocentric principles.
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Our understanding of these principles will deepen as we study… cultures which are matrilineal, matri-focal and matrilocal” (Seelhoff 58). Mary Daly proposed one way to disseminate information about pre-patriarchal society, through “gynoversities where women travel and teach other women and girls about their histories” (Seelhoof 58). By the end of this session, women were said to be embracing, holding hands, and kicking their shoes off to dance together. What Johnson is inventing is what these women describe, as pre-patriarchal, lateral communities that are environmentally conscious, reciprocal, and involve education for-women-by-women.
Conclusions: Eschewing Legitimacy and Inventing a “Womanhelix”
Through an analysis of Johnson’s writing, this chapter traces two cycles of legitimacy where she works to legitimate herself and her ideas inside two hierarchical structures, Mormonism and Liberal feminism. These cycles entail exposing women’s illegitimacy inside a particular system (i.e., Mormonism and liberal feminism), working to rectify women’s position of illegitimacy, continuing to find the system lacking, and eventually abandoning the system for a space that allows for radical feminist invention.
While history does not remember Johnson as successfully legitimizing herself or radical ideas inside either of these structures, she serves as an important counterpoint to the other two case studies, precisely because of her seeming failure and the implications of this failure (i.e., crafting an inventive space where women can imagine a new world—an accomplishment that does not seem like much of a failure).
The life and writing of Sonia Johnson represents the second slice within the discourse entitled “Twentieth-century Mormon feminism.” The final slice examined in
170 this project comes forty years later when another unlikely feminist, Kate Kelly, starts to question women’s position inside the Church structure. Although Kelly and Johnson are met with a similar response from the Mormon leadership—namely excommunication—
Kelly’s writing departs from Johnsons’ as she focuses on crafting strategically delivered arguments both online and in person. She specifically focuses on delivering her message, advocating for female ordination inside the Mormon faith, because she is attempting to legitimize Mormon women by earning them more authority.
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Citing nature drawing on delivery gaining associating arrangement or being context strategies visibility with others patterns
External à
gaining through performing/claimin citing people citing texts citing experience inventing legitimacy popularity g legitimacy
ßInternal
Figure 5: Continuum of Legitimacy Pointing out Inventing Legitimacy
CHAPTER 5
KATE KELLY: CRAFTING LEGITIMACY THROUGH DELIVERY
"Ordain Women does not seek members or followers. Rather, it provides a space where Mormons can openly speak about their concerns about gender inequality and hope that the prophet and apostles pray about women’s ordination. "
–Kate Kelly from “OW Conversations,” August 1, 2014
Introduction
Similar to E.B. Wells and Sonia Johnson, Kate Kelly challenges women’s “lesser” position inside the Mormon Church and attempts to cultivate legitimacy for women through her writing and speaking. Unlike her feminist foremothers, Kelly does not imagine or invent a new world for women, nor does she subtly arrange articles into a pattern that forwards a feminist agenda. Instead, Kelly delivers her message strategically, in person and online, to advocate for Mormon women as worthy of ordination because they are respectful, “prospective priesthood holders.” Furthermore, she departs from
Wells and Johnson by restricting her engagement with larger feminist issues until after her excommunication from the Mormon Church; in that, she does not advocate for women to enter male-dominated professions or gain the vote like Wells nor does she actively support and organize for political causes like Johnson with the Equal Rights
Amendment. As such, her early writings are mostly concerned with issues of women’s
173 legitimacy inside the Mormon Church, expressly in the form of female ordination.
The above opening epigram is one example of Kelly strategically delivering her message and departing from the rhetorical strategies that marked Johnson and Mormon feminists in the 1980s and 1990s. In this quotation, Kelly defines the mission of her organization and its website, Ordain Women.org, as a space where women can “hope” for prayers through the appropriate channels, the prophet and apostles as a direct line to God, instead of demanding equality from these male leaders. She also does not label those who visit or actively participate on the website as “followers” or “members” because this labeling would implicitly create two factions: those Mormons that support female ordination and those who do not. Both of these rhetorical moves are repeated in various ways again and again throughout Kelly’s work, as they function to make OW appear: 1) as nonthreatening, 2) as respectful “prospective” holders of the priesthood, and 3) as separate from the actions of earlier feminists. In her later discourse, Kelly traverses into apostasy and threatening discourse when she relays her acute emotional response, provoked by the priesthood’s reaction to women’s ordination and overall legitimacy.
In this chapter, I proceed by historicizing the canon of delivery to illustrate the importance of women delivering messages in public spaces. Following this brief historicization, I delineate the overlapping pre-textual context91 of women’s rights inside the Mormon Church from the 1970s to present while specifically focusing on Kate
91 With this term “pre-textual context,” which I employ throughout the dissertation, I am specifically delineating the context preceding the text and thereby functioning as part of the exigency for the text. Methodological justification for explaining the “pre-textual context” is more fully integrated in earlier chapters, particularly the first analysis chapter on Emmeline B. Wells.
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Kelly’s background as a devout Mormon and feminist activist. Next, I transition into describing the constellation of texts I draw from and their defining attributes, which I will use in my analysis to construct an argument about Kelly’s delivery and how it makes
Mormon women’s legitimacy a strategic possibility. Then I outline my archival and critical methods, named discourse historical analysis, influenced by fields such as rhetoric, English, and communication studies. After, I move into my analysis focusing on
Kelly’s spoken and written delivery in spaces that are online and in person. I close with a brief discussion concerning the implications of this analysis by making connections among the three feminist, ex-Mormon rhetors.
This chapter will follow an outline similar to the proceeding chapters on Wells and Johnson. In order to fully understand the exigency and the strategic delivery that
Kelly employs, these pre-textual contexts are essential reading: the rhetorical canon of delivery and its relationship to legitimacy from the 1500s-present, Mormon history from
1980-present, and Kelly’s personal history from 1983-present.92 According to Van Dijk, discourse historical approach involves employing a historical lens, “to increase the appreciation of the historical importance of rhetorical texts; to determine how rhetoric invites a construction or reconstruction of events and phenomenon” (160). As such, I embed my rhetorical analysis within a reconstruction of events in order to foster an appreciation for the discourse’s lineage and craft an argument that relies upon this pre- textual context.
92 Please note that none of these historical sketchings are definitive as all function to give a trace or outline for some of the most important events. These next three sections are intentionally succinct so as not to distract from important analysis of the rhetorical devices.
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Pre-Textual Context: Otherwise Historical Context
Legitimacy, Delivery, and Gender
Female rhetors and how they are treated inside these public spaces effectively determine a rhetor’s legitimacy. Without social consensus, legitimacy is impossible, and without addressing the public in person or in print, social consensus is impossible, therefore delivering a message to a public audience is a fundamental but often dangerous step for rhetors seeking to craft legitimacy for themselves and their cause. While power structures can and do legitimate causes, it is the social consensus backing those in power that renders the structure legitimate.93 Furthermore, those who control public space not only influence who is legitimate at the present moment but who is remembered as legitimate throughout history (i.e., through traces like monuments and the creation of public archives). As such, delivery as a rhetorical canon is one of the most important and powerful canons in terms of constructing legitimacy for any rhetor, but especially for a rhetor historically disallowed from speaking in public—any rhetor gendered female.94
Feminist rhetorical scholars note that delivery and its acceptance involve far more than the speaker’s “appearance, voice, gesture, expression,” timing, or the message’s appearance, especially if delivered online (Mountford 3). Instead delivery “involves a
93 In his talk concerning systemic racism, Ta-Nehisi Coates described legitimacy as stemming from a following (or social consensus) that involves respect and not only force. According to him, power structures can force society to comply with commands but without public respect they are not a legitimate social institution—it is a following built from public respect that legitimates an institution. As such, my understanding of legitimacy and its use throughout this dissertation are influenced by Coates’ definition. 94 Arguably a rhetor can invent and arrange writing in private without any social and physical consequences. But once the rhetor delivers this writing in a public forum, these consequences are more difficult to escape.
176 complex interplay among a speaker, an audience, and a plethora of social and ideological factors” that frequently hinge on the audiences’ preconceived notions about the rhetors’ identity (Mountford 3). As Mountford states, “delivery [as a rhetorical canon] has not pertained equally to both men and women because… women were culturally prohibited from standing and speaking in public, their voices and forms acceptable only in the spectator role (if at all)” (2). Messages delivered from a female rhetor function as a break from cultural norms since delivery is/was informed by ideologies delineating the public and private spheres, with their attendant expectations concerning gender roles
(Mountford 3). As such, women were historically excluded and disallowed from speaking in a public arena and when they did speak, it was considered an anomaly, a type of resistance or activism.
There are consequences for female rhetors who deliver their messages in public, both in person and more frequently, online. Women speaking in public faced punishments for their delivery—which included a torturous device called the “brank,” the labeling of their person as “promiscuous” or even threats of violence. Enders, analyzing the persecution of women as witches throughout the 1500s, describes a device called the
“brank,” which was used to silence women. This device was made of iron and it “blind[s] women’s eyes… and “forc[es] her to ‘hold her tongue’ by physically pinning it…[in an effort] to stifle [her] dangerous speech” (52). Although the brank is no longer used, hostile audiences employ other, equally dangerous devices in an effort to silence female rhetors.
During the late 1800s-early 1900s, Zaeske explores how consequences for female rhetors became more social as women addressing mixed gender audiences were labeled
177 as “promiscuous.” Labeling female rhetors as “improper” functioned as a social consequence to limit women, diminish their influence, disallow their voices from being heard or their causes from becoming legitimate. As a case study, Zaeske analyzes the speeches of famous abolitionists, Angelina and Sarah Grimké, and the reception of their speeches. She finds that women who delivered their speeches in public, like the Grimkés, were no longer considered pure or pious and instead were viewed as a danger to the social order because of their ideas about abolition and women’s rights. Not only did the
Grimkés face social censoring, they endured threats of physical violence as Pennsylvania
Hall was attacked with rocks and bricks the night they spoke (to be destroyed later that night in a fire).95 Throughout the 1800s, it remained only female speakers whose moral worth was questioned when they dared to speak in public. At this point in time, the social sanctioning and physical violence women endured when they dared speak left many screaming in silence.96
Historically, women were not welcomed to speak or act in any arena, including law, politics, education, religion, or literature (Enders). In Rhetoric Retold, Cheryl Glenn points to Anne Askew as a female rhetor who braved to speak in public and testify to her belief in women’s spiritual rights. By advocating for women’s ordination, Askew violated the “biblical admonition that men alone were ordained by God to serve as
95 Zaeske argues that the Grimkés responded to their sanctioning as “promiscuous,” by employing “a rhetoric of gendered morality that emphasized the special nature of female benevolence and the social utility of exercising that benevolence through the spoken word” (Zaeske 235). 96 A current example of this form of public sanctioning would be Anita Sarkeesian and #gamergate. Sarkeesian was harassed for her project entitled Tropes VS Women, where she critically analyzed female representations in video games and received death and rape threats on her social media account as a result.
178 priests… [women] could hardly be accepted as legitimate expounders of faith” (157; my italics). Although Askew was writing in the 1550s, her ideas about women’s spiritual rights echo in the writings of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Mary Daly, E.B. Wells, Sonia
Johnson, and, of course, Kate Kelly.
Since women were not expected to speak in public or deliver their messages in public spaces, when they used this canon of delivery, they fundamentally altered how the canon functioned (Mountford 69). This chapter parses the extent to which Kelly was successful in delivering her message online and in person so as to craft a position of legitimacy for women inside her faith.
Women in the Mormon Church Since Johnson: 1979-present
The intended audience determines the norms expected for a message’s delivery— in this case, the larger Mormon Church. For this particular audience, their norms for delivery are shaped by the following pre-textual context.
After Johnson was excommunicated for “apostasy” in December 1979, the conversation about women’s position in the Mormon Church was not extinguished.
Instead of organizing around social issues, such as the failed Equal Rights Amendment, these women started to turn their attention inward. Many did not leave the church but they did decide to enact change from within—to craft a position of legitimacy for women inside this hierarchal institution. At this time, feminist, Mormon women sought spiritual equity for women by working towards female ordination, which involve inclusion in church decisions and the ability to “speak out without fear of sanctions” (Park).
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Mormon feminists continued to discuss these
179 issues in public and private venues, such as debates, conferences, online forums, books, and articles.97 Voices who were prominent in this conversation included Mormon feminist writers and scholars such as Margaret Toscano, Maxine Hanks, Lavina Fielding
Anderson, and Kelli Frame (Smith).98 In successive response to these voices, the Church leadership reminded women of their position, as counterparts to men. In 1985, Gordon B.
Hinckley, who was serving as Second Counselor of the First Presidency, publically stated that women “have not been granted the power of the priesthood by God… and that they should be thankful for their blessings” (Toscano 157). Ten years later, confirmed as
Church President, Hinckley reiterated his ideas about women’s complementary position to men in the faith (Toscano).99 Within this twenty-year time frame, another notable event that sparked a response from the Mormon Church leadership involved a conference entitled the “Spaces and Silences Conference,” held in April 1993. This conference is important because many attribute to it a string of excommunications of popular, public
Mormon intellectuals that occurred in September 1993 (now known as the “September
97 For instance, a public debate was held at East High School in Salt Lake City entitled “Should Women be Ordained?” in 1989. Margaret Toscano was one of the speakers in support of women’s ordination and she claims that her participation, her public support for women’s spiritual rights, led to her being relieved of her teaching position at BYU. 98 Toscano, Hanks, and Anderson were known and excommunicated for their scholarly research and writings on women’s position in the Mormon Church. Frame is remembered for founding the Mormon Women’s Forum, a feminist newsletter based in Salt Lake City, with a readership of over 1,300 (Smith). 99 Boyd K. Packer, President of the twelve apostles, also publically spoke about women’s position in the Mormon Church. He explained that “women and men hold complementary roles of priesthood-motherhood” and that the “limitation of priesthood to men… is a tribute to the incomparable place of women in the plan of salvation” (Toscano 158).
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Six”) (Toscano).100
After the 1990s, Mormon feminism seemed to go underground to the point where religious commentator and Salt Lake Tribune reporter, Peggy Fletcher Stack, penned an article asking: “Where have all the feminists gone?” Toscano notes that public gatherings to debate, learn, or advocate for Mormon feminism declined during this time as thirty or fewer attendees typically turned out for any one event (Toscano 161). In 2010, women’s issues in the Mormon Church started to become the focus of public discourse once again.
But women’s ordination did not formally enter the conversation until Spring 2013 with the launch of the Ordain Women’s (OW) website (March) and their first public conference at the University of Utah (April). I will not go into detail about Ordain
Women’s history of activism, as most of this chapter describes this lineage in depth.
Since the 2014 excommunication of OW’s founder Kate Kelly, there continues a healthy conversation surrounding women’s ordination. For example, Fletcher Stack points to a surge in online writing since OW was founded—“blogs, podcasts and websites all aimed at Mormon women’s issues” (“Two Years After”). Furthermore, Mormon scholar, Joanna Brooks, argues that the “internet became a major game changer for
Mormon feminists… women who may have once felt isolated in their congregations…
[found] a safe space [online] to communicate and collaborate” (Stromberg 7). It can be deduced from the proliferation of online writing that the Internet provides a space for
100 These members mostly included academics such as Lynne Kanavel Whitesides, Avraham Gileadi, Paul Toscano, Maxine Hanks, Lavina Fielding Anderson, and D. Michael Quinn. Although Margaret Toscano was not formally excommunicated until 2000, many argue that she should also be considered part of this group because her ideas were similar and in conversation with these other voices.
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Mormon women to hash out their ideas about gender equality inside their faith.
This recent surge in feminist Mormon activism has yielded some important changes for women of the Mormon Church. For example, three Mormon women were appointed to serve on general counsels that were previously all male (Stack “3 Women”).
Women were also discouraged but not disallowed from watching a televised version of a conference session held only for priesthood holders.101 In photo spreads depicting the
Church leadership, female leaders are featured along with male general authorities. The
Mormon Church even published a history of the first fifty years of the Relief Society, the all-women’s auxiliary organization, when it was arguably the most progressive and innovative (Stack “Two Years After”). These gains may seem incremental but they are not insignificant considering the intensely hierarchical and patriarchal structure of the
Mormon Church.
In spite of these inroads, there remains continued resistance from the Church leadership. In 2014, one of the Twelve Apostles, Dallin H. Oaks, echoed the earlier voices of Boyd and Hinckley, when he emphasized “men alone hold the priesthood office and therefore the keys to direct the Church” (Toscano 165). To some extent, the fervor that marked the height of the organized OW movement has died down, but conversation about women’s ordination remains in the public imagination, even if Kate Kelly is no longer the face of the movement. As such, these brave, feminist Mormon women
101 Conference in this context refers to the church-wide meeting held biannually in the Spring and the Fall. Historically, female members are encouraged to attend general assembly, but they were barred from attending sessions meant only for priesthood holders (typically any male member over the age of twelve who holds the priesthood is permitted to attend).
182 continue to work to “remember a day…[when it is so] ordained, that women speak and represent their own cause” and craft their own fate both inside and outside of their church
(Wells “Reveries of a Woman”).
Kate Kelly: Feminist, Lawyer, Women’s Rights Activist
Kathleen Marie Kelly, known as “Kate” Kelly, was born into a Mormon household in Hood River, Oregon on October 29th 1980. She was the eldest child and a second-generation Mormon as her parents were both converts to the faith. Like Sonia
Johnson, her early life was marked by a series of accomplishments condoned and supported by the Mormon Church. On her organization’s webpage, Kelly first introduces herself by building her own credibility according to experiences and positions that are important to Mormonism. As Kelly crafts her ethos, she draws on her experiences as a
Mormon missionary, a student at Brigham Young University, and a devoted woman married to her Mormon husband in the Salt Lake City Temple. Her positions as an educated woman, a return missionary, and a married woman build a strong ethos for
Kelly within this specified context of Mormonism (ordainwomen.org). Her positions correspond with experiences that Mormonism actively promotes—specifically seeking an education, propagating the faith, and devoting yourself to your family.
In addition to these markings of devotion, Kelly is also well educated in the language of legitimacy and feminism as she earned a law degree from American
University in 2012, where she specialized in human rights law. I would posit that Kelly is educated in the language of legitimacy and feminism because she went to one of the only law schools founded by women, American University, and she focused on human rights
183 law—with women’s equality as one of the basic human rights. Furthermore, most law degrees, by design, teach students about legitimacy, in that these students work within existing structures (precedent) to craft legal arguments. Legitimacy theory tells us that rhetors arguing for their legitimacy must understand the existing structure or institution in which they seek authority and use recognizable strategies to gain entry.
Although she demonstrated inklings of activism while attending BYU,102 Kelly arguably became more radical and critical of patriarchal structures in law school.
According to her personal website, she worked a variety of “sundry amazing jobs” including: as a research assistant to the chair of United Nations Committee on torture, as a postgrad fellow at the Women’s Refugee Commission, and as an attorney for the RFK
Center for Justice and Human Rights (Kelly “Kate Kelly Esq”). For Kelly, the “personal became political” after advocating for the rights of international women, wherein she turned her social justice efforts inward and became aware of the position of women in her faith. In 2013, Kelly founded Ordain Women (OW), an activist group that specifically seeks to establish equal rights for women inside the Mormon Church. As the founder, she launched a highly successful website, Ordainwomen.org, to further organize and support women’s religious rights—this website currently has over three million views
(Kelly “Kate Kelly Esq.”). Along with other board members of OW, Kelly advocated for women’s rights by holding “faith based actions” at General Conference Meetings, giving
102 She organized a 100-student protest against the firing of an employee, Todd Hendricks, for writing a critical letter to the editor published in the student newspaper, The Daily Universe. More specifically, this letter critiqued the student body election process at BYU, suggesting that it was subject to influence by the university administration.
184 speeches, participating in interviews, as well as writing editorials for news outlets and personal blog posts on the OW website. Like Johnson, Kelly endured an excommunication trial that received national attention. According to the Associated
Press, she was accused of “apostasy,” which is “defined [by the Mormon Church] as repeated and public advocacy of positions that oppose church teachings” (Associated
Press). She also publically went through the process of appealing this decision to her stake president and the First Presidency, who both rejected this appeal and did not reinstate her membership.
Similar to Johnson, who moved to Latin America following her excommunication, Kelly left the United States when she was offered a position as a Legal
Advisor for Legal Action Worldwide, where she advocated for legislation to stop sexual exploitation and violence in Somalia (Kelly “Kate Kelly Esq.”). But unlike Johnson,
Kelly later returned to fight for the reproductive and sexual rights of Utah women after
Utah Governor Gary Herbert attempted to defund Planned Parenthood (Whitehurst).
Presently, Kelly continues in her position as Strategic Advocacy and Policy Council at the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah. Similar to her feminist foremothers Wells and Johnson, Kelly advocates for women’s position politically and socially as well as for their legitimacy within the Mormon Church.
Digital Archive: Kelly’s Delivery Online and in Person
In this chapter, I base my claims concerning Kelly and how she employs delivery in person and online by analyzing a significant portion of her writing—most of which
185 appears in a digitized format on her website or online editions of local newspapers.103
More specifically, her online writing is often featured as a blog post on Ordain
Women.org or as an opinion piece in local newspapers (i.e., Salt Lake Tribune) and sometimes national sources (i.e., Huffington Post). Occasionally, these forms of online writing include images that are of a public and personal nature with embedded pdfs that involve more in-depth explanations of her positions/responses or links to other religious organizations that also support ordination.
It is important to note that, in addition to her writing on this website, I analyze the design of the website as evidence of her delivery strategies as she was the original creator of OrdainWomen.org (to understand how Kelly’s delivery interacts with other rhetorical strategies, please see Figure 6 at the end of this chapter). While this website was crafted from a Wordpress design, which means she did not complete the entire code for the website, she did select certain rhetorical options by choosing to enable or disable specific functions (but most significantly, the commenting function). These digitized writings make up the bulk of Kelly’s work and therefore most of my findings stem from this online archive. I also examine her in-person delivery strategies as an audience member at a few of her speeches. As such, these sources are ideal for gathering evidence from which to parse the relationship between delivery and legitimacy, online and in person.
Furthermore, Kelly is the ideal writer, researcher, activist, and rhetor as she is highly aware of her delivery and how she is represented in both these spaces as is clear in her
103 I am purposefully not claiming to have read and analyzed all of her writings but instead a majority of them because there is no definitive archive for Kelly, as there exists with Johnson or Wells.
186 pithy responses to journalists and other commentators (Kelly “Central”).
Methods: Studying the Rhetorical Core of Kate Kelly’s Work104
Similar to the chapters on EB Wells and Sonia Johnson, the method employed in this chapter was specifically designed for analysis of Kelly’s archive wherein I employ a method that is attuned to the size, scope, and variability in genres and mediums populating her archive. Since Kelly’s archive involves a variety of genres and mediums, I do not analyze arrangement patterns nor do I consider how she employs invention processes, because she does not take her reader through the process of reimagining entirely new structures. I do, however, analyze Kelly’s rhetorical appeals, mediums, and genres, through the repetitive and pervasive use of one rhetorical canon, the canon of delivery. It is important to note that I did not impose this canon upon Kelly’s writings, instead I took a “bottom-up” approach, which involved repeatedly reading her writings and looking for discursive patterns to emerge. Kelly employs strategies for delivering her messages that are expressly tailored to her audience and her purpose, as they are in service of crafting legitimacy for women in the Mormon Church.
Analyzing Kelly’s archive for delivery strategies and patterns meant focusing on how this rhetor shapes the content and appearance of her discourse so that it is more
104 Please note that this section is shorter than the methods sections featured in the other two chapters because I am employing many of the same methods and do not want to be redundant. Also the analysis portion of this chapter is more succinct than the previous two chapters since Kate Kelly has not (yet) published to the same extent as Johnson (with three full length monographs) and Wells (with over 350 newsletters). Unlike the other chapters, the rhetorical discourse analyzed inside this chapter continues to unfold and therefore the claims made are more tenuous and (I expect) will need the most revision in the upcoming years.
187 palpable to her dual audiences: female Mormon members and the all-male leadership.
This analysis involves not only examining the content but also the form and shape of this content— images, protests, websites, speeches, blog posts, and newspaper editorials. The documents studied in this chapter span a total of four years, from late 2012 until 2016.
These years represent a time when Kelly was challenging the Mormon Church and questioning women’s place inside this hierarchical structure. If any documents were excluded from this analysis, they were omitted because they did not focus on securing a position of legitimacy for women in the Mormon Church (i.e., her later work with
Planned Parenthood).105 As such, this chapter represents more than a representative sample of her discourse— it effectively characterizes the rhetorical core of her work as I examine over ninety percent of her total public writing.106 Similar to the methods used in the previous two chapters, this method is comprehensive so that is allows me to understand both the diachronic (long view) and synchronic (short view) features in this strands of Mormon feminist writing.
It is important to note that Kelly’s writing is not housed in a university or historical association archive. Her writing penned as an activist, and not as a lawyer, is accessible online and therefore serves as a modern, digital archive—the only one in this dissertation. To store images of the websites for later reference, I have employed Time
Machine, an Apple software, and Zotero, an open source software. Kelly’s online archive
105 In future scholarly work, I plan to analyze Kelly’s rhetorical work post- excommunication, wherein she advocates for women’s reproductive and sexual health. 106 Unlike Wells and Johnson, it deserves noting that much of Kelly’s writing is not public as she works as a lawyer and legal counsel, penning documents that are confidential.
188 is mostly populated by blog posts featured on her organization’s website
Ordainwomen.org and her personal website KateKellyesq.com. In addition to these blog posts, I have analyzed the structure, design, and rhetorical features enabled and disabled on both of these websites made from a Wordpress templates. Furthermore, Kelly’s online archive involves more than her personally developed and curated websites, and as such, I have also included her interviews, editorials, and opinion pieces printed by local and national news outlets. Unlike the other two chapters on Johnson and Wells, I was given the opportunity to watch Kate Kelly deliver a keynote in person at the “Feminism is for
Everybody: a Conference on Intersectionality,” hosted at Salt Lake Community College,
October 23rd 2015. This speech, in both content and style, is included in this chapter. The time logged examining these documents intermittently throughout 2016 was approximately sixty hours. It is assumed that the provenance of the documents is from the source, Kate Kelly, as she is noted as the author in her blog posts and is the quoted source in her interviews.
After locating these documents, I proceed by creating a large corpus and I use the discourse historical approach to examine each text, in content, structure, and design, for discourse that depicts a struggle to cultivate legitimacy. Since legitimacy is tied to the exercise of power, the discursive strands I locate feature a theme that responds to power and uses delivery as a way to strategically react to the patriarchal, hierarchal power represented by the all-male Mormon leadership. Kelly’s strategic delivery is illustrated in overarching strands of discourse that are operationalized in the following section: 1) separating from earlier feminists, 2) framing the movement as nonthreatening, 3) describing the followers as “prospective elders,” and 4) admitting to acute emotions.
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Although Kelly’s discourse involves strands that are outside of the four featured above, these four were chosen because they depict how Kelly specifically works towards female legitimacy in the Mormon Church.
Upon collecting and constructing the digital archive, I ask the following questions designed to analyze legitimacy inside Kelly’s writing, with special attention to her use of the rhetorical canons: 1) Which discursive strategies does Kelly employ most frequently inside her writings? 2) Are there any noticeable linguistic patterns or discursive strategies that work towards legitimizing women? 3) How and in which ways do these strategies challenge patriarchal authority within the Mormon Church and their specific constellation of power? With these questions, I conducted a “bottom-up” approach, which involved reading the texts repeatedly until repetitive patterns emerged in response to the questions, instead of forcing “delivery” as an interpretive frame upon the texts.
After identifying “delivery” as significant, I continue with my analysis by asking the following questions: 1) How does Kelly shape her delivery so that it is palpable and persuasive to these dual audiences, Mormon women, and the Mormon leadership? 2) In which ways is this emphasis on delivery influenced by the historical context and exigency in which Kelly is writing? 4) When does her delivery, including her content, become threatening and function as grounds for excommunication and hence delegitimacy? 5) To what extent does Kelly employ strategies that translate between her online delivery versus her in-person delivery? 6) What role does multimodal composing play in her digital archive and how does multimodal composing work towards women’s legitimacy in the Mormon Church?
Below, I operationalize the evidence exemplified by the discursive strands in
190 order to demonstrate how the evidence was categorized:
• First discursive strand:107 separating from past Mormon feminist activism
Kelly works to distinguish her organization, Ordain Women, from other
feminist activism in the past. While Kelly uses powerful female figures to
justify women’s inclusion into the priesthood (i.e., Emma Smith), she does not
connect her work to more contemporary Mormon feminists like Sonia
Johnson or Margaret Toscano. Terms and phrases frequently employed to
depict this discursive strand include: “not a protest,” establishing “ground
rules,” and omitting the names of previous feminists, excommunicated from
the church for their activism.
• Second discursive strand: Ordain Women as nonthreatening
Textual evidence was representative of this second strand when the Ordain
Women’s organization was depicted as nonthreatening to the Mormon
Church’s hierarchical order. Terms frequently used in this discursive strand
include: organizing “faith-based actions” and not protests, “peaceful,”
“conversation,” “thankful,” and “appreciate.”
• Third discursive strand: Ordain Women as holders of the priesthood
Within this strand of her rhetoric, Kelly attempts to describe the followers of
107 The term “strand” is used throughout my dissertation to describe a general theme or chain of discourse. I use strand because it is the term employed by Wodak and Meyer as well as other historical, discourse analysts (Foucault; Jäger). My entire dissertation is a form of diachronic analysis as it involves examining how these strands change throughout time, specifically how Mormon feminism evolves throughout the twentieth century. Modeled after Foucault, I conduct diachronic analysis by examining different sections of the strands and comparing them to each other in an effort to gauge how they have changed.
191
Ordain Women as respectful members of Mormonism, who understand the
import of the priesthood and therefore deserve this form of legitimacy. Terms
and phrases used to depict this discursive strand include: “comport ourselves
with dignity,” “future priesthood holders,” “above board,” “proper appropriate
channels,” and “befitting of the priesthood office.”
• Fourth discursive strand: borderline apostasy and acute emotions
Textual evidence was categorized as belonging to this particular discursive
strand when Kelly’s rhetoric did not display cool dignity or detached
comportment, but instead showed flickers of anger or passion concerning
women’s subordination in the Mormon Church. Some of the words that
illustrate this discursive strand include: “encouraged,” “hope,” “shame,”
“tangible risks,” “transformative event,” “delusional optimism,” “ecstatic,”
and “petrified.”
While conducting my analysis, these discursive strands wove around and through one another. This means that these strands were difficult to separate—often a piece of evidence characterizing one strand could be used as evidence in a different strand and vice versa.108
108 For an example of evidence characterized in two different strands, please see later analysis concerning OW women required to dress in their Sunday Best during “faith-based actions.”
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Theoretical Underpinnings of This Method
Similar to the other chapters on Wells and Johnson, this chapter will also employ historical discourse analysis informed by feminist archival research. The method delineated to explore Kelly’s archive is influenced by both fields, specifically in their focus on legitimacy and using analysis to empower marginalized voices. In this chapter, I use this method to parse how Kelly engages with resistant discourse to craft her delivery strategies and in turn establish a position of authority for Mormon women, who are marginalized inside the hierarchical structure of their Church. More specifically, I employ a discourse historical approach developed by Wodak and Meyers, who require researchers to pull apart several synchronic strands and examine them as evidence of a larger diachronic strand—in this case, twentieth-century Mormon feminism. Moreover, I examine to what extent delivery strategies are employed inside these four discursive strands that include: separating from Mormon feminism, appearing nonthreatening, performing as prospective priesthood holders, and expressing acute emotions.
Unlike the other chapters, this one will involve multimodal discourse analysis because I will analyze the website Kelly crafted for OW, which includes multiple genres, such as embedded images, videos, and podcasts. As a semiotician, Barthes argues that no image is completely neutral as all connote and denote ideas, similar to written language.
Scholars like Van Leeuwen, and Machin and Mayer develop a critical method, which draws from Barthes, to further analyze these visual connotations.
In his landmark essay, “The Visual Representation of Social Actors,” Van
Leeuwen creates a methodology for analyzing various multimodal texts. Working specifically off the ideas in Barthes' Mythology, Van Leeuwen analyzes pictures with
193 specific attention to power dynamics. Here, he theorizes the social distance, social relationship, and social interaction between the photographed figure and viewer (138). He also considers how the photographed groups interact with each other, by asking the following question: Are they depicted as individuals/groups? Is the group specific or generic? Are the characteristics depicted displayed as cultural or biological? Using this visual analysis method, Van Leeuwen works to find the meaning potential woven into images typically embedded in text.
Machin and Mayer build off Van Leeuwen’s theory to further refine this method for analyzing visual images. According to these two authors, analyzing images involves examining the attributes, the setting, and the salience of an image. Evaluating the salience of an image is the most difficult as it involves determining which “features within the composition are made to stand out, to draw our attention to foreground certain meanings”
(Machin and Mayer 54). In order to deduce an image’s salience, Machin and Mayer advise the researcher to examine cultural symbols, size, color saturation, tone, focus, as well as foregrounding and overlapping.
In this chapter on Kelly’s writing, I conduct an analysis of the website’s design by paying specific attention to the representation of social actors as well as image salience— in effect, employing tools developed for visual analysis by both Van Leeuwen as well as
Machin and Mayer.109
109 It should be noted that the multimodal scholars listed above influence the method I employ for visual analysis. This method is not CDA, per say. While I may analyze visual strategies ingrained in power relationships, my analysis involves macro instead of micro linguistic strategies.
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Out on Their Own: Separating Ordain Women From Feminist Activism
In her delivery strategies, Kate Kelly worked to legitimize the Ordain Women movement by distinguishing it from Mormon feminism of the 1980s-1990s. Although
Johnson was excommunicated before Kelly was born, how the church leadership historically reacted to feminist women, who publically questioned their legitimacy, remained an important lesson for Kelly. In person and online, she intentionally shapes her delivery as separate from the causes, actions, and language that motivated earlier
Mormon feminists.110 Kelly does this by imitating decisions made by the Mormon leadership, wherein she crafts rules for supporters of OW, draws upon approved history and symbolism, and creates an online space reminiscent of many officially Mormon sanctioned spaces.
Since Ordain Women’s founding in Spring 2013, this organization has arranged multiple public gatherings in support of the cause that is their namesake—Kelly was integral in the planning a few of these gatherings before her excommunication. These early gatherings serve as the bulk of evidence for this section of the dissertation and in many ways, they developed a template for OW actions after Kelly’s excommunication.
Throughout her efforts to organize OW actions, Kelly took great pains to establish them as “faith based”111 and therefore different from other feminist protests, like those organized by Johnson’s Ex-Mormons for ERA. As such, Kelly created a set of “ground
110 While Kelly might distinguish herself from Mormon feminists in the 1980s- 1990s, she uses examples of strong women (proto-feminists) from Mormonism’s early history as evidence for women’s legitimacy inside the church. 111 This type of language denoting one’s faithfulness continues on in OW as another blog post published in October 2015 was entitled “Agitating Faithfully.”
195 rules” that dictated how those who were attending this action would organize, gather, and show their support. Delineated in a lengthy blog post entitled “FAQs for Oct. 5
Priesthood Session Action,” these rules set Ordain Women apart by requiring the supporters to wear their “Sunday Best,” to gain proper permits to organize, to leave any signage at home, and to address reporters and passers-by in clear and calm ways.
By framing her organization’s actions as “faith based,” Kelly argues that this
“action is not a protest” and is instead motivated by her faith in the Mormon Church and is not a venue “for Anti-church diatribes” (Kelly “FAQs”). Kelly reiterates that “No. We
[Ordain Women supporters] will not protest,” which she further supports by claiming that
OW only applied for a “free speech’ permit because the city of Salt Lake requires it of any large group gatherings in a public space” (Kelly “FAQs”). Here, Kelly figures OW’s delivery and its message as different from other Mormon feminists, like Johnson, and her protests with Non-Mormons for ERA by claiming that her action is not a protest and that she went through proper channels for a permit of a “large group gathering.”
Furthermore, Kelly dictates that members of OW are prohibited from using signs or banners during a “faith affirming action.” By forbidding the use of signage, these women are situating their actions outside of a protest as a protest typically involves and relies on these genres to express discontent or a unifying rallying cry. Again, these rules shape the delivery of OW’s message as different from Non-Mormons for ERA, because
Johnson’s group did not seek the proper permits, all were encouraged to use banners and signs to advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment, and no one was expected to arrive in
196 their “Sunday Best.”112 In fact, Johnson and her organization, Non-Mormons for ERA, hired a plane to fly over the city with a banner in support of the Equal Rights
Amendment.
In addition to these rules delineating how the “faith-based actions” should function, the messages delivered to the Mormon Church leadership and other Church members are not demands levied from a protesting crowd but instead involve historical reenactments and/or the performance of symbolic action. For instance, on October 3rd
2013, OW members took to the streets surrounding Salt Lake Temple Square where they performed a live reenactment of specific scenes from Mormon history that vividly detail women’s legitimacy, especially the lineage of female ordination (part of this reenactment included a scene where Emma Smith, wife of founder Joseph Smith, received ordination).
Later symbolic actions performed by the OW organization include attaching literal keys to a gate-like sculpture as part of an interactive art project during the Parliament of the
World Religions on October 15-19, 2015.113 Attaching keys to a gate in City Creek
Park114 functions as a gesture to demonstrate support for female ordination, as men are the only members in the Mormon Church given keys when they are initiated into the
112 Yet from archival images of the early ERA protests, it is clear that many of the women involved in these protests wore dresses and skirts, while others wore pants. There is no evidence that Johnson dictated what any of the women who showed up to the protests should wear.
113 This interest in the symbolic importance of keys remains important for OW actions. In December 2015, Lorie Winder Stromberg asked supporters of female ordination to attach a key as a symbol of this practice to a tree or wreath during the holiday season.
114 City Creek Park is the same city run park in downtown Salt Lake City where the OW women met before initiating their first “faith-based” action on October 5th, 2013.
197 priesthood. The ways in which these messages are delivered and the content of the messages, themselves, function to legitimize women’s ordination by valuing Mormon symbolism (with the keys), building off important Mormon history, reaffirming their faith in the Church with their nomenclature, and distancing themselves from earlier
Mormon feminist activism.
Online, Kelly employs many of the same delivery strategies that she uses to shape her organization’s “faith-based actions” and articulate messages in person to the all-male leadership, such as imitating other Mormon “approved” online spaces: in design, in their decision to disallow comments, in their administrative control, and in publishing acceptable references to Mormon history and symbolism. In terms of website design, ordainwomen.org is built from a Wordpress template called “Elegant Themes,” which primarily involves a color scheme of white and egg shell with grey lettering. The landing page features a mission statement for the organization followed by a grid of twelve profile pictures from the latest supporters to join the OW movement. These profiles seem reminiscent of the “I’m a Mormon”115 advertising campaign that was popular in 2011-
2012—the goal of this campaign was to demonstrate the diversity of this faith. The website, itself, echoes the design of lds.org by employing the same font that Microsoft
Word identifies as “Goudybookletter1911.” This cursory analysis of Ordainwomen.org demonstrates that the website employs the same design principles readily accepted and
115 In a blog post by Kate Kelly, but written by “Caroline,” the author makes this same observation that the profiles featured on the Ordain Women website “self- consciously mirror the Mormon Church sponsored ‘I’m a Mormon’ campaign, [as] these Mormons attach pictures of themselves to their statements, a brave move away from anonymity” (“Mormons Who Advocate”).
198 commonly used in other media products populating and delivering information in the
Mormon imagination. Additionally, the website appears dictated by a series of rules similar to those that orchestrate OW’s in-person actions. These rules translate online as the commenting function is disabled and there is no clear way to submit one’s own blog post. Furthermore, the only women frequently published in the blog section are leaders of the movement as serving board members. The “submit a profile section,”116 which invites any visitor who supports female ordination to create a profile, is monitored and only published to the website upon administrative review. It also features blogs or
“conversations” that build from historical evidence or reinterpret important symbolism in support of female ordination.
This website is purposefully designed to deliver messages in line with the
Mormon Church and to separate itself from earlier Mormon feminists. Again, the iconography, which populates other famous feminist websites, including the raised fist, the female gender symbol, or images of activism in the form of posters/banners, is nowhere to be found on ordainwomen.org. As Jacqueline Rhodes notes, feminist activists frequently use websites “as active examples of negotiation of the space between insider and outsider, fixed text and fluid network, between reader and writer” (54). Yes, this website attempts to blur the boundaries between reader and writer and insider and outsider by soliciting profiles and allowing a visitor to “share” a blog on their social media, but it prevents commenting and requires administrative approval before posting
116 This “submit your own profile” feature could also be interpreted as in line with earlier Mormon feminists as Johnson used petitions and hand-written letters, while Wells published “Letters to the Editor” to demonstrate public support for their feminist ideas.
199 any new profiles. As such, this website appears indebted to hierarchical leadership structures, which earlier Mormon feminists, like Johnson, spent much of her time fighting against.
Making OW Appear as Nonthreatening: In Person and Online
Besides distinguishing themselves from earlier feminists, Mormon or not, Ordain
Women purposefully manipulates and highlights aspects of their delivery, so the message of women’s legitimacy in the Mormon Church is acceptable even to stanch members of the faith. In person, delivering a nonthreatening message during their “faith-based actions,” meant showing up in their “Sunday Best,” advocating in a calm and collected manner in which they were not disruptive but patiently waited for entry into the priesthood meeting chambers. At these events, there was also no screaming, chanting, or demanding spiritual rights; instead OW’s actions are marked by group prayers, conversation, discussion, and even-keeled interviews. In addition to their appearance and general decorum, OW also delivers a message that their ideas are nonthreatening when they clarify their intentions, describe their planned events, place their actions in line with
Church precedent, and foreground positive responses to likely rejection. Online, Kelly’s strategy for making OW appear “nonthreatening” involves using terms like
“conversations” instead of arguments and expressing outward thankfulness for any attention given by the all-male authority.
Kelly’s blogs on ordainwomen.org sought to define OW’s action as nonthreatening when she describes these gatherings as “faith based” or “agitating faithfully,” and remarks that “religious activism is different from political activism”
200
(Kelly “FAQs”). Here, she seeks to remind her audience, primarily Church leaders, by clarifying her intentions: these actions are not meant to dismantle or threaten the religion but instead restore and reaffirm OW’s faith in the “one true church.” By making a distinction between political and religious activism, Kelly promotes an image of OW as respectfully questioning women’s legitimacy in the Church instead of loudly disrupting the status quo.117
OW seems heavily invested in clarifying their intentions as they open their webpage with a mission statement for their movement: “Mormon Women Seeking
Equality and Ordination to the Priesthood” (“Landing Page”). This clarification continues in Kelly’s blogs when she explains that their “faith-based action” is not to be disruptive of anyone’s experience and that they seek to “inform church leaders of [their] intentions and have sought tickets through the appropriate channels” without deception (“FAQs”).
Once again, Kelly is clarifying the intentions of OW, including how they organized their gatherings, so all of their actions appear reasonable and perhaps nonthreatening in their clarity and simplicity. This clarity disallows others from casting aspersions on the OW organization by suggesting they want to dismantle the hierarchical Church structure and institute radical changes instead of fostering equality by allowing females into positions of authority.
Kelly also legitimates her movement by describing her planned events in support of ordination. In her blog, she handles the frequent question, “what if you are not granted
117 With this distinction, Kelly not only delivers a message that is “nonthreatening,” she also further separates the OW movement from Johnson, who primarily advocated for political rights in ways that were squarely classified as political activism (loud, disruptive marches with banners and signs).
201 what you seek?” She responds to this question by explaining how supporters of OW will act when the Church leadership’s refuses to grant them that for which they “faithfully agitate,” specifically entry into the biannual priesthood meeting, ordination, and
(presently) recognition of their ability to bear witness at scared ceremonies. Kelly responds by describing nonthreatening reactions to the leadership’s refusal, including
“gather[ing], pray[ing] and sing[ing]” as well as leaving peacefully from the Salt Lake
City Temple grounds (“FAQs”). Moreover, she encourages OW’s supporters to “continue to seek ordination through action and discussion” as well as entreating them to “pray and fast for us… for our leaders to receive revelation… for further light and knowledge from the Lord” (Kelly “FAQs”). She also suggests “support[ing] us on [social media,] personal facebook pages, blogs and twitter accounts” (Kelly “FAQs”). By delineating these possible responses, Kelly is shaping how OW members would react and thereby heading off negative or hostile reactions. Through her descriptions, she is also reassuring others, who may not be active in the OW movement, that their actions are nonthreatening and will not disrupt the proceedings of General Conference or other important church ceremonies.
In addition to these descriptions, Kelly also establishes, by citing scripture and
Church precedent, that those without ordination can receive it and that this process of ordination through revelation is not without basis in doctrine. She writes that the “role of
Church members in this process is demonstrated through a key religious document, the
Doctrine and Covenants, which includes many examples of revelations received after members approached the Prophet and requested revelation. This pattern was first
202 established by Jesus Christ” (Kelly “FAQs”).118 Here, Kelly does not demand the Church leadership ordain women, instead she asks for members to prompt the Prophet to open himself up to a revelation that women should receive ordination. In another blog post,
Kelly purposefully makes another connection between her actions and the practices written in Mormon scriptures when she writes, “as instructed in the scriptures, we will continue to ask and seek and knock” (“Heartbreak and Triumph”). By “seek and knock,”
Kelly means that her organization will remain committed to their cause by seeking out those with authority and requesting that they knock on God’s door in asking Him for female ordination. According to Mormon theology, women do not have contact with God in the same way as men.119 Because they do not have priesthood, they cannot directly ask
God for ordination nor act in the name of God to bestow priesthood among their selves.
Kelly therefore clarifies the goal of OW: to not simply seek female ordination but to explore the potential for female ordination by requesting Mormon leadership to ask God whether women should be ordained.120
In an earlier blog post, Kelly delineates women’s specific path to ordination
118 The Doctrine and Covenants is a religious Mormon text often coupled with The Book of Mormon, the King James Version of The Holy Bible, and The Pearl of Great Price. 119 Mormon women, like Julie Rowe, complicate the indirect link women are said in Mormon theology to have with God. In her recent text, The Time is Now, Rowe is divinely inspired during a near death experience to write a book proclaiming the apocalypse is upon us. Many within the greater Mormon community questioned the validity of this “divine inspiration” as Rowe is a woman and therefore cannot receive such inspiration from above. 120 There is historical precedent for the process of Mormon leadership seeking counsel from God and God leading their decision-making. This process happens frequently within the history of Mormonism, but it occurred most relevantly in 1969 when Mormon leadership was guided by God to allow black Mormon men into the priesthood.
203 through Emma Smith, who “is described as being set apart but not ordained, with an explanation by Joseph Smith that Emma had already been ordained and therefore did not need to be ordained again” (“Organizing Women”; my italics). In both examples, Kelly draws from Mormon history and sacred Mormon doctrine in order to emphasize that there are processes already established inside the Church to further women’s legitimacy.
In this way, Kelly makes her ideas about women’s ordination nonthreatening by citing historical precedent—in effect, illustrating that the path to female ordination is already forged and therefore is not new, unique, or encroaching on pre-existing male authority.
Online, OW’s tactics to appear nonthreatening mean expressing ideas about women’s legitimacy in the church as “conversations” and articulating gratefulness for interactions with the Church leadership. In addition to framing action as “nonpolitical” and “faith based,” the OW website also includes a section dedicated to six
“Conversations,” free to any visitor. These conversations, launched on the 185th anniversary of the Priesthood Restoration, outline women’s path to ordination and further legitimacy inside the faith.121 Naming these packets “Conversations” and posting a video where OW leaders “discuss” these packets makes them more inviting and less threatening than naming them “arguments” or “briefs,” delineating their activist positions.122
Furthermore, Kelly’s delivery is nonthreatening when she thanks Church leadership,
121 These conversations are entitled: “See the Symptoms,” “Know the History,” “Study the Scriptures,” “Revel in Revelation,” “Visualize Your Potential!,” and “Be the Change.” From these titles, it is clear that the conversations are meant to empower female readers so that they continue to “faithfully agitate” for their religious rights. 122 Furthermore, “discussing” these packets is very different from the consciousness-raising sessions of Johnson’s Non-Mormons for ERA or the debating that frequently occurred during the Suffrage movement.
204 specifically Michael Otterson, director of Public Affairs, for “interacting with LDS blogs” and for “responding to questions many LDS women have” (“OW’s Response”).
Here, Kelly appears gracious in her thankfulness, although OW was later dealt a blow by not receiving ordination.123 Overall, in content and delivery, online and in person, Kate
Kelly and Ordain Women work to deliver their message so they are perceived as nonthreatening and perhaps more reasonable, according to the powerful Church leadership.
“Prospective Elders”: Kelly, OW, and Emulating the Priesthood
Kelly shapes the delivery of her message so it appears nonthreatening and separates it from earlier Mormon feminism that could be interpreted as “illegitimate” and
“radical.” She continues to deliver OW’s message, arguing for their legitimacy, by projecting an image of the movement’s supporters as “prospective elders.” In fact, she clarifies in the opening epigram to this chapter that these women and men are not
“followers” but instead are “supporters” of women’s ordination and as such they remain faithful followers of the Mormon Church. Kelly’s delivery, as well as the content of her message, in person and online, portrays OW supporters as respectful, worthy of the title
“priesthood holder,” and therefore representatives of legitimate authority.124 Kelly
123 Leaders from OW spoke with Church PR representative, Michael Otterson, around the date of the “OW Response,” which was May 30th, 2014. At this point, OW was well underway as an organization—they had organized three different “faith-based” actions. Kate Kelly was officially excommunicated by the Church less than a month later. 124 Please note that some of this evidence, coming towards the end of the chapter, is taken from blog posts that are not attributed to Kate Kelly. Most of these posts occur when Kelly was facing her excommunication trials and she was not as involved with the website. I am including these as evidence in this chapter on Kelly’s delivery strategies
205 legitimizes OW by encouraging supporters to deliver their message by dressing and acting like “prospective elders,” both in person and online. Within this strand, Kelly shapes OW so its members imitate the priesthood by not only dressing and acting like they are “prospective elders” but by not protesting, by respectfully citing leadership, by expressing thanks, and by seeking to listen and learn from their leaders.
Kelly and OW craft an image of themselves as “prospective elders,” by asking those who participate in the “faith based actions” to arrive in their “Sunday Best” and to understand that they are not “protesting.”125 Kelly explains that those who want to participate in the action must come prepared in their Sunday Best “as if [they] were attending any other session of General Conference” (“FAQs”). Kelly figures the OW participants as respectful to the institution and not outside or apart from the institution— as these members could literally blend in with other conference attendees and attend a session of conference following their action. Moreover, Kelly justifies enforcing rules, including a dress code, when she explains that “[w]e will not protest. We see ourselves as future Priesthood holders and will comport ourselves with dignity befitting a priesthood office” (“FAQs”). Here, Kelly ties together two rules for “faith affirming actions” by declaring that OW will not protest as well as expressing concern about members’
because she founded the movement carried on by these women and in many ways set a precedent for how this movement articulates itself.
125 Albeit, Kelly requiring OW supporters to show up in their “Sunday Best” could be interpreted as evidence for two different strands delineated in this chapter: one on nonthreatening behavior and one about figuring themselves as “prospective elders.” I place this evidence inside the third discursive strand, depicting OW as “prospective elders,” because it best exemplifies this particular strand, as it directly confronts one of the major reasons women were not given ordination: because they did not appear as elders.
206
“comportment” with dressing in one’s “Sunday’s Best,” an arguable component of
“comporting oneself with dignity.” This effort to dignify oneself through dress is tied to a rhetor’s delivery strategies. As Kelly shapes OW supporters into “prospective elders” through their clothing and comportment, she delivers a message that these women are as they appear, representatives of legitimate authority.126
In addition to dressing as if they were “prospective elders,” the OW requires participants to act as if they are “prospective elders” by organizing events reminiscent of priesthood meetings, reveling in the words of their leaders, and expressing thanks to the
Church. In a blog post written by “Admin,” the writer details the schedule for the latest faith-based action, which will include a “welcome message, a prayer, and a hymn before walking together to the Conference Center” (“Ordain Women Priesthood”). With this organizational structure, OW is basing their “faith-based” event on typical Sunday services for the Mormon Church—services usually led by those holding the priesthood.
With their purposeful imitation, members of OW are indicating that they can also perform the same sacred weekly rituals and activities completed by ordained men.127
Moreover, OW asks their supporters to attend their actions intending to act like those
126 This rule, “comporting oneself with dignity,” is later reiterated in other faith- based actions following Kelly’s excommunication. For example, a blogger named “Christy” also reminds supporters that they must “maintain a dignified image at all times” if they are to participate in any OW actions (“Ordain Women Action Training”). Nancy similarly follows Christy and Kelly by reminding the Church leadership that “[a]t every turn, our actions have been respectful and dignified and aimed at communicating with our church leaders” (“Ordain Women Sister”). Their dignity, coupled with constantly communicating their intentions, works to foster an image of OW as deserving authority and legitimacy. 127 This organizational structure further separates OW’s faith-based actions from earlier Mormon feminist activism with its imitation and emphasis on spiritual activity/contemplation.
207 with the priesthood—in other words, to listen. To this point, “Nancy” from OW writes,
“we plan to attend the priesthood session and listen to the words of our leaders”
(“FAQs”). Earlier, Kelly outlines why attending the meeting for priesthood holders during the General Conference is important—because their attendance will “demonstrate
[their] desire for ordination and willingness to perform a full range of priesthood duties”
(“FAQs”). Through their imitation, Kelly hopes that the Church leadership will
“welcome [OW] into the general priesthood session and consider our untapped potential”
(“FAQs”). By delivering their message as “future priesthood holders,” in both dress and action, Kelly further legitimizes women’s authority in the Mormon Church.
Apart from their “faith-based actions,” OW supporters act like faithful members, especially those who are already ordained, by thanking the Church for their recent initiatives. To this effect, Nancy writes that OW “applauds recent church initiatives, including an emphasis on collaborative, gender-inclusive councils, greater encouragement for women to serve missions, and the opportunity for women to both pray and speak in general conference” (“FAQs”). Here, OW is portraying themselves as
“prospective elders” in their message and delivery by pointing out recent changes and acknowledging the Church leadership in hearing their call for more gender inclusivity.
Even after Kelly’s excommunication, this emphasis on thankfulness continues as OW encourages their members to show their gratitude by wearing purple. In one post, Nancy instructs OW supporters to wear purple in order to “show that we both love and support the church in its recent initiatives to make women more visible within our faith and community and hope for a continued discussion about gender equality, including women’s ordination” (“Wear Purple”; my italics). In articulating their thankfulness by
208 wearing purple, OW supporters make themselves visible to the Church, as they deliver their message as respectful and thankful “prospective elders.” Therefore, it is no mistake that an image embedded in the post entitled “Wear Purple,” penned by Nancy, involves a purple dress that exemplifies “Sunday Best” in its modesty and formality. It is notable that this image is a women’s dress and not pants and a jacket or a sweater, thereby falling in line with gender expectations for women in the Church while also making an assumption about the gender of OW’s supporters.
This image is one example of OW’s focus on delivering themselves and their message as respectful “prospective elders” on their website. This delivery strategy,
“prospective elders,” translates on OW’s website through embedded images of women performing priesthood activities accompanied by supportive scriptural and sacred sources. Although the blog posts are integral to my overall argument, most of the evidence for this claim comes from a page on ordainwomen.org entitled “Quotes.” The page is designed around “34 Historic Women and Priesthood Quotes,” which involves a paragraph explaining the provenance of the quotes128 as well as an embedded fast-paced slide show with large, high-resolution images. In this online context, these scriptural sources appear as ancillary to the written text as the images take up over three-fourths of the page.
These thirty-four images vividly depict OW shaping their delivery as “prospective elders” in two ways: 1) performing priesthood rituals and 2) citing authorized sources
128 These quotes are primarily taken from the “Church’s own Joseph Smith papers” (Ordain Women “Quotes”).
209 interpreted as supporting female ordination.129 By authorized sources, I specifically mean sources that are vetted, as authorities within this faith, either taken from a leader of
Mormonism or sacred scriptures like The Book of Mormon. A majority of these thirty- four images depict followers in a prayer circle, where they lay their hands together on the head of a seated member, and that member receives a blessing. All of the members have their eyes closed in reflective, reverent prayer and are typically encased in a white light to show their holiness. Interestingly, many of these images feature only women, laying their hands upon another woman, while some portray a man and a woman, laying their hands upon a woman or female child—only one involves a woman, presumably a mother, laying her hands upon a young, male child. None of the images show women encircling an adult male and praying for his wellbeing. Despite this glaring omission, these images work to legitimize female ordination by showing women in a leadership role, giving blessings and seeking prayers, with male members of the priesthood. The quotes overlaid onto a small portion of the image involve an address to a female member, who is justified, according to the text, in using the priesthood to give blessings for relatives or friends, who are ill or are embarking on dangerous travel. This slideshow illustrates
Mormon women as “prospective elders” in that they seek guidance from sources that are respected as authorities for their audience, as well as depicting themselves performing these sacred rituals in historical and contemporary clothing.130
129 This appeal to authority by citing scriptures is similar to a strategy deployed by Emmeline B. Wells, who is said to have recited the first chapter from The Book of Mormon, in order to prove her mind was still in well-functioning order. 130 The lineage throughout time, as portrayed by their choice of clothing, is significant because it argues that Mormon women have always had the right to exercise their priesthood.
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Contrary Evidence: Borderline Apostasy and Acute Emotions
As mentioned previously, Kelly was excommunicated one year after founding her organization, despite attempts to legitimize OW through delivery strategies that work to separate these supporters from previous Mormon feminists and figure them as nonthreatening, “prospective elders.” This brief section is set up as a counterargument to explain why Kelly’s actions were interpreted as “apostasy” by the Church leadership. I argue that in person and online, Kelly’s delivery was marked by emotionally laden language and bandwagon appeals, which were perceived as threatening to the all-male
Church leadership. These bandwagon appeals are both qualitative and quantitative, as
Kelly cites estimated numbers of those who support ordaining women, as well as provides in person and online depictions illustrating the amount of advocates.
Although, many of Kelly’s posts and speeches seem detached and professional, some are laden with emotional language in which the reader glimpses her unguarded authenticity. In person, her intonations decipher emotion, while online, this emotion is rooted inside the use of exclamation points and her intentional word choice. In her first
“faith-based action,” Kelly describes how she “walked to the Tabernacle filled with hope, faith and (perhaps delusional) optimism” (“Heartbreak and Triumph”). Once she was charged with apostasy, this optimism transformed into fear, where Kelly admits that she is “afraid too. These days [she] vacillate[s] between being petrified and ecstatic” (“It is better to speak”). Although these expressions of fear and hope represent an important thread in Kelly’s writing, arguably the most threatening and therefore dangerous emotion was her unhappiness. On October 5th 2013 and again on February 28th 2014, Kelly writes that “it is apparent we need to express ourselves in a more bold and public way—
211 agitating faithfully—in order for our leaders to understand that we do want Priesthood authority and that we are not happy being excluded” (“FAQs”; my italics). Not only does
Kelly call upon OW supporters to “agitate” in a way that is more “bold,” she also suggests that Mormon women are not happy with their position of delegitimacy.
Although “not happy” is a far cry from Johnson, who described her fellow sisters as
“marooned on a pedestal” or “silently screaming,” this admission that Mormon women might be unhappy was threatening to the Church leadership because it could be interpreted as building a coalition in support of ordaining women, especially if this emotion was representative of Mormon women’s general anger with their (lack of) authority.131132
In Kelly’s writings, there is some evidence that her unhappiness with women’s status in the Mormon Church tapped into how others were also feeling. As such, Kelly draws on quantitative measures to further illustrate an appeal to popularity—an appeal which she delivers online (in the form of profiles) and in person (in the form of describing the amount of people who have attended her events). For example, Kelly writes on her personal webpage, katekellyesq.com, that there were “3 million views” to
131 Kelly even links her expression of emotions to the teachings of the Church, specifically values that young women are taught to hold: “good works” and “integrity.” She writes that her “favorite value colors were yellow and purple: Good Works & Integrity. I learned that integrity means telling the truth, even when you may suffer as a result and to ‘do what is right, let the consequences follow.’ I learned that you have to act on the thoughts and feelings you have in order to live with true integrity.” Despite justifying her emotions through teachings of the Church, Kelly’s explanation was not enough for the Church leadership to excuse the threat that she represents. 132 In many ways, this reference to “unhappiness” is a direct rebuttal to former prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, who famously stated that Mormon women are happy in their position of subordination as there is “no agitation for [their legitimacy]” (Kelly “FAQs”).
212 the OW website. She also mentions that the twenty-two people who originally decided to create a profile on ordainwomen.org have now grown to over 600 men and women,
“willing to take very tangible risks to tell their stories” (Kelly “They can crush a few flowers”).133 Yet it is not only online where supporters are showing up to “agitate faithfully” for ordination. Kelly notes that the “action on October 5th was a beautiful and transformative event for hundreds of women and men who participated in person and thousands who followed our journey from afar” (“Oct. 5th Mini-documentary”).134 Not only were these supporters brave enough to publically support this cause, they also were dedicated enough to go through great lengths to show their support, such as “flying from all corners of the country and around the world to stand with us” (Kelly “Heartbreak and
Triumph”). Again, the Church leadership interprets this delivery strategy based on popularity as a threat, especially when Kelly uses it to place pressure on them to seek a revelation concerning women’s ordination. Kelly posits, “it’s a shame to ignore the voices of the thousands of Mormon feminists who refuse to let orthodoxy determine the legitimacy of their critiques, and tell only one side of the narrative” (Kelly “I was
133 After Kelly, other OW supporters continue to discuss the importance of how many publically support women’s ordination. To this effect, “Caroline” explains that this “website is meant to desensitize Mormons to the idea of women’s ordination. It is meant to show that scores of practicing Mormons support it." To illustrate the “scores of practicing Mormons supporting it,” Caroline places pressure on the Church leadership to seek a revelation regarding women’s ordination. 134 On October 5th 2013, supporters of Ordain Women met at City Creek Park and walked in unison to the general priesthood meeting at the Church Conference Center on the grounds of Salt Lake City Temple Square. The OW supporters demanded entry into the priesthood session and when they were barred from entering, they retreated to the park, where they continued to pray and sing. For OW, this “faith-based action” was important because it marked the first time in over a decade that Mormon women took a public stand to advance their legitimacy.
213 central”; my italics).135 Not only does this quote draw on the term “legitimacy,” it also stresses through “shame” that the Church leadership was/is wrong to “ignore the voices of thousands of Mormon feminists,” thereby advising that the leadership reconsider their position in light of this obvious support.
Overall, Kelly’s expression of emotion and appeal to popularity were interpreted as threatening to the Mormon Church hierarchy, leadership, and organization (read: the patriarchy). Even though she couched the delivery of her message, women’s ordination, as separate from earlier feminists, as nonthreatening, 136 and as imitating priesthood holders, she was excommunicated in ways reminiscent of Sonia Johnson.137
Conclusions: Legitimacy and Ordain Women
Mormon women are often disallowed and punished with excommunication while voicing their concerns in public; they clearly have a diminished position of authority inside their hierarchical faith (Mountford; Buchanan). This chapter analyzes how Kate
Kelly braved social censure and religious sanction to deliver a message fostering
135 Although written two years after Kelly’s excommunication, Kelly’s posts draw on a bandwagon appeal to place pressure on the Church leadership that is woven throughout her posts on ordainwomen.org. 136 Although her appeal to popularity could be interpreted as threatening to the Church leadership in that she is attempting to build a coalition, I would argue that taken with her thankfulness, the framing of OW’s action and ideas, along with how OW interfaces with the Church, the public, and the reporters, this delivery strategy could be understood as inclusivity and therefore should be read as welcoming and not as a threat. 137 Kelly’s excommunication trial was similar to Johnson’s in that her trial was quick, her appeals were denied, and she was unable to attend, as her former bishop in Virginia initiated the trial. While Johnson was able to attend her trial, there were moves made by the leaders presiding over the trial to restrict her admittance, such as changing the date and time without notice.
214 women’s authority inside the Mormon Church. From my analysis, I conclude that Kelly draws on three overarching delivery strategies to advocate for women’s ordination: 1) separating from earlier feminists to establish her own movement, 2) developing an image of OW as nonthreatening, and 3) requiring OW supporters to appear as respectful
“prospective elders.” Despite these efforts at legitimating the OW movement, Kelly and her ideas were still interpreted as threatening, especially because of her movement’s popularity and her expression of acute emotions.
Yet Kelly’s excommunication did have an impact on Mormon women’s legitimacy. Since its founding, women have not received ordination or the ability to function as “witnesses,” but they are welcomed into more “all-male” spaces in the
Mormon Church. The results of Kelly’s strategies include: three women serving on the
General Counsel, more gender distribution in photo spreads, and emphasis on young women serving missions. Since OW has yet to achieve their namesake’s goal, Kelly’s results remain mixed, yet the conversation surrounding women’s legitimacy in the
Mormon Church is not over.
I conclude this chapter with one final example from Kelly’s archive illustrating the importance of her delivery—this example comes from a speech that I witnessed, first- hand. At her keynote address, for the “Feminism is for Everyone” conference, Kelly had the fast-paced cadence of a lawyer as she clipped through a well-developed argument for the importance of feminism in contemporary life—at times, she rallied the audience up with fervor and at others, she silently paused for effect. Watching Kelly address this audience and thereby witnessing her delivery strategies first-hand made me understand the extent to which her delivery works to foster her message—Mormon women need
215 authority, legitimacy, simple recognition.
Kelly, Johnson, and Wells all employ the rhetorical canons throughout their writing. Yet in my analysis, I have found that they use these canons unevenly and often strategically to develop a position of legitimacy for Mormon women—Kelly employs delivery, Johnson uses invention, and Wells manipulates arrangement patterns. In my conclusion, I will determine inconclusively the extent to which each of these women was successful in their pursuit of legitimacy.
216
Citing nature drawing on delivery gaining associating arrangement or being context strategies visibility with others patterns
External à
gaining through performing/claimin citing people citing texts citing experience inventing legitimacy popularity g legitimacy
ßInternal
Figure 6: Continuum of Legitimacy Pointing out Delivery Strategies
CHAPTER 6
CONCLUSION: SUCCESSFUL LEGITIMACY?
"But religion not only affects those of us who claim denominational affiliation. It significantly influences the global community.... Religion, the UN study demonstrates, is a part of the fabric of our world and impacts the rights of women globally."
–United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 2009
Introduction
This dissertation explores how a marginalized group of women attempted to establish their authority inside one hierarchical religion—a religion that the U.N. finds has the power to impact the lives of all women in Utah (UNRISD). As a case study of legitimacy rhetoric, this dissertation was designed to analyze how feminist, Mormon women used writing to cultivate authority for themselves during their brief history. This analysis reveals that each of these rhetors, Wells, Johnson, and Kelly, strategically emphasize one unique rhetorical canon in order to cultivate their legitimacy. Wells,
Johnson, and Kelly not only employ these canons but likely drew upon their expertise in a way that is strategic, as assumed by the rhetorical knowledge embedded within their education and work experience (as an editor of a newspaper, as a teacher of English and a
PhD, and as a practicing human rights lawyer, respectively). To this point, Wells employs arrangement patterns, Johnson uses invention processes, and Kelly positions her delivery
218 strategically to craft a space of legitimacy for Mormon women. Although all rhetors use the canons when composing, each of these rhetors relies upon one canon unevenly because of the changing social context within which they find themselves. Wells argues for female suffrage in the early 1900s, Johnson for the Equal Rights Amendment in the
1970s, and Kelly for female ordination during the 2010s. In other words, elements of the historical context, including available technologies and the perceived consequences for their writing, made it more likely that these female rhetors would focus on and use one canon unevenly.
Legitimacy
It is important to study legitimacy because it is often taken for granted why someone in a position of power is granted authority (Exdell). Therefore, analyzing how legitimation is cultivated has the potential to “spark social change” because it means examining the ways in which one social group installed itself as dominant over another
(Mackay 235). In terms of legitimacy studies, the findings of this dissertation are significant because they describe how one marginalized group develops legitimacy when they are barred from traditional pathways to cultivate said legitimacy (due to personal characteristics that they cannot control, like their gender, age, race, or body shape). As such, this dissertation considers not how those who are in power replicate their legitimacy
(Lewontin; Kirsch; Van Leeuwen and Wodak) but instead it examines how those who are not in a position of authority spark social change by developing strategies toward gaining legitimacy (Skinner; Suddaby; Greenwood; Shaver; Goodard; Sutton; Aronson and
Swanson; Lijia; Fave; Halenbeck; Colins; etc.).
219
Additionally, this dissertation adds to legitimacy studies by plotting research concerning legitimacy on a continuum and thereby organizing this field according to whether the strategy used to establish legitimacy involves characteristics of the rhetor or the rhetorical context (please see Figure 7 featured at the end of this chapter). It adds three other techniques to this continuum— unevenly using the canons of delivery, invention, and arrangement—which are not one-off techniques but instead pervasive and integral to the writing itself.
Kate Kelly’s delivery strategies are positioned in the continuum closest to the end, with strategies relying on external characteristics because her pervasive technique mostly involves understanding and manipulating elements of context. For example, Kelly had to understand various expectations and contextual factors, like proper “elder behavior,” in order to shape her delivery strategically so it is well received by faithful Mormons and the all-male leadership. Meanwhile, Sonia Johnson’s invention processes are situated at the opposite end of the continuum, closest to performing and claiming legitimacy, as her processes led women to invent a new structure for themselves by drawing on their internal ideas, which they used to establish their authority. Wells’ strategy, deliberately using arrangement patterns, is positioned in the middle of the continuum, specifically between “associating with others” and “gaining [legitimacy] through popularity.” Wells’ employs arrangement patterns by positioning the words and discourses of others strategically throughout her newsletter in order to legitimate women’s concerns about their rights, especially women’s suffrage, and to downplay other discourses outlining how women should act.
Furthermore, this dissertation further contributes to legitimacy studies by arguing
220 that legitimacy is not a static state and is instead better understood as always in flux.
Therefore, legitimacy is situated on a sliding scale and is illustrated by Table 2 (featured at the end of this chapter), where I use traces of evidence provided by social consensus to determine the extent to which each of the rhetors is legitimate within two competing contexts: the Mormon Church and the National Feminist movement. As defined by
Berger and Luckman, social consensus and its attendant traces is one of the major ways to determine if a rhetor has legitimacy. This table also illustrates if the rhetors, themselves, are legitimate or if they confer a level of authority for Mormon women as well as for themselves. Further noted in this table are the varying levels of legitimacy achieved by each of the rhetors, which is dependent upon their historical time period and the strategies they used to achieve it. For example, Wells attained a degree of authority for Mormon women within the National Feminist movement, yet this degree was mitigated in many spaces by suffragists demonizing the practice of polygamy. Mormon women sought legitimacy in the Mormon Church and also the National Feminist
Movement, yet were only granted traces of this legitimacy even when their strategies were relatively “successful.” For Kate Kelly, these traces looked like excommunication from her faith, while the Church permits three women to sit on church-wide councils for the first time in history. Furthermore, this project also illustrates that legitimation strategies and their effectiveness change across time, as each of these rhetor’s employed a different strategy relevant to their time periods, influenced by their accessible technologies and subsequent genres.
This project theorizes legitimacy and its cultivation, as depicted in Figure 7 and
Figure 8, featured at the end of the chapter, where legitimacy is created through social
221 consensus (evident in traces such as guarding a rhetor’s historical memory or granting the rhetor a leadership position). This legitimacy is developed in various organizations where women work to establish themselves, especially if they are in a position of subordination.
These organizations serve to structure society and include social, political, legal, educational, and religious organizations. Here, this project examined legitimacy in two separate organizations: religion (i.e., the Mormon Church) and a social justice organization (i.e., national feminist organizations like NOW or NWSA). Although the
Mormon Church is the organization of most interest, there are sections of the dissertation dedicated to earning legitimacy inside feminism, as highlighted by Johnson’s chapter.
Ultimately, this dissertation addresses the legitimacy strategies in the writings of Wells,
Johnson, and Kelly, who write with two specific contexts in mind to earn social consensus.
E.B. Wells: Legitimacy in Mormonism and Feminism
Arguably, E.B. Wells is the most fondly remembered Mormon feminist of the twentieth century, especially by currently practicing Mormons. After all, her archive, which contains her original and transcribed diary entries and most editions of the
Woman’s Exponent, is the only one housed at the L. Tom Perry Special Collections at
Brigham Young University—itself, a sign of Wells’ and her text’s value to the Mormon community. In addition, the Mormon community protects and shapes Wells’ memory by not only housing her archive, but publishing their version of her life, as the fifth General
Relief Society President, on their website (lds.org) and hanging an oil painting of her likeness for display in prominent church buildings. Also, academics who study Wells,
222 like Mormon historian Carol Cornwall Madsen, are celebrated and not denigrated inside
Mormon academic communities for their work. Based on this evidence, I would argue that Wells herself held a position of legitimacy inside Mormonism. Yet the extent to which her legitimacy extended to other Mormon women is diminished by events that occurred immediately preceding and following her death—such as changing the only lifetime position held by a woman, Relief Society President, into a term position.138139
In a larger context, apart from Utah, Wells’ voice facilitated Mormon women’s entry into the national conversation circulating around women’s enfranchisement.
Suffrage is one instance where the all-male Mormon leadership supported women’s rights and helped women, like Wells, advocate for these rights on a national scale.140
Wells crafted a position of legitimacy for Mormon women and their concerns inside the suffrage movement as is evidenced by her close relationship with the movement’s leaders: Susan B. Anthony and (a hesitant) Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Wells fostered a burgeoning relationship with Anthony and Stanton, wherein she was invited to meetings of the National Women’s Suffrage Association, exchanged tokens of appreciation with these women, published their writings in the Woman’s Exponent, and hosted them when
138 Please see historical context section of Wells’ and Johnson’s chapter for more information about Church “correlation” and how it diminished authority previously granted to Mormon women. 139 Arguably Wells was legitimate inside Mormonism because the male leaders of the church allowed her to have authority and encouraged other women to follow her because it corresponded with advancing Utah’s statehood. 140 Arguably, this level of Mormon patriarchal support for women’s rights has not happened since suffrage. Mormon patriarchs supported women’s enfranchisement because they understood it as a step towards statehood for the Utah territory and as potentially amplifying Mormon concerns on a national scale. The Mormon leadership’s support of Well’s advocacy further explains why she continues to be remembered fondly and thereby holds a position of legitimacy inside Mormon communities.
223 they visited Salt Lake City in 1871 (Iversen 102). Despite her connection to Anthony and
Stanton, not all national feminists were as welcoming of Wells and other Mormon women. For example, Lucy Stone, leader of the rival American Women’s Suffrage
Association, was vocally against polygamy and therefore refused to invite Mormon women so readily into the suffrage movement (Iversen).141 Yet Utah women were second only to women in Wyoming to receive the vote in 1870 (even if this vote was taken away in 1887 with the Edmund-Tucker Antipolygamy Bill) (Pearson and Madsen). I argue
Wells crafted a position of legitimacy for Mormon women inside the larger suffrage movement—but again, the extent of their legitimacy was mitigated by reactions to polygamy.
As previously mentioned, Wells primarily draws upon arrangement to foster
Mormon women’s legitimacy, both inside the Mormon Church and the national suffrage movement. Although these are not the only discursive strategies available, she employed arrangement patterns because this strategy was arguably subtler in comparison to other options, such as delivery strategies or invention processes. As a researcher, it took an extensive amount of time reading and rereading Wells’ writing to understand how she was developing women’s legitimacy, and I was only able to do so by noticing how she positioned certain authors and topics in relationship to each other. I posit that Wells employed this strategy because of the risk involved in boldly demanding that Mormon women be granted authority inside the Church and larger society. As a faithful follower
141 In The Woman’s Journal, Stone “reported the ‘profound impression’ Steinhouse [an antipolygamy advocate] made in Boston as she urged passage of further federal legislation to eradicate the shameful evil of polygamy” (Iversen 102).
224 of Mormonism, who moved from Petersham, Massachusetts to participate more fully in her faith, Wells was taking a considerable risk in her gentle advocacy— a risk which could involve excommunication or disfellowshipment, with their assurances of social isolation.142 Furthermore, I posit that the newspaper genre, which Wells based her newsletter upon, lends itself to strategic arrangement patterns, as it involves columns of texts with multiple articles per page, separated from each other in boxes, to facilitate skimming.
Sonia Johnson: Legitimacy in Mormonism and Feminism
Unlike E.B. Wells, Johnson is not fondly remembered by most of the practitioners of Mormonism; instead, she is vilified, silenced, or erased from this community.
Although many wrote in support of her membership, she was eventually excommunicated from the Mormon Church and in that process, delegitimized in the minds of many of the members, who do not question decisions made by Church’s leadership. Furthermore, the
Mormon Church does not work to protect Johnson’s memory; in fact her archive is not housed at the Brigham Young University and she does not have an entry on the lds.org website—her memory is erased from these authorized spaces that commemorate Mormon history.143 Needless to say, there is no oil painting of Johnson hanging in a Church
142 At this point in Utah’s development, being disfellowshipped or excommunicated meant leaving the community and joining other non-Mormons, who were starting to populate the area. Excommunication spelled more social isolation than it does today when excommunicated members readily attend Sunday church services but are not allowed to participate in the sacrament. 143 Although it remains unknown if Johnson continues to have church records in the mountain vault owned by the Mormon Church, stored in a mountainside one mile up Little Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch Mountain Range.
225 building. While the Mormon Church sought to suppress her history by not including it,
Johnson ensured that her archive and its attendant narrative was remembered by personally donating her items to the Marriott Library Special Collections at the
University of Utah. According to archivists there, she even visits intermittently to reread some documents and ensure that her archive is in proper working order.144 In addition, scholars celebrated within Mormonism do not actively examine Johnson’s feminist legacy and if they do, like Maxine Hanks, they risk excommunication. Among strict adherents to Mormonism, Johnson is not legitimate, yet her memory continues and is honored in more secular spaces.
One of these secular spaces commemorating Johnson is mainstream feminism.
Johnson not only joined national second wave feminists, she attempted to influence this group by working with the leadership of the Northwest division of the NOW and running for U.S. president (nominated by the Citizen’s Party). Despite Johnson’s critiques of the second wave feminist movement in Going Out of Our Minds, I could not find national feminists criticizing Johnson. Moreover, Johnson has a biographical entry on the National
Women’s History Museum website and in the Encyclopedia of Women in Today’s
World—Wells and Kelly do not—an omission that suggests Johnson was given more authority inside the national feminist movement than they were. And, important non-
Mormon, feminist scholars, such as Sonia and Karen Foss, frequently take up Johnson’s
144 Archivists at the Special Collections mentioned that visitors often request access to Johnson’s archive and in fact, one even called her “a superstar.” Despite her popularity, Johnson’s archive is not fully digitized like Wells’ archive, as only images from her protests are digitized.
226 writing as a subject of investigation.145146 Therefore, I would argue that Johnson cultivated a position of legitimacy inside the national feminist movement—a position not granted to the same degree to Wells or Kelly.
Unlike Wells, Johnson boldly uses the canon of invention to foster Mormon women’s legitimacy, as she employs invention processes stemming from second wave feminism to eschew traditional legitimacy in the Church and encourage women to create structures that are more gender equal.147 With the rise of radical and liberal second wave feminism and consequently, their consciousness-raising groups, it is no wonder that
Johnson encourages Mormon women to engage in similar processes. In addition,
Johnson’s genre of choice, the full-length monograph, was popular among other second wave feminists (like Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem) and its length allows for extended arguments concerning the need to dismantle the patriarchy, eschew legitimacy inside this space, and invent more gender equal structures.148
Kate Kelly: Legitimacy in Mormonism and Feminism
While Wells is celebrated and Johnson is besmirched, Kelly’s position inside mainstream Mormonism falls somewhere in the middle, not revered but also not
145 In conversation with Dr. Sonia Foss, I learned that her sister, Karen, even presided at Johnson and her partner, Jade DeForest’s, wedding. 146 Johnson’s legitimacy is also bolstered inside academic spaces as is evidenced by academics writing about her rhetorical significance (such as Foss, Foss and Griffin). 147 Johnson had no position of authority to lose within the Mormon Church after her excommunication, so she could easily encourage her followers to participate in this inventive process. 148 Notably, the full-length monograph is a very different genre from the brief newsletter employed by Wells.
227 denigrated. Similar to Johnson, Kelly was excommunicated in 2014 for publically advocating for gender equality inside the Mormon Church. Following her excommunication, she no longer organizes “faith-based” actions for women’s ordination and has bequeathed her position as chair of Ordain Women to Bryndis Roberts. She also infrequently writes blogs for the website she helped launch, ordainwomen.org (her last blog post was well over a year and a half ago).149 Unlike Johnson and Wells, Kelly does not have an archive housed in a large research university. Instead her archive is digital, as it is fully online in the form of her blogs, editorials, and her personal website
(katekellyesq.com). Despite her recent withdrawal from advocating for religious rights, I posit that Kelly reinitiated a conversation about women’s authority inside Mormonism that not only led to greater attention but some tangible results, even though these results are limited, as the OW movement has not achieved women’s ordination, but they have earned spots for three women to serve on the previously all-male general counsels.150
Arguably, Kelly earned more legitimacy for Mormon women inside her own faith than both Wells and Johnson—while Wells earned a position of legitimacy for herself,
Johnson was not successful in earning legitimacy for herself or other women inside
Mormonism. Moreover, part of Kelly’s success is due to her rhetorical strategies—as she tactically delivered messages to the all-male leadership and did not brazenly encourage
149 This blog post published in June of 2015 was entitled “The Laundry King” and it detailed her relationship with her father, especially outlining how he helped her believe that she was equal in all contexts. 150 There is some evidence that Kelly, herself, remains legitimate inside Mormonism despite her excommunication (i.e., Mormon scholars include Kelly and her concerns within their edited collections and are not excommunicated for their analyses of her ideas).
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Mormon women to imagine a new structure or subtly arrange articles to promote women’s issues.
Yet, nationally, Kelly has not crafted the same position of legitimacy for herself or other Mormon women inside the larger feminist movement. Currently, she is not readily invited to national feminists gatherings like Wells with NWSA or Johnson with
NOW nor has she ran for a leadership position in these organizations. This is not to say that there is no national interest in Kelly’s faith-based activism, as many publications with a national readership have circulated her ideas: such as The Washington Post, Slate, and the Huffington Post. Yet most of Kelly’s writing is disseminated at a smaller scale through local publications such as The Salt Lake Tribune and edited collections that document the ordain women’s movement (i.e., Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings).
Moreover, her opinion is frequently sought concerning local women’s issues, which illustrates that Kelly, herself, is legitimized inside this context. For example, Kelly currently serves as legal counsel for Planned Parenthood of Utah where she fought and won an effort to overturn legislation spearheaded by the Utah Governor, Gary Herbert, to defund this organization (Whitehurst). She continues to bring attention to feminist issues on a local scale. Taking this into account, Kelly has not developed a position of legitimacy for Mormon women or herself on the national scale—but she has on a local scale. As mentioned in the beginning of this conclusion, Kelly’s discourse will continue to develop—it has not stabilized with the passage of time, in the same way as Wells’ or
Johnsons’ discourse.
It is important to note that these three women exploit the technologies available to them to deliver their message to the public and cultivate their authority by gaining social
229 consensus. Yet Kelly backs away from Johnson’s boldness with her delivery strategies, which she uses tactfully to provoke the all-male Mormon leadership to seek a revelation concerning women’s ordination. With the invention of the Internet, self-publishing exploded and it is now easier to disseminate information online in the form of blogs, hosted on personally developed websites. The genre of blogs not only allows for self- publishing, they also facilitate the incorporation of multimedia texts like podcasts, images, and video clips. As such, how the rhetors shape their message’s delivery determines the extent to which the message is received by the targeted audience (such a massive barrage of information makes delivery much more important).151 As such,
Kelly’s chosen genre, the blog, and her current cultural moment, following the advent of the Internet, means it is more likely that she would focus on delivery strategies. Kelly’s blog posts function as a space to support women’s legitimacy and to echo third wave feminism’s emphasis on intersectionality wherein she advocates for Mormon women as maintaining the intersecting identities of gender and religion.
Based on the above evidence, these three rhetors did not experience utter failure or complete success at crafting a position of legitimacy for themselves and other Mormon women (see Table 2 for a depiction of these results). Wells crafted a position for herself within Mormonism, but it did not extend to other women. Although Mormon women were inspired by the “The Woman’s Exponent,” as they entered the professions at greater numbers and they exercised their right to vote, many found their legitimacy inside
151 Many other Mormon women have also started their own blogs in pursuit of legitimacy in their faith including: Mormon Stories Podcast, Feminist Mormon Housewives, and The Exponent.
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Mormonism, itself, diminished when Church correlation started. Wells also established her authority in the national feminist movement, but again, this was not readily extended to all Mormon women as Mormon women were not readily welcomed into some spaces due to their beliefs about polygamy. These Mormon women also retreated from national feminism once suffrage was granted. Unlike Wells, Johnson was not successful in legitimizing herself or other women inside Mormonism, but she was successful at developing a position of legitimacy for herself inside feminism. Kelly was arguably the best at cultivating authority for Mormon women inside of Mormonism, but this authority did not extend to herself (hence, her excommunication). Also, Kelly did develop authority for herself and other Mormon women inside local feminist organizations but again, this authority has yet to extend to the national level.
Legitimacy in a Social Organization: Religion
Overall, this project analyzes legitimacy in a particular social organization, specifically a patriarchal religious organization. Unfortunately, there are many other patriarchal organizations that treat marginalized groups, women in particular, in ways similar to those delineated in these chapters. Religion was selected as the social organization of choice because of my access to archives of religious women and also because of the often-invisible way that religions still serves to influence social structure.
Between 2007 and 2009, the United Nations Research Institute for Social
Development (UNRISD) examined the intersection between religion and gender, specifically focusing on the “social effects of politicized religions.” Although some religions are becoming more “politically active, most of their power is still characterized
231 as ‘informal’” (UNRISD). The subsequent report discovered that the “informal power of religion diffuses throughout society and when such religious norms promote gender discrimination, they reduce women's opportunities and are a serious concern to equality”
(UNRISD). The U.N. considers how the intersection of two different identities, gender and religion, facilitates or constrains equality in eleven countries. Religious researcher
Ruth Wallace further describes how religions reduce women’s opportunities, wherein women “have been ‘silenced, deprived of the authority to speak,’ especially when it comes to important church policy decisions” (5). Taken together with the findings in the opening epigram, the underlying principles that justify religions silencing their female parishioners filter throughout society, impacting other aspects of women’s daily lives— including the lives of women who are not religious. This project works to correct the silencing of religious women, by giving voice to Mormon women, who are often drowned out by the all-male leadership governing their church.
Legitimacy in a Social Organization: National Feminist Movement
As a field, feminist studies is intimately tied to fostering women’s legitimacy. In fact, well-known feminist scholars, Susan Bordo and Johanna Schmertz, articulate the entire feminist mission in terms of legitimacy—as feminists, we must foster women’s authority so they are no longer “marginalized and disdained” (82). This project is in line with Bordo and Schmertz’s assessments of the mission behind feminist work and therefore considers Mormon women’s legitimacy not only within a religious organization but also within the national feminist movement, itself. From Table 2, it is clear that
Wells, Johnson, and Kelly had varying levels of success establishing a space for Mormon
232 women inside feminism. While Wells was successful, her success was mitigated by concerns about polygamy. Johnson established a memorable position for herself on the national stage, without question. Kelly has drawn some national attention, yet she has more so made a name for herself on a local level.152
These findings are important because they bring to feminist rhetoric an attention to legitimacy, by centering questions about women’s authority throughout and building from literature on legitimacy ingrained inside feminist rhetoric (Sutton; Reynolds).
Moreover, this project adds to feminist studies by importing theory concerning legitimacy from other fields (specifically historical discourse analysis: Van Leeuwen and Wodak,
Wodak and Meyer, Levon and Baker) and using this theory to further interrogate women’s position of marginality.
This project also contributes to feminist rhetorical studies by giving attention to local histories as part of a growing movement— one that pays closer attention to marginalized rhetorics by examining local histories and how they challenge dominant structures and narratives (Ostergaard and Wood). As such, this dissertation intentionally takes as its topic writings penned and causes fostered by women local to the Salt Lake
Valley—these local stories add necessary complexity to our understanding of feminist history by illustrating how these women interacted on a local and national scale. In addition, these findings add complexity to the rhetorical tradition by recovering and reclaiming the voices of local Utah women, whose voices challenge dominant narratives
152 Although this last designation, concerning Kelly’s legitimacy in National Feminism, may change considering her recent call to reintroduce the Equal Rights Amendment into the Utah State Legislature.
233 of the region—narratives that frequently depict Mormon women as domesticated housewives. In addition, this study serves to also legitimize female rhetoricians inside rhetorical history by demonstrating their abilities persuading audiences, wherein they draw from the canons unevenly and strategically. Overall, my dissertation’s contributions to feminist rhetoric are manifold and they open up a space for other researchers to ask questions that build upon these findings.
Hybrid Methods
Methodologically, this dissertation contributes by crafting a hybrid method that combines archival research (L’Eplattenier, Royster and Kirsch, Glenn and Enoch) and historical discourse analysis (Wodak and Meyer, Baker and Levon). As such, this method starts by: 1) cordoning and partitioning off a research space, 2) describing this research space in intensive detail so as to allow for replication, and 3) selecting at least three points of analysis to facilitate triangulation (L’Eplattenier). After establishing a research space, I examine the documents in more detail by analyzing them as representative strands inside the larger strand of “Mormon feminism” wherein I look for “smaller strands” of discourse. After identifying these constitutive strands, I analyze them for the power relations at play by considering how each of these strands were designed to advocate for women’s authority inside a particular institution. It is important to emphasize that this analysis was “bottom-up” and not imposed from the “top-down” as it involved identifying strategies from multiple readings and not constructing an argument
234 based on what I most hoped to find.153
One Last Thing: Advancing Discourse, Trained Rhetors, Canonization
Although these three women are no longer directly engaged in Mormon feminism, the discourse that each of them helped develop continues on. While this discourse has shifted since Kelly’s 2014 excommunication, it still works towards a position of greater authority for women in the Mormon Church. For instance, the major purpose of OW has now shifted to involve advocating for women to have the opportunity to function as witnesses at sacred religious rituals, such as blessing ceremonies (Ordain Women “Ready to Witness”). I anticipate that Mormon women’s feminism will continue to evolve and change depending on events in the Church and larger U.S. society. As such, unknown rhetors will step in to the rhetorical lineage started by Wells, Johnson, and Kelly to further awareness through their activism in support of women’s religious rights. The case studies of Mormon feminism analyzed in this dissertation do not represent the beginning or the end—but instead signify important moments along this discursive strand.
Furthermore, to fully understand how each of these women uses the canons, they must be seen as trained rhetors. Yes, Kelly, Johnson and Wells were probably not formally trained in rhetoric in a classical or contemporary sense in that they did not enroll in classes solely dedicated to the study of rhetoric. But each of them were highly trained
153 Although it is difficult to guard against researcher bias (hopefulness?), I did so through extensive historical research and triangulation. In effect, I checked my assumptions for what I hoped to find against the historical backdrop and in comparisons with other rhetors from the same discursive strand (comparing Johnson to Kelly and Wells, etc.).
235 in the study of language and its uses—if only informally. For example, E.B. Wells was an editor of a newsletter for forty years—a position that also included layout and design of the publication—as such, she would have developed an incisive eye for how to strategically arrange articles. In a time when women were not regularly educated or even allowed to enroll in higher education, Wells was the first woman to receive an honorary degree from the Department of English at the Brigham Young University (Madsen “A
Fine Soul”). Likewise, Johnson was also trained to use language strategically and perhaps even had exposure to the rhetorical canons as a student who earned a Bachelors in
English from Utah State University, a Doctorate of Education from Rutgers University, and worked as a part-time teacher of English. More than likely, Johnson learned about invention as a form of feminist activism and not only as a rhetorical canon, yet this does not mean that her understanding of invention could not be informed by both understandings. Indeed, Kelly also has an intimate understanding of the importance of the rhetorical canons, especially delivery, which she employs masterfully. After all, she is a successfully trained lawyer and as such, she would be aware of her message’s delivery in a courtroom, particularly in person. From her writing, it is clear many of the rhetorical skills she used as a lawyer translate into her activism for Mormon women. Therefore, arrangement, invention, and delivery, as part of the rhetorical canons, are not being used metaphorically. Instead I would argue that these three women employ each canon deliberately to argue for women’s rights—even if they did not call their strategy by the proper name.
Make no mistake that the process of canonization represents a form of legitimation in religious and scholarly communities, as it is often the most important texts
236 that are part of the “canon.” This typically means that texts by, about, or specifically directed towards women are excluded from the “canon,” which presents challenges for historical, archival research on women. The “rhetorical canons” are not the same as in other fields in that they do not protect time-honored texts; instead they trace the tasks often used in crafting a persuasive speech, stemming back to classical Rome.154 In strategically employing these rhetorical canons, Wells, Johnson, and Kelly are demonstrating a facility with strategies that are canonized in one field (rhetorical studies), to have their ideas remembered, legitimated, and canonized in another (Mormonism and
Feminism).
Conclusions and Potentialities
While this study is expansive in its historical nature and the depth of its selected corpus, there are limitations that must be acknowledged. One of the largest limitations is the research design, which involves selecting and examining the rhetoric of only three rhetors. While these three were leaders in their communities and in many ways representative of Mormon feminism in their time periods, many other Mormon feminist voices were left out of this analysis, such as: Eliza R. Snow (2nd General Relief Society
President), Lavina Fielding Anderson, Margaret Toscano, Maxine Hanks (part of the
September six), and more contemporary feminists, like Lorie Winder Stromberg (OW board member), Lindsey Hansen Park (feminist Mormon housewives podcast), or
154 Although there are “canonized” texts in rhetorical history, some of which describe proper use of the canons, I would argue that the rhetorical canons delineate the action of writing more so than historicizing and preserving a text.
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Bryndis Roberts (the new chair of OW). Along these same lines, future research should consider Mormon feminism outside of the time periods that correspond with the three waves of feminism. While I did not intentionally choose rhetors whose rhetorical activity corresponds with the three problematic waves, overcoming this limitation would involve uncovering rhetors who were advocating for Mormon women’s religious rights during the 1930s, 1940s, or 1950s before Johnson, or during the 1860s before Wells, or even in the 1990s before Kelly.
Despite these limitations, my dissertation represents an important foray into the rhetoric crafted by Mormon women—an integral part of rhetorical history that is only starting to gain the attention of a larger scholarly community outside of Mormon historical studies (see Gere). This dissertation contributes to rhetorical studies theoretically (adding to legitimacy theory by operationalizing the canons as strategies), methodologically (by bridging historical discourse analysis with archival work), and in terms of content (bringing awareness to the rhetorical activities of Mormon women).
This dissertation opens up new lines of inquiry for future rhetorical feminist historians. These new lines of inquiry involve asking the following questions: 1) How have Mormon women used the other canons, such as delivery or style, to further legitimate themselves and establish a position of authority? 2) Or how have other marginalized groups in hierarchal organizations apart from religions drawn upon the canons to further develop their legitimacy (i.e., marginalized groups in academia, politics, and/or health care)? 3) Does employing these legitimation strategies challenge those who are already in positions of authority? If so, in which ways and to what effect? Despite these lingering questions, this dissertation engages in an important conversation
238 concerning women’s legitimacy inside an organization they are currently prohibited from leading.
In sum, these three women, whose lives and writings proudly populate the pages of this dissertation, Emmeline B. Wells, Sonia Johnson, and Kate Kelly, worked to shatter the stained glass ceiling, to give Mormon women authority in different forms inside their faith and in the national feminist movement. It is my hope that this dissertation will serve as a reminder of the fight that they waged on behalf of women in
Utah and in the Mormon Church. Their stories and the risks they took must not be forgotten.
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Citing nature drawing on delivery gaining associating arrangement or being context strategies visibility with others patterns
External à
gaining through performing/claimin citing people citing texts citing experience inventing legitimacy popularity g legitimacy
ßInternal
Figure 7: Continuum of Legitimacy With Strategic Rhetorical Canons
Table 2: Sliding Scales of Legitimacy
Rhetorsà Emmeline B. Well Sonia Johnson Kate Kelly
Legitimacy in For herself No For other women, Mormonism not for herself
Legitimacy in the Yes, but mitigated Locally not National Feminist by polygamy For herself nationally Movement
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E.B. Wells Sonia Johnson Kate Kelly
Contexts to achieve legitimacy (religion; feminism)
Organizations
(social, political, legal, religious)
Legitimacy (traces of social consensus)
Figure 8: Layers of Legitimacy
APPENDIX
EMMELINE B. WELLS’ ARRANGEMENT PATTERNS
Key #1 Symbol Meaning X Wells Writing on Suffrage ★ Wells Writing about Women’s Rights N Church Discourse O Excerpt from Women’s Journals ✚ Utah Suffrage Organizations u Women in War (i.e., Red Cross) Δ National Feminist Discourse
Key #2 Subscript Meaning 1-8 Page Number that Features Writing M Mormon Identity D Women’s Duty H Women’s History W Church Discourse about Women NIA Not in Archives NR Not Relevant (C) Two Issues Combined into One W Wells—Outside of Women’s Rights/Suffrage
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Publication date Column A Column B Column C 1878-01-01 X1 Δ6 n5 1878-01-15 ★4 n5 Δ6 1878-02-01 X4 n5 1878-02-15 Δ3 n5 1878-03-01 X4 1878-03-15 (NR) 1878-04-01 ★4 1878-04-15 O6 1878-05-01 ★4 1878-05-15 (NR) 1878-06-01 Δ4 1878-06-15 Δ7 1878-07-01 X4 ★4 1878-07-15 ★4 Δ7 1878-08-01 X4 1878-08-15 ★4 1878-09-01 ★4 Δ6 1878-09-15 X4 1878-10-01 ★4 1878-10-15 ★4M 1878-11-01 ★4 MD Δ7 1878-11-15 ★1 ★4M 1878-12-01 ★4 M 1878-12-15 Δ1 **************** *************** **************** ************** 1879-01-01 (NR) 1879-01-15 ★1D ★1 1879-02-01 X4 1879-02-15 X4 X5 X6 Δ7 1879-03-01 X4 1879-03-15 X4 O6 O6 1879-04-01 ★4 1879-04-15 ★4D Δ7 1879-05-01 ★4M Δ6 1879-05-15 Δ6 Δ2 1879-06-01 Δ3 ★4D Δ7 1879-06-15 ★4D 1879-07-01 Δ3 1879-07-15 ★3D X4 ★6D O7 1879-08-01 ★4D Δ6 1879-08-15 ★4 n3 1879-09-01 (NR) 1879-09-15 ★4M
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1879-10-01 ★4 1879-10-15 ★4M Δ6 1879-11-01 ★4D 1879-11-15 NR 1879-12-01 ★4 ★8D Δ4 1879-12-15 NR **************** *************** **************** ************** 1880-01-01 Δ5 1880-01-15 ★1D ★2M Δ7 1880-02-01 Δ2 X4 1880-02-15 (NR) 1880-03-01 X4 1880-03-15 (NR) 1880-04-01 n4M (W) 1880-04-15 ★4MD 1880-05-01 n4 (W-grain) Δ7 1880-05-15 ★4 1880-06-01 n4 (W) 1880-06-15 Δ5 1880-07-01 (NR) 1880-07-15 Δ6 1880-08-01 n4 (W) 1880-08-15 n7 (W) 1880-09-01 X4 1880-09-15 (NR) 1880-10-01 X4 ✚M5 ✚M5 ✚M5 ✚M4 ✚M5 ✚M4 ✚M4 ✚M4 1880-10-15 (NR) 1880-11-01 ★4 Δ5 O8 1880-11-15 n5 (W-grain) 1880-12-01 X4 Δ3 1880-12-15 Δ3 + O **************** *************** **************** *************** 1888-01-01 (NR) 1888-01-15 X 4 Δ2 n3 Δ7 1888-02-01 X4 1888-02-15 X4 n2 Δ3 Δ2 Δ3 1888-03-01 O3 1888-03-15 X4M Δ7 X4 Δ6 1888-04-01 X4 X4 1888-04-15 O2 X3 n4 (W) n6 X4 1888-05-01 O3 Δ3 (W) Δ7 Δ1 (W) 1888-05-15 O2 X4M n6 1888-06-01 ✚1M n4 (W) O6 1888-06-15 ✚1M n4M (W) O7 1888-07-01 O3
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1888-07-15 ✚1M n5 n7 1888-08-01 n4 Δ2 1888-08-15 (NR) 1888-09-01 ✚1M n4 (W) n4 Δ7 1888-09-15 Δ4 (W) n4 Δ2 1888-10-01 Δ4 (W) Δ8 1888-10-15 X4 Δ3 1888-11-01 X4M n6 O2 Δ3 n5 1888-11-15 n1 n5 1888-12-01 (NR) 1888-12-15 ★2 n5 (W) ★2 Δ7 *************** ************** *************** ************** 1889-01-01 ★5 ★5 Δ7 1889-01-15 n4 (W) Δ8 ✚1M Δ8 Δ8 1889-02-01 X4 ★1 Δ3 1889-02-15 X4 X5 ★6 X1 X2 1889-03-01 ★1D n4 (W) Δ7 Δ6 Δ3 Δ5 1889-03-15 n5 (W) n3 Δ3 1889-04-01 X4 Δ5 ★7 ✚1M 1889-04-15 ★4M n2 1889-05-01 ✚6M ✚7M ✚8M ✚ 4M✚6M ✚7M✚8M ✚ 6M ✚7M ✚8M 1889-05-15 X5 X6 ✚5M Δ3 1889-06-01 ✚6M Δ3 Δ2 1889-06-15 O8 ✚5M Δ2 1889-07-01 ✚5M ✚5M Δ2 X7 1889-07-15 ✚6M ✚6M Δ2 1889-08-01 ✚8M Δ3 O7 1889-08-15 ✚6M n3 ✚6M Δ2 Δ7 1889-09-01 (NR) 1889-09-15 X4 Δ2 1889-10-01 n4 ✚8M Δ2 ✚4M ✚7M 1889-10-15 n4 Δ8 ✚5M Δ2 Δ2 1889-11-01 X4 ✚5M Δ8 ✚4M Δ3 1889-11-15 X4 ✚6M X4 Δ7 Δ3 1889-12-01 n4 (W) ✚7M Δ8 n4 ✚6M 1889-12-15 Δ8 *************** ************** *************** ************** 1890-01-01 ✚5M Δ6 ✚7M Δ3 1890-01-15 n4 Δ8 ✚8M 1890-02-01 ✚7M ✚3M 1890-02-15 n4 (W) ✚5 ✚1M ✚7 ✚2M ✚3M ✚3 1890-03-01 n4 (W) Δ7 X4 Δ5 ✚6 X4 O5 1890-03-15 ✚6 ✚8 ✚4 ✚6 ✚4 ✚4 1890-04-01 Δ3 ✚4
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1890-04-15 n4 (W) ✚5 Δ7 ✚2 O2 Δ3 1890-05-01 X4 X4 ✚5 O7 1890-05-15 X8 Δ8 ✚6 O8 O3 1890-06-01 ✚6 ✚2 1890-06-15 n4 (W) ✚7 Δ8 1890-07-01 ✚4 Δ6 (W) Δ2 O3 ✚5 Δ8 1890-07-15 (NR) 1890-08-01 Δ2 ✚4 1890-08-15 Δ3 Δ6 1890-09-01 (NIA) 1890-09-15 O3 X4M Δ1 ✚6 1890-10-01 Δ3 ★4 Δ4 Δ8 ✚7 1890-10-15 (NIA) 1890-11-01 ✚3 n4 (W) ✚8 ✚7 1890-11-15 Δ4 Δ8 Δ1 1890-12-01 ✚4 n5 ✚6 Δ8 ✚5 Δ8 1890-12-15 Δ8 Δ5 ★7 Δ7 *************** ************** *************** ************** 1898-01-01 C) ★4 1898-01-15 C) 1898-02-01 Δ4 ★6 1898-02-15 C) Δ1 ✚3 Δ4 ✚5 Δ1 1898-03-01 C) 1898-03-15 C) ✚5 Δ3 1898-04-01 C) 1898-04-15 ★3 (a/W) n4 ✚5 Δ8 Δ1 1898-05-01 n4 Δ1 Δ5 1898-05-15 ✚2 ✚5 ✚5 n8 Δ1 1898-06-01 C) Δ3 ✚3 1898-06-15 C) 1898-07-01 C) Δ1 Δ4 1898-07-15 C ) 1898-08-01 n5 Δ8 Δ1 u4 1898-08-15 u1 u4+ Δ Δ3 1898-09-01 X4 u4 Δ1 ✚1 1898-09-15 Δ1 n4 ✚6 n5 Δ1 O3 1898-10-01 C) n4 u8 Δ3 1898-10-15 C) 1898-11-01 C) Δ4 Δ8 Δ7 1898-11-15 C) 1898-12-01 Δ7 1898-12-15 Δ3 X4 ***************** *************** *************** ************** 1899-01-01 Δ1
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1899-01-15 ✚4 Δ3 Δ8 1899-02-01 u3 ★4 Δ8 Δ4 1899-02-15 C) Δ4 1899-03-01 C) 1899-03-15 n4 Δ1 Δ3 Δ4 1899-04-01 u8 ★5 Δ2 1899-04-15 n4 1899-05-01 Δ4 Δ4 n4 1899-05-15 Δ5 u1 u4 u8 Δ3 Δ5 1899-06-01 Δ3 u4 u5 Δ5 1899-06-15 n4 Δ5 1899-07-01 Δ3 1899-07-15 Δ1 Δ8 u4 1899-08-01 Δ1 1899-08-15 C) Δ4 u8 1899-09-01 C) 1899-09-15 C) Δ2 1899-10-01 C) 1899-10-15 n4 ★4 + O Δ4 1899-11-01 Δ5 1899-11-15 Δ3 Δ8 Δ8 1899-12-01 (NIA) 1899-12-15 (NIA) ***************** *************** *************** ************** 1900-01-01 n4 Δ5 Δ1 Δ1 1900-01-15 C) X4 Δ1 1900-02-01 C) 1900-02-15 C) Δ4 1900-03-01 C) 1900-03-15 (NIA) 1900-04-01 (NIA) 1900-04-15 C) Δ2 1900-05-01 C) 1900-05-15 u1 u3 1900-06-01 ★4 Δ8 1900-06-15 (NR) 1900-07-01 (NIA) 1900-07-15 C) u4 1900-08-01 C) 1900-08-15 C) X5 ★2 1900-09-01 C) 1900-09-15 C) u4 Δ4 n4 u8 Δ5 1900-10-01 C) 1900-10-15 C) ✚4 Δ4 1900-11-01 C)
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1900-11-15 C) 1900-12-01 C) ★4 Δ3 X4 Δ8 Δ3 1900-12-15 u3 ★7 Δ2 ***************** **************** *************** ************** 1908-01-01 X4 n6 (W) 1908-01-15 (NIA) 1908-02-01 ★1 Δ2 X4 X8 1908-02-15 (NIA) 1908-03-01 (NIA) 1908-03-15 (NIA) 1908-04-01 n4 ★1 H X2 1908-04-15 (NIA) 1908-05-01 ★3 H 1908-05-15 (NIA) 1908-06-01 ★1 H n4 Δ6 ✚6 X3 1908-06-15 (NIA) 1908-07-01 (NIA) 1908-07-15 (NIA) 1908-08-01 ★1 H ✚6 Δ8 1908-08-1 (NIA) 1908-09-01 (NIA) 1908-09-15 (NIA) 1908-10-01 ★1 H X4 X2 1908-10-15 (NIA) 1908-11-01 X4 Δ8 X3 ★5 1908-11-15 (NIA) 1908-12-01 (NIA) 1908-12-15 (NIA) ***************** *************** *************** ************** 1909-01-01 X3 Δ6 Δ8 1909-01-15 (NIA) 1909-02-01 (NIA) 1909-02-15 (NIA) 1909-03-01 X2 X6 X8 1909-03-15 (NIA) 1909-04-01 (NIA) 1909-04-15 (NIA) 1909-05-01 Δ3 X2 O4 ★6 Δ8 1909-05-15 (NIA) 1909-06-01 ★8 Δ1 ★2 ★6 Δ7 1909-06-15 (NIA) 1909-07-01 (NIA) 1909-07-15 (NIA) 1909-08-01 Δ4 ★8 Δ2 Δ3 1909-08-15 (NIA)
248
1909-09-01 (NIA) 1909-09-15 (NIA) 1909-10-01 n4 Δ7 1909-10-15 (NIA) 1909-11-01 X5 Δ6 O8 1909-11-15 (NIA) 1909-12-01 (NIA) 1909-12-15 (NIA) ***************** *************** *************** ************** 1910-01-01 Δ5 1910-01-15 (NIA) 1910-02-01 (NIA) 1910-02-15 (NIA) 1910-03-01 X3 1910-03-15 (NIA) 1910-04-01 ★3 1910-04-15 (NIA) 1910-05-01 ★4H X5 u X3 O8 1910-05-15 (NIA) 1910-06-01 O1 Δ8 1910-06-15 (NIA) 1910-07-01 (NIA) 1910-07-15 (NIA) 1910-08-01 ★1H Δ7 ★8 Δ7 ★4 1910-08-15 (NIA) 1910-09-01 X5 X8 1910-09-15 (NIA) 1910-10-01 ★1 ★3 X8 1910-10-15 (NIA) 1910-11-01 n4 O3 O2 O3 X8 1910-11-15 (NIA) 1910-12-01 (NIA) 1910-12-15 (NIA) **************** *************** **************** ************** 1914-01-01 n4 ★1 Δ6 1910-02-01 n4 Δ2 Δ4M
249
Filtered Mapping—Wells’ Discourse, Church Discourse, and National Feminist Discourse
Publication date Column A Column B Column C 1878-01-01 X1 Δ6 n5 1878-01-15 ★4 n5 Δ6 1878-02-01 X4 n5 1878-02-15 Δ3 n5 1878-03-01 X4 1878-03-15 (NR) 1878-04-01 ★4 1878-04-15 1878-05-01 ★4 1878-05-15 (NR) 1878-06-01 Δ4 1878-06-15 Δ7 1878-07-01 X4 ★4 1878-07-15 ★4 Δ7 1878-08-01 X4 1878-08-15 ★4 1878-09-01 ★4 Δ6 1878-09-15 X4 1878-10-01 ★4 1878-10-15 ★4 1878-11-01 ★4 Δ7 1878-11-15 ★1 ★4 1878-12-01 ★4 1878-12-15 Δ1 ************** ************** *************** ************** 1879-01-01 (NR) 1879-01-15 ★1 ★1 1879-02-01 X4 1879-02-15 X4 X5 X6 Δ7 1879-03-01 X4 1879-03-15 X4 1879-04-01 ★4 1879-04-15 ★4 Δ7 1879-05-01 ★4 Δ6 1879-05-15 Δ6 Δ2 1879-06-01 Δ3 ★4 Δ7 1879-06-15 ★4 1879-07-01 Δ3 1879-07-15 ★3 X4 ★6 1879-08-01 ★4 Δ6 1879-08-15 ★4 n3
250
1879-09-01 (NR) 1879-09-15 ★4 1879-10-01 ★4 1879-10-15 ★4 Δ6 1879-11-01 ★4 1879-11-15 NR 1879-12-01 ★4 ★8 Δ4 1879-12-15 NR *************** *************** **************** ************** 1880-01-01 Δ5 1880-01-15 ★1 ★2 Δ7 1880-02-01 Δ2 X4 1880-02-15 (NR) 1880-03-01 X4 1880-03-15 (NR) 1880-04-01 n4 1880-04-15 ★4 1880-05-01 n4 Δ7 1880-05-15 ★4 1880-06-01 n4 1880-06-15 Δ5 1880-07-01 (NR) 1880-07-15 Δ6 1880-08-01 n4 1880-08-15 n7 1880-09-01 X4 1880-09-15 (NR) 1880-10-01 X4 1880-10-15 (NR) 1880-11-01 ★4 Δ5 1880-11-15 n5 1880-12-01 X4 Δ3 1880-12-15 Δ3 ************** *************** *************** ************* 1888-01-01 (NR) 1888-01-15 X 4 Δ2 n3 Δ7 1888-02-01 X4 1888-02-15 X4 n2 Δ3 Δ2 Δ3 1888-03-01 1888-03-15 X4 Δ7 X4 Δ6 1888-04-01 X4 X4 1888-04-15 X3 n4 n6 X4 1888-05-01 Δ3 Δ7 Δ1 1888-05-15 X4 n6 1888-06-01 n4
251
1888-06-15 n4 1888-07-01 1888-07-15 n5 n7 1888-08-01 n4 Δ2 1888-08-15 (NR) 1888-09-01 n4 n4 Δ7 1888-09-15 Δ4 n4 Δ2 1888-10-01 Δ4 Δ8 1888-10-15 X4 Δ3 1888-11-01 X4 n6 Δ3 n5 1888-11-15 n1 n5 1888-12-01 (NR) 1888-12-15 ★2 n5 ★2 Δ7 ************** ************** **************** ************** 1889-01-01 ★5 ★5 Δ7 1889-01-15 n4 Δ8 Δ8 Δ8 1889-02-01 X4 ★1 Δ3 1889-02-15 X4 X5 ★6 X1 X2 1889-03-01 ★1 n4 Δ7 Δ6 Δ3 Δ5 1889-03-15 n5 n3 Δ3 1889-04-01 X4 Δ5 ★7 1889-04-15 ★4 n2 1889-05-01 1889-05-15 X5 X6 Δ3 1889-06-01 Δ3 Δ2 1889-06-15 Δ2 1889-07-01 Δ2 X7 1889-07-15 Δ2 1889-08-01 Δ3 1889-08-15 n3 Δ2 Δ7 1889-09-01 (NR) 1889-09-15 X4 Δ2 1889-10-01 n4 Δ2 1889-10-15 n4 Δ8 Δ2 Δ2 1889-11-01 X4 Δ8 Δ3 1889-11-15 X4 X4 Δ7 Δ3 1889-12-01 n4 Δ8 n4 1889-12-15 Δ8 ************** ************** **************** ************** 1890-01-01 Δ6 Δ3 1890-01-15 n4 Δ8 1890-02-01 1890-02-15 n4 1890-03-01 n4 Δ7 X4 Δ5 X4
252
1890-03-15 1890-04-01 Δ3 1890-04-15 n4 Δ7 Δ3 1890-05-01 X4 X4 1890-05-15 X8 Δ8 1890-06-01 1890-06-15 n4 Δ8 1890-07-01 Δ6 Δ2 Δ8 1890-07-15 (NR) 1890-08-01 Δ2 1890-08-15 Δ3 Δ6 1890-09-01 (NIA) 1890-09-15 X4 Δ1 1890-10-01 Δ3 ★4 Δ4 Δ8 1890-10-15 (NIA) 1890-11-01 n4 1890-11-15 Δ4 Δ8 Δ1 1890-12-01 n5 Δ8 Δ8 1890-12-15 Δ8 Δ5 ★7 Δ7 *************** *************** *************** ************** 1898-01-01 C) ★4 1898-01-15 C) 1898-02-01 Δ4 ★6 1898-02-15 C) Δ1 Δ4 Δ1 1898-03-01 C) 1898-03-15 C) Δ3 1898-04-01 C) 1898-04-15 ★3 n4 Δ8 Δ1 1898-05-01 n4 Δ1 Δ5 1898-05-15 n8 Δ1 1898-06-01 C) Δ3 1898-06-15 C) 1898-07-01 C) Δ1 Δ4 1898-07-15 C ) 1898-08-01 n5 Δ8 Δ1 1898-08-15 Δ4 Δ3 1898-09-01 X4 Δ1 1898-09-15 Δ1 n4 n5 Δ1 1898-10-01 C) n4 Δ3 1898-10-15 C) 1898-11-01 C) Δ4 Δ8 Δ7 1898-11-15 C) 1898-12-01 Δ7 1898-12-15 Δ3 X4 *************** *************** *************** **************
253
1899-01-01 Δ1 1899-01-15 Δ3 Δ8 1899-02-01 ★4 Δ8 Δ4 1899-02-15 C) Δ4 1899-03-01 C) 1899-03-15 n4 Δ1 Δ3 Δ4 1899-04-01 ★5 Δ2 1899-04-15 n4 1899-05-01 Δ4 Δ4 n4 1899-05-15 Δ5 Δ3 Δ5 1899-06-01 Δ3 Δ5 1899-06-15 n4 Δ5 1899-07-01 Δ3 1899-07-15 Δ1 Δ8 1899-08-01 Δ1 1899-08-15 C) Δ4 1899-09-01 C) 1899-09-15 C) Δ2 1899-10-01 C) 1899-10-15 n4 ★4 Δ4 1899-11-01 Δ5 1899-11-15 Δ3 Δ8 Δ8 1899-12-01 (NIA) 1899-12-15 (NIA) ************** ************* *************** ************** 1900-01-01 n4 Δ5 Δ1 Δ1 1900-01-15 C) X4 Δ1 1900-02-01 C) 1900-02-15 C) Δ4 1900-03-01 C) 1900-03-15 (NIA) 1900-04-01 (NIA) 1900-04-15 C) Δ2 1900-05-01 C) 1900-05-15 1900-06-01 ★4 Δ8 1900-06-15 (NR) 1900-07-01 (NIA) 1900-07-15 C) 1900-08-01 C) 1900-08-15 C) X5 ★2 1900-09-01 C) 1900-09-15 C) Δ4 n4 Δ5 1900-10-01 C) 1900-10-15 C) Δ4
254
1900-11-01 C) 1900-11-15 C) 1900-12-01 C) ★4 Δ3 X4 Δ8 Δ3 1900-12-15 ★7 Δ2 ************** ************* ************** ************** 1908-01-01 X4 n6 1908-01-15 (NIA) 1908-02-01 ★1 Δ2 X4 X8 1908-02-15 (NIA) 1908-03-01 (NIA) 1908-03-15 (NIA) 1908-04-01 n4 ★1 H X2 1908-04-15 (NIA) 1908-05-01 ★3 1908-05-15 (NIA) 1908-06-01 ★1 n4 Δ6 X3 1908-06-15 (NIA) 1908-07-01 (NIA) 1908-07-15 (NIA) 1908-08-01 ★1 Δ8 1908-08-1 (NIA) 1908-09-01 (NIA) 1908-09-15 (NIA) 1908-10-01 ★1 X4 X2 1908-10-15 (NIA) 1908-11-01 X4 Δ8 X3 ★5 1908-11-15 (NIA) 1908-12-01 (NIA) 1908-12-15 (NIA) ************** ************* **************** *************** 1909-01-01 X3 Δ6 Δ8 1909-01-15 (NIA) 1909-02-01 (NIA) 1909-02-15 (NIA) 1909-03-01 X2 X6 X8 1909-03-15 (NIA) 1909-04-01 (NIA) 1909-04-15 (NIA) 1909-05-01 Δ3 X2 ★6 Δ8 1909-05-15 (NIA) 1909-06-01 ★8 Δ1 ★2 ★6 Δ7 1909-06-15 (NIA) 1909-07-01 (NIA) 1909-07-15 (NIA)
255
1909-08-01 Δ4 ★8 Δ2 Δ3 1909-08-15 (NIA) 1909-09-01 (NIA) 1909-09-15 (NIA) 1909-10-01 n4 Δ7 1909-10-15 (NIA) 1909-11-01 X5 Δ6 1909-11-15 (NIA) 1909-12-01 (NIA) 1909-12-15 (NIA) ************** ************** **************** ************** 1910-01-01 Δ5 1910-01-15 (NIA) 1910-02-01 (NIA) 1910-02-15 (NIA) 1910-03-01 X3 1910-03-15 (NIA) 1910-04-01 ★3 1910-04-15 (NIA) 1910-05-01 ★4 X5 X3 1910-05-15 (NIA) 1910-06-01 Δ8 1910-06-15 (NIA) 1910-07-01 (NIA) 1910-07-15 (NIA) 1910-08-01 ★1 Δ7 ★8 Δ7 ★4 1910-08-15 (NIA) 1910-09-01 X5 X8 1910-09-15 (NIA) 1910-10-01 ★1 ★3 X8 1910-10-15 (NIA) 1910-11-01 n4 X8 1910-11-15 (NIA) 1910-12-01 (NIA) 1910-12-15 (NIA) **************** ************** **************** *************** 1914-01-01 n4 ★1 Δ6 1910-02-01 n4 Δ2 Δ4M
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