Response for Sophist Rhetoric

From our discussion last week, I found the idea of the other interesting. Before this class, I have never heard of the subject of discrimination put that way, but it makes sense because the privileged group makes the minority feel like subcitizens. I thought this idea was also interesting in that it could be applied to rhetoric. For instance, Jarratt comments that rhetoric and women are trivialized by identification with sensuality, costume, and color. Instead of being recognized for its good qualities, rhetoric is only seen superficially and made to be an other by different disciplines.
In addition to the topic of the other, I thought the discussion about women’s writing was interesting. The argument was made that women can write from both genders because they are living in male dominated cultures, and that men can’t. I found that to be somewhat true. While some male writers can get away with employing a feminine persona, there are others who definitely can’t. I think this shines through when a sensitive or sensual scene arises. I am probably being somewhat stereotypical, but it seems that many times male writers don’t handle their female characters with the same tenderness a woman writer might.
Another discussion I thought was interesting was the history on female rhetoricians. Aspasia was particularly fascinating because even though none of her writing survived, she was still able to live on through other people’s writing. She had a great influence and even contributed to speeches made by Pericle’s. However, I don’t find it surprising that none of her writing survived. It seemed that there were enough people that didn’t like her that maybe they wanted to erase the history of her. Or, maybe she didn’t even do her own writing and just contributed to and critiqued the rhetorics of others. Who knows, though, since there are so many possibilities in speculating the past.