ok so it's not just me....lableing practices to be feminine & masculine can reify gender stereotypes

I just finished the piece by Lane titled "Producing identities: Gender problematization and feminist argumentation" and it is  really nice to see that some of what I have tried to articulate in the past with lots of backlash exists in other people's minds as well.

I have always felt uncomfortable with labeling speech, rhetoric, debate, and/or argumentation practices as either feminine and/or masculine. And, I have particularly felt uncomfortable when this type of labeling is done within the proposed framework/lens of "feminist". As Lane (1996) notes, this risks reifying gender stereotypes more than problematizing them .

What I like about this piece, not only that it critiques  feminist practices that re-entrench gender stereotypes, is that it offers an alternative. Lane (1996) suggests "limit work" and identifies this as "a theory of subjectivity based upon the assumption that all language systems, and more specifically all identities are simultaneously enabling and constraining". She further states that the "goal of limit work is to analyze systems of constraint in order to determine their productive/constraining ratios" (Lane, 1996).

I believe that this alternative practice of limit work can be a viable approach to studying rhetoric, argumentation, and speech. A major advantage of this approach is that it not only is very critical and highlights of course what is problematic, but it also allows for discussion of positives, what is done well, what enables. The combination, which ideally won't fall too much into the real of binarism, allows for openings and more insight into what one is studying. For me, someone who is interested in political movements, their campaigns, and their advertisements, and is especially concerned with social justice, this approach seems as though it could provide for some useful findings that could potentially add to existing knowledge and possible improvements with social justice campaigns and movements.

Feminist Argumentation Theory: Limit Work

First of all, thanks to RevCat for bringing up this reading topic. I'm enjoying the way feminist argumentation is applied to these different topics. The readings have been very interesting so far, and give good examples of the variety of ways a particular area of inquiry (like Feminism) can be applied. It's this kind of interdisciplinary approach that can raise questions which a single focus might leave behind.
I started with the Intro and "Producing Identites". Both of these articles are good in their own right but I found the idea of limit work to be especially thought-provoking (troublesome, complicated, intriguing, etc). At first I was a bit thrown off by Bruner's use of the term. He introduces this theory by calling it a 'feminist argumentation strategy' that can be used to 'distinguish enabling constraints from constraining limitations.' It wasn't until the end of the "constraining features" section that Bruner addressed limit work in much detail (at first I was confused by this, but as I read on I started to see how he revealed the argument slowly to the reader: a very nice strategy). To me, limit work is a means for creating identity by testing the limits of what currently constrains it. There can be enabling constraints, but for the most part, this is a transgressive act which helps the user of this theory understand and work to extend those limits. For example, it's not wrong to address the fact that patriarchal and feminist arguing styles are different (see KKC 1973), but that understanding must only be a starting point to greater inquiry. This greater inquiry, in my opinion, is the standard by which effective argumentation should be measured. Rather than violent, aggressive, agonistic forms of arguing, I prefer a theory like this that emphasizes reflection, identity, and transgression. There were some parts of this theory that I didn't understand fully (essentialism and deconstruction, how one might actually use this in practice, etc), but on the whole it was a good piece of theory-building scholarship.

I'll close with a question. Feel free to comment with answers, ideas, complaints. Seeing how Limit Work operates with a transgressive, liberatory, emancipating ethic, how might Paolo Friere's voice might add to this discussion?