Phelps, "Becoming a Warrior," in Phelps and Emig, _Feminine Principles_, 1995

Summary: Through a mix of narrative, theory, and reflection, Phelps explores the interrelationships between feminism, power, composition, and writing program administration. She complicates the sometimes oversimplified views of the feminization of composition and feminist utopias in which all power is equally shared, all views are valued, all people work together, etc. Instead, she asks what happens when we operate from a feminist moral and theoretical position within the academy is it really is--what happens when we take up power? How do we redistribute it, and what does that really look like? Phelps argues that changing the academy necessitates taking up power positions and "ethically hav[ing] visions, lead[ing], and wield[ing] power despite the imperfectibility of institutions and the tragic limitations of human action" (293). Phelps grounds her essay in her own experience as a WPA, but her argument is not limited to that context. She intersperses the text with quotations and reflections from her WPA years (and immediately before), which serves to incorporate a multitude of voices which surround and complement the central text. Phelps writes that in order to improve the academy, women need to seek out and accept positions of institutional power, despite the personal and professional challenges they bring; of her own experience, she writes that "it was vaguely but genuinely a moral decision responding to the summons to take up responsibility toward others, to act on my convictions" (306). In other words, one cannot theorize or "resist" forever without coupling that intellectual work with action. Phelps also confronts the challenges her attempts to empower the disempowered in the writing program resulted in for the actual workers, who were often ambivalent themselves about assuming a greater role in the program. An expanded role resulted in "a pressure on them to learn, change, take risks, be more creative, face the unknown" (311). Phelps writes that "an increase in authority, voice, and autonomy is not an unqualified good in and of itself. It does not automatically bring wealth, leisure, increased status, or pleasure" (312). Yet Phelps advocates for the application of feminist principles to the workplace all the same. Though not without its chaos and complications, the moves she describes (often in detail) are positive ones, not just for the program or its members, but also for women who decide to become leaders.

Response: I would like to talk much more about this when I get on campus. I thought this was a powerful article, and I wonder what things look like now. The vast majority of my mentors in my educational journey have been women, often in positions of leadership. They took up the mantle, as Phelps urges. What was that like? What is it like now for women (like Cheri!) who are leaders? Do they operate from an explicitly feminist perspective? Do they feel resistance from the institution, from senior faculty, from males?

Uses: A look at feminist perspectives, the feminization of composition, leadership, writing program structure.