That Gorgias Helen....

I have to say I appreciated reading both Poulakos's and Biesecker's
articles RE: The Encomium of Helen. Not being an antiquity scholar, I
found little to disagree with in either. The democratic context of built
into Biesecker's argument seemed valid, as did Poulakos's comparison
between Helen and Rhetoric.

They've, to some extent, convinced me.

However, I had a lot of trouble with Rhodes's "Radical Feminism, Writing
and Critical Agency," for the same reason other posters have. It's
incredibly vague about its actual goals, and I think incorrect about its
assertions that academia fosters a masculine way of writing. If
anything, schools are constantly charged with accessing the male mind
and male creativity because males tend (and I mean tend) to be more
difficult to work with in a "traditional" classroom setting. And, if
she's talking purely composition studies, well then, too: A language
system exists. Theoriticians work within said system. They break down
said system occasionally, yet each new appearance within the system
becomes part of the system.

Particularly regarding the "Women's Ways" of writing, I think it's as
damaging to assert that there is a "women's way" to write and a "man's
way" to write. It's almost laughably absurd not to recognize that
multiple intelligences lead to multiple ways of writing. If Rhodes can
find a way to enter compositional rhetorical arguments through
deconstruction, re-education or other untraveled roads, then I'll get
excited. For now, her call to arms seemed rather useless in terms of
practicality.