Foss sought to introduce the study of women and gender into the communication discipline, illustrated by her essays on Deborah Sampson, the status of research on women and communication (with Sonja K. Foss), and personal experience as evidence in feminist scholarship (with Sonja K.
[19][20] Another focus of Foss's feminist research program is the introduction of topics for study traditionally outside the purview of the communication discipline.
Some of these deal with women's interests and concerns, traditionally excluded because of the singular focus of the discipline on men and their discourse.
[22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31] She also advanced the inclusion of GLBTQ issues into the discipline, focusing in particular on the discourse of gay San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk.
She seeks to reconstruct and transform theories to provide a more expansive tool kit for communicators—one that does not rely solely on the speaking practices of elite white men.
[37][38][39] Her position is summarized in "Transforming Rhetoric Through Feminist Reconstruction: A Response to the Gender Diversity Perspective (with Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L.
[40] She also offered the communication discipline, in Feminist Rhetorical Theories (with Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin), examples of alternative theories that emerged from the ideas and activism of such feminist thinkers as Sally Miller Gearhart, Gloria Anzaldúa, bell hooks, and Sonia Johnson.
[44] Foss also juxtaposes the paradigm of persuasion—the dominant view of change in the discipline—with an alternative approach drawn from a variety of other disciplines and traditions.