In Defense of Women's Rights: A Rhetorical Analysis of Judicial Dissent

Gibson, Katie

doi:10.1080/07491409.2012.724526

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 16 publications

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“…She reframed the question of abortion, Gibson observes, by making women's equality and right to reproductive control (rather than the generalized notion of privacy) the defining terms, thus insisting on "the consideration of women's lived experience and equal personhood as a necessary component of abortion law." 40 Women's equality opened a new field of arguments with which Justice Ginsburg undermined the myth of neutrality and exposed the situated nature of the law as an instrument of patriarchy, but she did so while wearing the legitimizing robes of the highest court in the land.…”

Section: Inventing Dissentmentioning

confidence: 98%

Enabling Democratic Dissent

Ivie¹

2015

Quarterly Journal of Speech

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Dissent, in its distinctive contribution to democratic practice, neither reduces to protest nor advances toward consensus. It is a double-sided discourse with both a solid footing in public culture and a sharp edge for cutting through political orthodoxies. Rhetorical invention is its dynamic. Dissenters must maneuver, like mythical tricksters, to sustain the vitality of democracy. The viability of their democratic interventions depends on the invention of legitimizing gestures. The topos of complementary differences-a pivotal term for articulating points of interdependency between dissenters and the broader public-illustrates the kind of inventive resource to which the field could productively turn its attention.Dissent is a key word in the vocabulary of a democratic people. A healthy democracy encourages the rhetorical act of dissent as a right of free speech and an antidote to political repression. Dissent is the balancing point between stability and change, cleavage and consensus, politics and revolution, life and decay. It should be tolerated, not censured by authorities, punished by law, or otherwise suppressed. Democracy cannot be true to the principle of self-governance when dissent is stifled, and public opinion is manipulated by ruling elites. When dissent is suppressed, especially in times of crisis, democracy itself is lost and the people are turned against themselves. No subject could be more salient to rhetorical scholarship. Stephen Hartnett's study of debates in antebellum America over issues of race, slavery, manifest destiny, and empire explores the ways in which cultural fictions facilitated and complicated the practice of democratic dissent. 1 Dale Smith investigates poetry as a rhetorical vehicle of dissent for shaping public consciousness. 2 John Bowers and his coauthors examine dissent as a rhetoric of agitation and control.

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Section: Inventing Dissentmentioning

confidence: 98%