ASU Research E-Magazine: Roots of Feminism

Cheree Carlson believes that the way society views women today is a direct result of how society viewed women in the past. An ASU associate professor of communication, Carlson sifts through the origins of the American feminist movement. She studies the words and attitudes that were and are used to define women.

Carlson defines herself as a rhetorician. Rhetoric, one of the oldest fields in communication, is the study of how human beings use symbolic means to influence each other, what those influences are, and how they function.

Rhetoric is good for people who want to influence and good for people who don’t want to be influenced, Carlson says.

A large part of her work involves examining the rhetorical strategies of 19th-century women’s organizations in America. For example, Carlson has taken a closer look at the way the American Female Moral Reform Society of the 19th century used rhetoric to persuade society to outlaw prostitution. The AFMRS was not a feminist organization, but it did form part of the foundation of American feminism.

Carlson says that many 19th-century feminists offered to support the group’s anti-prostitution crusade. But the women of the AFMRS worked very hard to dissociate themselves from the feminists. The moral reformers’ anti-prostitution stance was not rooted in the ideals of gender equality or the liberation of women. These women strongly believed in the traditional morals and gender roles of their time.

The AFMRS used “casuistry” as a rhetorical strategy in their crusade, Carlson says. Casuistry is the process of stretching a value to include behavior it otherwise would not cover.

“You had women who wanted to do things that traditionally women were absolutely not allowed to do,” she explains. “They would petition, picket, and park their bodies in front of whorehouses so that everybody saw them as they were going in and coming out.”

Carlson says the AFMRS used the notion of “domesticity” to justify radical activities by women. Women were supposed to devote themselves to maintaining and protecting the family. The moral reformers made ending prostitution crucial to the protection of their families.

The AFMRS also created an identification between all women. Prostitutes no longer were seen as wanton women who seduced men, according to Carlson. These fallen women were actually the victims of seduction by libertines. The professor says that the moral reformers believed that if even one woman could be victimized by a man, then all women were vulnerable.

“You can’t go around saying all women are sisters without creating a membership, a sense of feminist consciousness,” Carlson says.

The AFMRS persuaded many states to outlaw prostitution and criminalize statutory rape. But they never successfully got prostitution outlawed nationally.

“When you say that men are at fault and it is men who are making the laws, you can’t really get very far,” Carlson adds.

Carlson sees a logical progression from the moral reformer of the 19th century to today’s woman. Still, she wonders if the symbolic construction of women has changed all that much. “What’s the difference between wearing corsets and saline implants?” she asks.—Stephanie Mabee