Feminist rhetorical work of the past decades has interrogated the implicitly andocentric assumptions of rhetorical history, and so brought gender to the forefront of study. My dissertation further maps the gendered aspects of rhetoric by focusing on the heteronormative assumptions upon which much rhetorical study is based. The project brings queer theory to bear on rhetorical theory by interrogating what I term the "rhetoric of female-to-male drag"—women's use of traditionally coded "masculine" or "privileged" rhetorical forms. Ultimately arguing that women's non-normative or "queer" use of masculinity has a rhetorical history whose performative and persuasive aspects have yet to be fully named, the dissertation builds a bridge between feminist rhetoric and queer theory. It aims to introduce a specifically rhetorical analysis to the already cultural and queer understandings of contemporary drag king work and to offer an expressly queer analytic to current feminist understandings of women's rhetorical activity. The project argues for the portability and durability of female-to-male rhetorical drag across time and genres, explains how women's performance of female-to-male drag disrupts the sex/gender binary, and recognizes that women must perform in "queer" ways to authorize themselves amidst highly circumscribed public spheres.
Theorizing women's persuasive use of masculinity, my dissertation offers five instances of female-to-male rhetorical drag; these examples as exemplars of the diversity and complexity of the "rhetoric of female-to-male drag." The chapters demonstrate that rhetorics of female-to-male drag are not only located in the performances of drag kings but also in the work of politically powerful women (Queen Elizabeth I), in the writing of culturally marginalized women (nineteenth-century African-American journalist Ida B. Wells), and appear in the institutionally-sanctioned activities of female academics such as myself. I thus emphasize the persuasive force of non-normative rhetorical expression by articulating how women have effectively appropriated spaces and approaches that historically have been available only to white, masculine, and male subjects. Consequently, the project exerts pressure on traditional understandings of rhetorical theory by arguing that the very nature of public rhetorical situations demands that women queer their rhetorical approach and performance.