Mapping rhetorical interventions in “national” feminist histories: Second wave feminism and Ain't I a woman

Abstract

Histories of U.S. second wave feminism often locate the “origin” of radical feminism with a break from the New Left. This meta‐narrative of rupture has produced a “national” feminism which creates a universalizing logic that stands in for the creation of second wave feminism. The danger for feminism is that its very history becomes fixed through this logic, eclipsing those discourses from feminism's past that do not operate accordingly. This essay offers a reading of the 1970s feminist newspaper Ain't I a Woman's rhetorical practice of juxtaposition. It argues that this practice signifies a rhetorical shift from the manifesto, and when read through the figure of the 1970s female karate body, an opportunity to destabilize the “national” histories of women's liberation.