where are the women?

It has been argued that women don't show up in history books much because traditional history is the history of conquest and power, and women aren't much for conquest, and therefore don't have much power. Although oversimplified, this claim has significant persuasive weight. So...two questions:

1. Is this explanation about history related to why women don't show up in the history of rhetoric, or might there be other reasons?
2. How would history (and rhetoric) have to be told for women to show up?

rhetoric and/of science

Today, two quotes about science, thought and language:

At the heart of [scientific inquiry] is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes - an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthlessly skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. The collective enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking, working together, keeps the field on track.
Carl Sagan, from The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, 1996.

The entities postulated by science are not found, and they do not constitute an 'objective' stage for all cultures and all of history. They are shaped by special groups, cultures, civilizations; and they are shaped from a material which, depending on its treatment, provides us with gods, spirits, a nature that is a partner of humans rather than a laboratory for their experiments, or with quarks, fields, molecules, tectonic plates. Social monotony implies cosmic monotony - or 'objectivity,' as the latter is called today.
Paul Feyerabend, from "Against Method," 1988.

rhetoric and ethics

Having looked at the Sophists and at Plato's opinion of their work, we can see that the reputation of rhetoric as deceitful goes back at least 2,500 years. That raises several questions. Is it rhetoric that is at fault, or is it the people who use rhetoric? Can the two be separated? Under what circumstances might rhetoric be absolutely necessary? What about ethics and morality and their relationship to rhetoric? How are they (or should they be) intertwined?

the sophists

Man is the measure of all things; of things that are not, that they are not; of things that are, that they are. (Protagoras)

Nothing exists. If anything did exist, we could not know it. If we could know that something existed, we could not communicate it. (Gorgias)

It has been suggested that the Sophists are more "modern" than other classical figures. What is there about the above quotes that seems modern? What are the common characteristics of sophistry and (post)modernism? How are they not alike?

citizenship

Philosopher Richard Weaver coined the expressions "god term" and "devil term." According to Foss, a god term would be "a term to which the highest respect is paid in a culture." A good current example might be "patriot" as a god term and "unAmerican" as a devil term. "Citizen" is another term we give significant respect to, but we might differ on what the definition of a "good citizen" is.
In a piece called "Civics Lessons Beyond the Classroom" (part of a "Citizen Student" series), NPR's Morning Edition draws attention to two modes of citizenship - community service and political action. (Read more here.) Which of these, or what combination of these, constitutes good citizenship? What other beliefs or actions might be necessary to good citizenship?

Rhetoric

1. the art or study of using language effectively and persuasively.

2. Language that is elaborate, pretentious, insincere, or intellectually vacuous.