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Two Ways To Hurt A Women Rhetorical Analysis

Decent Essays

This paper analyzes the effectiveness in creating Kairos in an article by establishing a sense of exigence. A form of rhetorical appeal, Kairos is the ability to take advantage of an opportune moment to persuade an audience to act now, meet a deadline or react to a crisis. A key factor in the creation of Kairos is the establishment of exigence. Exigence is a set of circumstances which establishes a sense of urgency; a reason for existence. In Jean Kilbourne’s article “Two Ways to Hurt a Women” she effectively uses, Kairos to persuade her audience that media needs to be more aware of the portrayal of men, women, and children in advertisements and the impact on children’s future behavior and beliefs.
In her article Kilbourne makes the claim …show more content…

Throughout the article Kilbourne was effective in using logos, pathos, and ethos to establish exigence driving the creation of Kairos and the need to respond to the crisis of increased sexual assault and rape and the need to act now to change the way advertising is used to target both the young and the old. Even though she is effective in creating these appeals she detracts from her own purpose by alienating one of her primary audience. In her article on multiple occasions she makes comments such as “there is no danger for most men” and “Men are not likely to be raped, harassed, or beaten ( that is to say, men to be presumed to be heterosexual are not, can very few men are abused in these ways by women)” (Kilbourne, 165) these biased opinions as there is no research to support these claims as there is with other claims in her article distracts from her purpose and gets lost in all the rhetoric. The one-sided view of this article makes it hard to read and even harder to agree with the purpose of the message. If it is in fact her intent is to gain agreement from her primary audience; advertising agencies and government official; she would be ineffective as she loses all common ground and goodwill by including so many biased statements in her article. If a government official attempted to use this article to act now to the exigencies of rapes on college campus they would not gain support from a portion of the population particular heterosexual males how have been victims of

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