My dissertation seeks to establish apparent feminism as a means of investigating the following research questions:
- Do feminisms provide an efficient critical framework for supporting social justice agendas in technical communication?
- Do feminisms provide a strong but flexible foundation for challenging social injustices?
- How important is it for feminist technical communicators to be explicit about their feminism? In what circumstances?
- How might feminist technical communicators and allies respond persuasively to allegations of feminist bias? How might feminist technical communicators respond persuasively to allegations of bias based on oppressive intersectionalities?
- Should feminist technical communicators be welcoming of allies in social justice work without demanding allegiance to the term feminism? If so, how?
- Is efficiency a relevant measure by which to justify feminism’s value for technical communication? What sorts of re-imaginings of efficiency might this invite? What might it preclude?
- What are the limitations of understanding feminisms, feminist, social justice, bias, and efficiency in the ways I am suggesting? What important elements of the situation does my approach leave out?
