Blog Post #3 Millie Gamarra

 Before reading Warner's article Publics and Counterpublics I saw the public audience as an open entity which encompassed many subcultures. However, subcultures did not equal marginalization but simply categorization. The narrative in the West has been dominated by a predominantly white male perspective, turning the public audience into such, thus addressing a subculture is not possible by using the public sphere as the vehicle. The creation of a counterpublic has to be actively developed in order to ensure that a message reaches specific marginalized groups. If one is creating a rhetoric for groups with no power, for the counter-culture, one must seek out these individuals because the mainstream public is dominated by the ones who created such power dynamics. " A counterpublic maintains at some level, conscious or not, an awareness of its subordinate status" (Warner 39). In this case the counterpublic has to be gendered in order to be reached.

In Zaeske's article Promiscuous Audience" Controversy And The Emergence Of The Early Woman's Rights Movement, the gendering of the public was put in place in order to diminish the scope of women's powers in the political arena. The idea of a "promiscuous" public, meaning a diverse one, had to be chastised for the dominant group to exert its narrative.  "Female speakers alone faced the "promiscuous audience" charge because once men became part of the auditory, female speakers were in a position to exert meaningful social and political influence" (Zaeske 9). The creation of a gendered public, and who got to address them was simply a tool for women to remain subordinate. I think the exploration of how the word promiscuous became related to the female body exemplifies this.

In our current times the public is gendered in order to be pinpointed, reached and then empowered. This is a way for oppressed groups to reclaim their identity. However, the creation of a counterpublic can be used  to discredit the rhetoric of these groups and also to label them as radical and "reversely discriminatory". I believe due to the patriarchy's more subdued nature the public audience truly is made up of many categories and this is simply a costume for a still lingering system of oppression.