Constituting Southern feminists: Women's liberation newsletters in the South

Abstract

Although second wave scholarship analyzes how feminists identified women's shared inequity to cultivate membership, in doing so, it necessarily occludes the differences between and among women. Consequently, the rhetoric of women struggling to develop feminist identity is overlooked. This essay reveals how women with backgrounds different than feminism's mainstream tried to connect their personal experiences with women as a whole. I argue that Southern Women's Liberation had particular regional identity needs that had to be met in order to constitute feminist identity. By explicating their use of three types of rhetorical strategies, I demonstrate how Southern feminists attempted to resolve problems presented by the South's history and traditions to develop feminism. I contend attention to these efforts creates a richer, regionally diverse narrative of feminism.