Burkett's Rhetorical Analysis: What Makes A Woman?

Florence Kelley delivered a speech to the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1905. Her speech is a plead for improving the existing child labor laws and working conditions. Throughout her speech, Florence Kelley utilizes many rhetorical strategies to convey her message about child labor laws, these strategies include: appeal to logos, parallel structure, and anecdote.

Virginia Woolf’s fulsome poise and self-worth proves that she is worthy of being admired and looked up to by other women. She shares her beliefs of willingly going against what society has in mind for women and encourages women to be who they please to be. In doing so, she hopes to open up the sturdy doors that keep many women trapped away from their natural rights. All in all, Virginia Woolf’s speech, “Professions for Women” encourages women to ignore the limits society sets on them and be who they wish to be and do what they desire. Virginia Woolf’s rhetorical strategies in addition to her use of metaphor contribute to the overall effectiveness in fulfilling the purpose of her essay.

In the passage, The Horizontal World, Debra Marquart states, “Driving west from Fargo on I–94, the freeway that cuts through the state of North Dakota, you’ll encounter a road so lonely, treeless, and devoid of rises and curves in places that it will feel like one long-held pedal steel guitar note” (Marquart 1). Debra Marquart, along with several others, share a great passion for the Midwest. The Midwest is an area that is truly full of the unknown, as much of its qualities are not known to society. The Midwest can easily be viewed as bland and insipid, yet also overly structured and undisclosed. It can be exceptionally difficult for one to fully understand the Midwest due to its size and variation. Although, all in all, it most certainly can be described as an area, whose positives are not know by all. In Debra Marquart’s writing, The Horizontal World, she utilizes comical satires and evident allusion to characterize the land of the upper Midwest.

In the article “Marked Women,” Deborah Tannen addresses how everything a woman does-from choosing her outfit, her makeup, her hair, to even her surname marks her a certain way. As a young woman, I liked this piece because it addressed issues women faced that I typically don’t think about. I chose to write about “Marked Women” instead of “Sexism in English” because I related more to the article with my past and current experiences on the different ways women are marked in society. Women are judged every day based upon their decisions on their outfits and looks. Tannen states in the article, “you couldn’t say the men didn’t wear makeup in the sense that you could say a woman didn’t wear makeup,” which made me realize how even something as

In the passage in the excerpt from “I Am a Woman” (1862) by Mary Abigail Dodge, the use of various rhetorical devices are evident throughout the text. The intended purpose of this text is to display her writing skills for an audience that is not keen on women’s influence in the literary sphere. Through the use of rhetorical strategies such as diction, imagery, and emotional appeal (pathos), Dodge forms her argument by asserting that women are legitimate writers.

Our identities are key to our understanding of the world. Mental models through which information is processed are built off of life experience, taught ethics and morals, and upbringing. Identity is discussed in the following texts - The Politics of Exile by Elizabeth Dauphinee, “Unlearning the Myth of American Innocence” by Suzy Hansen, and “Letter to America” by Aida Hozic - through various themes of American culture. Dauphinee, in particular, examines the depth of personal identity and its ability to change. All three works consider the many components of personal identity and its formation as well as its undoing.

The women’s right movement began in 1843 in Seneca Falls, New York, which sparked the revolution of women obtaining equal rights. In 1920, females are finally given a voice, however; African American women weren’t given suffrage until the 1970’s. One woman named Sojourner Truth stood up for all women for women’s rights with her famous speech “Ain’t I a woman?” told at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio in 1851. Truth argues that all girls’ specifically African American ladies should have the same rights as men since women can do the exact same thing stating she does the same work a man does and maybe even more since she was a slave at one point. The reason why Truth gets her message across is because she has credibility since she uses pathos by stating that 13 of her children are seized from her, ethos since she is a woman who once was a slave, logos by comparing the work an average white man does versus what the average African American woman do ,allusion by bringing Christ into the lecture stating that Christ came from God and a woman and that man has nothing to do with Christ since a woman gave birth to him, and juxtaposition by announcing that a man is contradicting himself on a statement he said. All

Improving undesirable working conditions for women and eliminating child labor was an impassioned issue for female reformers during the time of industrialization in the United States. Florence Kelley, a united states social worker and reformer, opposes the appalling work environment children as young as six would toil through and relays her speech to the National Woman Suffrage Association to propel her audience to demand changes that are necessary to stop countless hours of hard-work the youth struggle to complete. Kelley adopts a fervid tone in order to convince the audience that political action is needed to adjust the laws that allows child labor to continue in many states with her use of pathos and rhetorical questions meant to stir action

They should have the right to dress as they choose, love who they choose, and be who they choose. It angers me that people believe differently considering they’ve never been in their shoes. In the “Paradoxes of Gender” Judith Lorber states, “We need to change biological sex in order to uphold the principle that biological sex determine one character”(41). Lorber's’ preconceived notion that one’s sex dictates their personality is flawed. It proves that society is unaccepting of people outside of the “norm”. Middle Sexes speaks to a wide variety of people but is mainly directed to transphobic people. However, the film isn’t very compelling because it doesn’t take the audience’s outlook into consideration. Through biological evidence and personal stories, the film strives to persuade transphobic people to be more accepting. Thomas attempts to persuade his target audience by referencing the science behind people who blur the lines between female and male. His unique approach is more convincing than an argument that stems from one’s opinions. However, his lack of counterarguments makes it difficult for the audience to relate.

In Octavia Butler’s Dawn the idea of gender is deconstructed and reformed from the typical human’s definition. Often people do not consider the role of gender in society today. Usually the first thing one notices when meeting someone new is their gender or their presumed gender. However, there becomes a problem when the person whose gender we perceived identifies as a different gender. Butler forces the reader to examine how they judge and perceive gender. While the ooloi are actually “its” their personalities seem to imply a certain gender. The transgender community often brings up this issue because these assumptions of gender based on our judgments of what defines a male and what defines a female can skew how a transgender person is treated and addressed. In Chapter One of Gender Through the Prism of Difference by Anne Fausto-Sterling, the idea of expanding the number of genders based on one’s biological differences is examined through the five sexes theory. By now the concept of gender being defined solely by one’s biology has mostly been left in the past but the question remains of how do we truly define gender? How does being outside of the social norms that Michael Warner talks about cause us to feel shame when discussing our gender and our perceptions of gender? In this essay, I will argue that preconceived notions of gender create shame when a person’s own perception of their gender does not fit the social norms. This stigma around the limited and strict definitions

In “Transgender People of Color at the Center: Conceptualizing a New Intersectional Model,” Kylan Mattias de Vries explores the “link (between) multifaceted social positions to institutional and structural inequalities” (21). More specifically, the author hypothesizes that the trans population experiences gender as intersectional, along with “race, class and sexuality” (4).

Ain't I a Woman?" ,the name given to a speech, delivered extemporaneously, by Sojourner Truth, (1797–1883),she gave this speech to the Women’s Convention of 1851, she speaks on the inequalities that women and blacks faced at that time in America. she uses rhetorical strategies in order to achieve a successful and powerful delivery of her message.Sojourner uses personal experiences to get an emotional response from her audience, connecting with them as both women and mothers.Sojourner Truth uses Anaphora,Logos,Ethos and Rhetorical question in order to rebut opposing arguments for gender equality.

In today’s media, bodies of color, particularly black female bodies, are underrepresented and poorly represented by stereotypical images that are constructed by patriarchy and white supremacy. When stereotypes are distinctly visible and exposed in the media, they tend to be easily adopted by individuals, even though they are untrue. These stereotypes are quite problematic because they stand in for actual knowledge and real life experience. White supremacy is used as framework to contextualize Western ways of thinking of how we understand the knowledge presented about bodies of color. Mass media is a system of knowledge and power reproducing that attempts to maintain white supremacy by oppressing people of color, particularly women of color. In this paper, l will explore how hegemonic tropes of knowledge have been presented historically and how they are reinforced through representations in the media.

Feminism has been an explored topic since the early 19th century and has remained an important conversation in our society still today. At the time when Roxanne Gay was approaching this topic within her collection of essays, there were some major feminist triumphs occurring. 2014 was a time where Rape on college campuses was finally announced a national issue. In 2003, there were just 74 women in congress, yet 2014 was the year where we finally hit 100 women in congress. With all of the support and the successes of feminism at this time, it was crucial that Roxanne Gay discuss the way in which she fully supports the feminist movement, while staying true to herself. In "Why I am a Bad Feminist," Roxane Gay colloquially portrays how she imperfectly performs feminism in her daily life and how to deal with the constant struggle of trying to achieve "ideal" feminism while also being human. Gay touches on the fact that as a society, we place a high degree of pressure on women to be perfect. Whether the perfection lies in their looks, actions, or personality traits, women are constantly held to unrealistic standards. Gay effortlessly sheds light on this situation using rhetorical strategies to describe how she does not meet these standards. These rhetorical strategies include imagery, to create a picture of what she is saying, as well as a strong use of ethos and pathos, revealed throughout her essay. Instead of being ashamed she shares how to embrace her inconsistencies while still trying to be a feminist and role model.

Sex and gender categories, such as “men,” “women,” “masculine” and “feminine,” have been in place for generations. They are socially constructed categories and expectations assigned to children at birth, in order to regulate and shape them into this “ideal” heterosexual being. Men are expected to embrace masculine qualities, while women are required to be feminine and submissive to the male authority. Monique Wittig’s article, “One is Not Born a Woman” observes how the class of “women” is not “natural,” but is created by the society and framed by the male ideology, as a way of producing a clear gender difference between men and women. J. M Coetzee reinforces Wittig’s beliefs by sharing similar ideas of hegemonic masculinity and male dominance