Feminism

Becky Kuehl was moderating a debate about the future of feminism at a South Dakota library. When a participant made an argument that Becky didn't agree with - and then nobody in the audience challenges the claim - Becky had to decide whether to abandon her neutral role as debate moderator.

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  When We Disagree is a show about arguments. How we have them, why we have them, and their impact on our relationships and ourselves.  Americans are polarized, and we know it too. According to a recent FiveThirtyEight poll, Americans were asked to rank their fears on a scale from 1 to 20. Polarization and political extremism came in third behind the economy and gun violence.

Natural disasters, for the record, came in 20th.  How can individuals reduce polarization, create unlikely connections, and have meaningful conversations in an era of disconnection and distrust?  One tactic is humility. That is, approach conversations with people you disagree with, By making a concession  early in the conversation, make it a point to note that you don't have everything figured out that you don't have ready answers to all of their arguments, and maybe just, maybe you have some doubts about your own side, this doesn't mean you have to give away the whole farm.

But it does mean that you can start to come across in a few ways that are helpful for connection. First, this concession breaks you out of a stereotype. The other person might hold about your side as being all true believers to the core.  Second, a concession means you're an honest broker, someone who is fair minded and conscious, at least a little bit about their own biases.

And third, the norm of reciprocity is powerful in conversations. If you tell somebody a secret, they might be compelled to share one in turn. If you show humility, you might get some humility in return.  It's a bit of a paradox, but to be most convincing, show people that you're not a know it all.  I'm Michael Lee, Professor of Communication and Director of the Civility Initiative at the College of Charleston. 

Our guest today on When We Disagree is Becky Kuehl, Associate Academic Director and Professor of Communication at South Dakota State. She teaches and researches communication and gender, and civic rhetoric and education. Becky? Tell us an argument story.  

All right. So, uh, I have often participated in and planned this intergroup dialogue series that we do as a collaboration with Brookings Public Library and Brookings, South Dakota and South Dakota State University and our school of communication and journalism.

Well, a few years back, I was facilitating a small group. And so the point of these intergroup dialogues is that you get people from all walks of life. Who are participating in communicating across differences and particularly focusing on controversial topics. So for this group that I was facilitating, we were talking about the future of feminism, which is always a very difficult topic I would say to talk about, uh, with young college students.

Um, and so, you know, I had just had a baby, so it was very, you know, in In my personal life, very salient at that time, right, trying to grapple kind of my commitments to feminism, but also the realities of being a new breastfeeding mother and pumping at work and all that stuff.  So anyway, I was facilitating this group, and there was one student in particular who was just like, feminism is dead.

It's just dead.  Of course I, you know, took a deep breath and again I'm supposed to be a facilitator right I'm not supposed to be interjecting  or intervening in the conversation, unless the participants asked me to which sometimes they do right it's a group of students, community members, faculty and staff at the university. 

So I just, I took a deep breath and I said, student name, why do you think feminism is dead?  And so she just goes on and on about how, you know, everybody has the same opportunities as everybody else. It doesn't matter what your gender is, right? Like we won the feminism battle decades ago. I don't know why people keep going on and on about this particular issue. 

And so then I just said, is it okay? If I describe my personal situation here, right? Because again, navigating that facilitator hat, I was trying to not  put myself too much into it. But also, I didn't want to just leave that comment go unsaid because nobody else said anything, right? That would be the other thing.

Like if somebody had intervened or said something, then maybe I would have just kept quiet.  But I said, You know, as someone who is very much living  this dual world of being a new mom and also still trying to work, I feel like the whole system of patriarchy has been laid bare in a way that I've never before seen. 

And so we had a good back and forth, right? I don't think she necessarily, you know, agreed with me, right, at all. Um, but I do think it was a great moment where,  especially for students, right, for them to see and to understand that no, maybe in your current context and personal life, feminism doesn't feel salient right now, right?

But maybe in five years, when you're trying to find up space to pump breast milk at work and there is no space and no one wants to give you a break from your job to be able to do that and also you have the pressure of trying to produce breast milk and feed your baby for a year you know maybe then feminism might be salient  so it was a real a real interesting disagreement but it stuck with me right this is probably this is when my second son was a newborn so that would have been in 2017 and it just it really stuck with me feminism is dead  You know, just a fascinating three powerful 

words. 

Yes. Yes, exactly. 

Will you take us through these intergroup dialogue sessions just to kind of set the scene a little bit? So it's community members and students at South Dakota State. They show up to the public library with a, to discuss a hot button issue. The hot button issue that particular day, seven years ago was the future of feminism. 

Then what happens? How is it structured? 

Yeah, yeah. So the, the intergroup dialogues that we've been doing here at South Dakota State and in the community of Brookings, it's really tried to be kind of a collaborative community university, uh, dual effort. Um, they started, gosh, back in 2016, I want to say, um, from the university, uh, at that time.

And that's when I was more participating as a facilitator. I didn't really plan anything at that point. And then they've kind of evolved over time. So the last couple of years, we've partnered explicitly with Brookings Public Library. So, um, to try to really get more community members. people from all walks of life to participate because of course what happened in the early stages back when this disagreement happened in 2017, it was mostly faculty, staff, students, right?

There weren't as many community members in that particular dialogue group. There was one  community member who was in that group. Um, but we've seen by moving it to the public library, uh, and, and really pushing and partnering with them. It's brought in more community members to the point where now it's more like we'll have 30 students and about 25 community members who participate.

I think that's about where we were at last year. And then so they're all brought together for a kickoff where we kind of, you know, we do a mock dialogue, fishbowl, we tell people, you know, this is what you're getting into, you're going to spend five weeks in the same group for one hour, talking about something really difficult.

And you as a group can kind of deliberate and figure out what you want that to be in week one. But then the idea is that you have that same theme over the course of those remaining four weeks, and then we come back together week seven. Um, to wrap it up and kind of debrief and talk about how it went and what people learned, uh, and to celebrate, you know, the fact that you committed to seven weeks of being with these people, uh, and talking about these difficult things.

So, um, each group meets in kind of a different space. We, we have used the library. We've also used community meeting spaces. So. Um, different church spaces and different spaces in the union on campus too, especially in the evening that works well for folks. Um, but yeah, this, this was one, this was kind of pre that partnership with Brookings Public Library.

So we were just meeting on campus kind of over the lunch hour. Um, and it was mostly faculty and staff and students, just one community member in that group. 

And your role as facilitator was more or less to keep the conversation going as opposed to putting your thumb on the scale in any particular argument? 

Yeah, which is why it was so hard when nobody said anything. I don't know, I was like, I have to say something. 

Tell me, talk to me about that reaction. Why not let that claim go? 

Yeah. Well, probably as a facilitator I should have.  Let it go and not said anything. Um, but, but I did make sure I asked, right? So I think that's the hardest part about facilitating.

So each small group has two facilitators, ideally, so that you can kind of tag team and go back and forth if, if the conversation stalls. If you know somebody says something really rude or something right one person can  kind of stand in and, and you can go back and forth. Um, but really as a facilitator, you're supposed to remain kind of that objective, impartial, you know, kind of manager of the conversation and not interject.

Um, but because this, this whole group, so the theme of this group for the 5 weeks was gender. Right and gender roles, um, and that particular week we were talking about the future of feminism.  And so I, I just, you know, at various times would just say, is it okay if I offer a personal experience? So I tried to frame it as a question, you know, and if they were like, no, you know, but who's going to say no,  you know, I probably nobody. 

But I, yeah, I, I just couldn't let it lie. I think as someone who's really passionate about women, gender, and sexuality studies, is that because 

you thought there's some, there's some idea and I've struggled with this too,  which is when we all hear something that we really vehemently disagree with and then nobody else says something, whether or not we're in this semi objective role or not,  we feel like there is some invisible stenographer. 

Taking account of the conversation and if an argument is is levied, it must be answered  when it's also possible that folks would hear the claim feminism is dead and think, well, that's ridiculous. And I don't want to talk about that. 

Yeah, well, it's such a polarizing topic, right? Um, I think too, just to add a little context, I had just started, well, no, I wouldn't have started yet in my role as Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies coordinator, but I was on the committee, right?

We have a university kind of coalition of faculty that teach courses related to Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. So I also felt like I don't want this comment to go unsaid, and then people again continue to profligate this. false view of what feminism really is, right? And so I think that played into it too, just recognizing that like, I was the only faculty member who had expertise in that space, or participant in that space, right? 

But yes, it does feel like  I didn't want to just let it be said, and nobody said anything in response. Because the 

risk would be that the anti feminist position is the only position that they'll hear in that moment. And so, in a sense, the arguer, that arguer wins.  

And I think too, especially  as somebody who teaches about gender, and I have a semester long class on communication and gender, what I've seen the last few times I've taught that class,  Although now with the demise of Roe v.

Wade, perhaps the exigence has come to the forefront a little bit more. Students just feel like it's a tired argument, right? They don't want to engage because they're like, that was like the second waiver's thing, right? Like we don't need that. We don't need feminism. Um, and it'll be interesting to see, I'll teach that course again this fall.

It'll be interesting to see. If students find that there's value  in the feminist movement, right, because of that exigence of Roe v. Wade, you know, kind of no longer being the law of the land. Um,  at that time, you know, it was the law of the land. So I, that's, that's the argument that tended to circulate, right, is that, well, why do I need to worry about feminism?

That was like my mom's problem, you know, or my, grandparents problem. 

When you, when you introduced this person's argument, feminism is dead,  before you gave the reasons, I of course had populated in my head all of the possible reasons that this person could have given to support that claim.  But then when you introduced the reasons that the person gave, I wrote them down as feminism is dead because one, the world is fair, and two, feminism already won, which was not at all what I was expecting. 

Yes.  And that's a common argument that I hear from students. It really is that we're in kind of a post feminist landscape, right? Where we don't need feminism anymore.  You know, you can have it all,  right? That idea that  because feminism won, right? In their mind, 

right. 

We don't need, you know, a law that protects breastfeeding at work, for example, which by the way, only became federal under President Obama. 

And in the state of South Dakota, Was not a codified law until 2015  that people could breastfeed at work  legally.  So when I bring those things up, then people tend to be like, oh,  you know,  

how much of it is an issue of,  for lack of a better word, ignorance. And how much of it is a misunderstanding of the historical context of the word feminism or a negative reaction to the word feminism? 

And just like gun control, right? I, I often use abortion, feminism as those words that have so much rhetorical baggage, right? When I teach argumentation and debate and a student wants to choose abortion as an umbrella topic, I'm like, that's great. That's great.  But remember that this is a phrase, this is a term, this is a debate that just has so much rhetorical baggage.

And so that's a constraint. That you have to overcome in arguing for your particular position, right? You know, going in that that's a loaded term for 99 percent of the people in this room.  So I think just being aware of that baggage and feminism would certainly be another one, right? I remember, um, at Georgia, when I was a master's student, I worked for Dr.

Bonnie Dow.  And, um, I remember in one of the projects that she was working on, and I think it was in her book too, she talked about how  the Miss America pageant, that protest, that the media coverage, of course, was about the bra burning, right, that was happening. And she said in the archival research, no bras were burned, right?

They were thrown into trash bins.  But nothing was burned ever.  And so when we think of feminism and bra burning, right, like that trope, that baggage is actually false.  

As we close, I'm curious about what stands out about this particular instance. You've dedicated your career, in part to studying, teaching, researching, communication, and gender.

You practice facilitation in intergroup dialogues, but then also model that same behavior in classrooms for many moons as well. What is it about? And so you've had hundreds, presumably of experiences, debates, arguments, counter arguments about  gender equity, about feminism and beyond. What is it about this particular one and the feminism is dead claim seven years ago that stands out the most? 

Yeah, I think it's a combination of this particular student was incredibly talented, straight A student, just really, really smart. Um, so a combination of recognizing that here's someone who I really respect and I know is very intelligent and, and likely has good reasons, right, for this statement  combined with my personal kind of moment in life that at that point where I was in the thick of it as a new mom and, and trying to grapple with what does, what does that look like with still remaining a feminist, still holding on to my feminist commitments.

And so I don't know that it would have stuck with me as much had I not had that kind of personal aspect happening at the same time. Um, where I just felt so defeated, right? Like you're trying to balance it all. And you know, I think feminism suggests that you're, it's not your fault that you can't balance it all.

The system is rigged against you.  And so, um, I think it just really struck a chord with me at that point in my life. And knowing that this was student was incredibly intelligent, had a good, well rounded education, right? And so just wanting  to respond so that if in five years she found herself in my shoes thinking she had failed, right?

That maybe feminism could be a lifeline. Right. Or it could be something that she remembered.  

Becky Kuehl - thank you so much for being on When We Disagree.  

Thank you. It was so fun.  

When We Disagree is recorded at the College of Charleston with creator and host, Michael Lee. Recording and sound engineering by Jesse Kunz and Lance Laidlaw.

Reach out to us at whenwedisagreeatgmail.  com.