femminista: thoughts of a feminist rhetorician

I'm back in Lafayette after a difficult and exhausting trip to SC. I left Indianapolis in the late afternoon on Friday and started off my trip by having an anxiety attack because of my extremely cramped quarters. Given that I am just slightly above 4'11" it is a truly sad day when I don't have enough room. What about all of the normal-sized adults? The NWA (henceforth referred to as Northworst Airlines)flight attendants were remarkably unsympathetic and the woman who gave me her aisle seat did so grudgingly. Needless to say, the rest of the flight was miserable as I tried to regulate my breathing while enduring the glare of nearby passengers and the refusal of the flight attendants to give me any coffee. My trip was not off on the best foot.

Wow. There are times when stunned doesn't even begin to describe how I feel after reading some blog comments. Most of the time I just ignore what I feel to be ignorant rantings. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and to express that opinion just as I am entitled to choose not to listen (or read, as the case may be). However, since I found this in my search for knitting stores in SC, I was trying to find out why this site appeared during my google search. (Apparently, the owner of the blog listed knitting as one of her hobbies and had written an entry regarding a SC law.) What I first found was a blog entry about the recent controversy over domestic violence laws in SC (notably, the lack of enforcement).

It may be more accurate to title this "why rhetoricat? why not femminista?" but...

1. Rhetoricat:

• because I am a feminist rhetorician, who was first attracted to rhetoric by Andrea Lunsford's Reclaiming Rhetorica
• because by adding a "t" I've merged my name, Cat, with what I study, rhetoric
• because I was trying to come up with a screen name for something and rhetorica was taken and after stumbling on rhetoricat it seemed like a good idea for a domain name

2. femminista:

• because it is the Italian word for feminist and I am an Italian-speaking feminist
• because I identify first and foremost with the label, feminist

3. not femminista:

• because the domain name "femminista" is dedicated to an organization that I've founded for third wave feminists, I did not want to put my personal blog on that domain