Ethos And Pathos Argument Essay: The Rights Of Women

The rights of women have been a hot topic for decades. Human rights activists, as well as feminists all over the world, are constantly struggling to achieve equality of rights between the sexes. Various conferences have been held whereby speeches on the rights of women are given in an attempt to point out the need for gender equality. However, the efforts of the human rights activists and feminists have not yet fully achieved their objective. The activists have failed to fully persuade the people of the need for equality of human rights. The activists will need to consider the rhetorical questions of persuasion if they want to fully persuade the people. This paper will analyse the use of the rhetorical triangle; that is ethos, logos and pathos

Stanton examines how the men have undermined rights of women. According to Stanton, the government has continuously failed to acknowledge the rights of women making it a man’s government. Stanton mentions that when a government becomes destructive towards its people, then the people have the right to refuse allegiance to that government. For this reason, women have been necessitated to demand equality in rights for which they are entitled. To prove the fact that the rights of women have been neglected, Stanton has given several examples of how men have established a direct tyranny over the women. For example, women have been denied access to representation in political issues giving the men full control of the government. Another example is that laws recognise the man as the head of the family hence a married woman is civilly dead. Stanton later points out that given the unjust laws that do not recognize women, the women should feel aggrieved and oppressed and, therefore, they should demand that their rights and privileges be

The good use of ethos in Hillary’s speech makes her appear credible and worth listening to as a human rights activist. Stanton’s speech exhibits great use of logos, and that is the strength that the speech has exploited. By logically appealing to the audience, the audience gradually realizes that indeed the rights of women have been undermined. On the other hand, both speeches also have some weaknesses. The speech by Stanton, for example, fails to effectively use ethos to appeal to the audience despite the good use of logos. Lack of appropriate use of ethos makes the author lack credibility in the eyes of the audience. Hillary’s speech, on the other hand, makes good use of ethos and pathos and has ignored logos to some extent. Hillary could have made her speech much more effective if she used logos more efficiently to appeal to her