Catholic Women’s Rhetoric in the United States: Ethos, the Patriarchy, and Feminist Resistance

Catholic Women’s Rhetoric in the United States: Ethos, the Patriarchy, and Feminist Resistance examines the rhetoric of Roman Catholic women. Focusing on women in the United States, the books recognizes that most Catholic women have felt-and been–marginalized by the Church, yet many women still seek membership in the Church because of its professed ideals. Building on various feminist theories of ethos, the authors in this collection explore how North American Catholic women from various periods, races, ethnicities, sexualities, and classes have used elements of the group’s positionality to make change. The women considered in the book range from the earliest Catholic sisters who arrived in the United States to women who held the Church hierarchy accountable for the sexual abuse scandal as they redefined what it means to be a good Catholic mother. The book analyzes women such as those in an African-American order who developed an ethos that would resist racism. Chapters also consider better known Catholic women such as Dolores Huertas, Mary Daly, and Joan Chittister.