Sharer, W: Vote and Voice

Wendy B. Sharer explores the rhetorical and pedagogical practices through which two prominent postsuffrage organizations--the League of Women Voters and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom--challenged the conventions of male-dominated political discourse and trained women as powerful rhetors. Vote and Voice is the first book-length study to address the writing and speaking practices of members of women's political organizations in the decade after the suffrage movement. During those years, women still did not have power within deliberative and administrative organs of politics, despite their recent enfranchisement. Because they were largely absent from diplomatic circles and political parties, post-suffrage women's organizations developed rhetorical practices of public discourse to push for reform within traditional politics. Vote and Voice is historically significant as well as pedagogically beneficial for instructors who connect rhetorical education with public participation by integrating writing and speaking skills into a curriculum that aims to prepare educated students and active citizens.