Contested Citizenships: Walking the Tightrope of Women's Rights Rhetoric in the Post-Dobbs Era

Abstract

This dissertation examines the rhetorical expressions of women’s citizenship in the “post-Dobbs era.” The project begins with the 2022 Supreme Court decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and extends through the 2024 presidential election. Drawing on theories of women’s citizenship and activism, feminist politics, coalition building, and identity politics, this study analyzes how three prominent women’s rights organizations—Women’s March, the National Women’s Law Center, and Supermajority—mobilized American women during this crisis over reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. As I study the rhetoric of each organization, I make the case that each group paradoxically integrates more radical arguments to constitute and mobilize their audiences of women, with more conciliatory arguments designed to persuade those in power. While some critics conceive of such radical and conciliatory arguments as more incoherent or even harmful to these groups’ feminist mission, others recognize the need to balance lofty principles with realistic pragmatism as women activists play within the wobbly, unbalanced space of the rhetorical tightrope.In Chapter Two, I argue that Women’s March leadership constituted a radical expression of disobedience as they encouraged protestors to come together in the summer of 2022 to “rage.” Yet, as the leaders of Women’s March turned from their focus on political principles and expressions of harms to direct action, they retreated to more conciliatory messages which prioritized the civil over the disobedient. I read such conciliatory messages as attempts to maintain strategic ties with lawmakers. This contrast in approaches reveals a dilemma frequently encountered by women’s rights activists: while organizing around women’s unfiltered emotions can be empowering and affirming, it may also engender patriarchal backlash and attempts to silence them. Chapter Three analyzes how the National Women’s Law Center navigated the rhetorical tightrope in its briefs for the legal cases Doe v. Horne (2023) and Farmer v. University of Kansas Hospital Authority (2022). In both cases, I read the NWLC’s arguments as more radical when they are centering the voices and stories of trans and pregnant women, respectively. However, I read their subsequent shift to emphasizing more privileged groups as a conciliatory approach that argues for legal protections by featuring the voices of less controversial groups (cis women, men). These two seemingly contradictory approaches illustrate how even arguments intended to protect women’s rights can inadvertently reinforce patriarchal power structures. Chapter Four examines the ways in which Supermajority sought to mobilize a constituency of “powerful” political women toward transformational ends in the 2024 election. By painting a vision of what a “world that worked for women” might look like, Supermajority leadership constituted a utopic and radical future that women could bring about together. However, I argue that the organization’s primary focus on voter mobilization functioned to stymie such transformational change by guiding women toward a singular, traditional action step. This chapter highlights a fundamental tension: to enact their radical goals, women’s rights advocates often must work through the very patriarchal institutions they seek to change. In the Conclusion, I grapple with what I read as the integration of more radical and conciliatory rhetorics as women’s rights activists at once challenge and adapt to patriarchal factions. I ultimately conclude that embracing the multitude of rhetorically “wobbly,” linguistically ambivalent, and ideologically contradictory messaging is central to women’s fight against the deeply entrenched power of patriarchy in U.S. politics.