Women, career changes, and the new self. An analysis of rhetoric

Women's movement from the norms of domesticity toward equality with men has proceeded, more than other political movements, along a path marked by personal accounts--that is, by statements in the traditional genre of confession. These autobiographical texts have often been displayed with the aim of recruiting followers and setting standards for liberation. Their potential repercussions are therefore considerable. Because these texts are meant to persuade, they acquire an ambiguity. They blur the line between life story and call to arms. In this paper we are particularly concerned with women's accounts of their career changes. We shall show that women who were asked about such changes had more than a single story to tell. A recurrent pattern of inconsistency can be discerned when one compares their initial polished accounts with their subsequent more careful recollections and descriptions. The indubitable benefits of career change are rhetorically distorted. From these distortions unfortunate consequences are apt to arise--first for the subjects themselves, then for the audience to whom the accounts are addressed, and finally for the very language which serves us to criticize social conditions and to guide human development. The rhetorical distortions are not gratuitous, however, and we offer an explanation of both their power and their necessity.