THE FEMINIZATION OF ETIQUETTE LITERATURE - FOUCAULT, MECHANISMS OF SOCIAL-CHANGE, AND THE PARADOXES OF EMPOWERMENT

This paper explores the opening of a discursive space within the etiqu ette literature in the United States during the 19th century and how w omen used this space as a vehicle of empowerment. It identifies two ma jor strategies of empowerment. First, the use or appropriation of exis ting discourses that can help redefine the ''other'' within an hegemon ic space. Second, and more importantly, the transformation of that spa ce in shifting the lines by which differentiation is produced to begin with. Admittedly, these strategies are neither unique nor the most im portant in the history of women's empowerment. But this paper argues t hat the new discourses formulated by women helped forge a new space wi thin which women ceased being the ''other,'' and helped give body to a concept of womanhood as defined by a group of women, regardless of ho w idiosyncratic that group might have been.