“A Left-Handed Commencement Address” Rhetorical Analysis Feminist writer, Ursula K. Le Guin, in a speech for the graduating class of Mills College of 1983 “ A Left-Handed Commencement Address,” addresses to the graduates that women are not inferior to men, they are equal. LeGuin’s purpose in the address is to redefine success for women so they don’t assume their rightful roles in society. She wants women to break past the obstacles and to overcome them. LeGuin emphasizes to the graduates that women need to stand up prove themselves, that social equality is worth fighting for and they should never end the fight. She adopts an annoyed and inspirational tone in order to appeal to similar feelings and experiences from the female graduates and fellow feminists.
LeGuin begins her address to the
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LeGuin is able to elaborate more on this by mentioning if someone could tell Margaret Thatcher from Ronald Reagan. Margaret Thatcher was truly an extraordinary woman, she became Great Britain's first female Prime Minister and longest serving Prime Minister of the twentieth century. Margaret Thatcher also know as the Iron Lady for her extreme conservatism, believed herself that their would never be a female British Prime Minister, well not in her lifetime. Thatcher was most surely a feminist though, she once said “If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.” LeQuin is able to make a logical appeal to her audience by providing it with the example of Margaret Thatcher and her groundbreaking achievements. Additionally, she is able to make an appeal to pathos, by addressing “Because you are human beings you are going to meet failure.
To apply this rhetorical strategy, she incorporates several crucial phrases and words to which one can appertain. One example of Thatcher’s use of diction occurs in line twenty-three of her eulogy when she refers to Reagan as “Ronnie.” While to the reader, this name is but a sobriquet Thatcher uses for Reagan, one must identify her use of diction to understand her intention for using this name. After analyzing the word’s connotation instead of its denotation, the reader can discover that she incorporates this word into her eulogy to give the reader a thorough comprehension of the friendship they shared. For the reader, this diction permits him or her to identify Thatcher’s credibility, and for Thatcher, she strengthens her claim by validating her relation with Reagan. Thatcher, however, goes beyond reinforcing her claim through credibility; upon analysis of her eulogy, one can recognize her use of diction to depict historical occurrences surrounding Reagan’s presidency. The reader can identify an example of this tactic when Thatcher states in lines five and six, “[Reagan] sought to mend America’s wounded spirit” (Thatcher). On a superficial level, this
Margaret Talbot spends a good deal of time at the outset of the essay describing the situation at Sarasota High School, Yet her primary subject is neither that school nor its students. What is her rhetorical strategy in examining this one school in such dept?
Ronald Reagan was one of the most liked Presidents. When being elected for his second term, he won by a landslide—winning all the states minus Minnesota and Washington D.C. Reagan addresses the people of the United States of America. He wants the American people to reflect on his presidency, and as all presidents do in their farewell addresses, he wants to say goodbye to the nation that he's led for the past eight years. Ronald Reagan uses repetition, parallel structure, and allusion to reflect on his presidency and to say farewell to the American people.
There have been many historical events in history that have impacted America in many ways. For example, famous Speeches given by important people such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the united states which his main goal was to help America recover from the severe economic issues during the 1930’s. Roosevelt used rhetorical devices to persuade desperate Americans, wounded from the Great Depression, by introducing a plan which it will be the best way to recover from the severe crisis that affected Americans. In Franklin D. Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address, he used personification, diction, and antimetabole to convey his conflicting feelings about the New Deal, in order to face the economic issues
In today’s society, one of the most natural human traits is selfishness. David Foster Wallace incorporated this idea in his commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005. Wallace aims to persuade his audience that, “the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about.” Although the intended audience of his speech is the graduates and staff, along with their friends and family, the piece has become quite popular since its delivery. Wallace offers, “nothing less than the truth” and captivates the listeners with his complete honestly. His personal tone lets the audience feel like they are a part of the conversation, rather than just receiving it. Wallace successfully conveys his message that society is blind to the world around them through the use of logic, humility and emotional appeals.
Shaw, Susan M., and Janet Lee. Women's voices, feminist visions: classic and contemporary readings. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. Print.
Liberal feminism’s reliance on the legal system and the state to distribute and open up revenues of equal opportunities for women is ineffectual for MacKinnon, since it is still trying to operate within a framework that is inherently patriarchal. These institutions are incapable of enacting the necessary changes, as they themselves are constructed from a male perspective that perceives the inequality of women as the norm. As MacKinnon summarizes, the apparent absence of explicit laws enforcing gender inequalities is not due to a lack of negligence, but a lack of necessity. An unequal society will undoubtedly have laws that are unequal, even if it is not at first obvious. In other words, for women to be truly equal to men in law, they must first be equal in society. Liberal feminism seems to suggest opposite, as it believes that equality in general will be achieved once women possesses the same personal legal rights and political opportunities as men. This for MacKinnon, would be naïve (as a tool of the patriarchy cannot be used to change it) and ignorant of the more fundamental problem—that the domination of men over women is inescapable and permeates every sphere of society, and is so prevalent that inequalities are misconstrued and reconstructed as gender
"A Woman’s Place", the name of the commencement speech given by Naomi Wolf at the Scripps College graduation in 1992; contrasts the independent and the dependent woman. In today’s society, there are two different types of women: the woman who has a good head on her shoulders and knows where she is going in the world, and the woman who seeks dependence within the masculine world. Just as they were thirty years ago, women are still not considered to be equal to men. They are more or less looked at as being second to men.
Remarks by President Obama at the eulogy for the honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney; A man who was killed when an another man rushed into a church in South Carolina and killed 9 people while they were immersed in an afternoon mass. President Obama created different appeals and feelings through the use of different Rhetorical Devices such as Logos, Ethos, and Pathos. The use of logos ethos and pathos help the president convey his central idea which is to ensure the people of South Carolina and the people of the United States that not only are they safe, but they will unite to take this opportunity to create a more united U.S. This will happen through the establishment of new gun reforms.
But when the “Women’s Movement,” is referred to, one would most likely think about the strides taken during the 1960’s for equal treatment of women. The sixties started off with a bang for women, as the Food and Drug Administration approved birth control pills, President John F. Kennedy established the President's Commission on the Status of Women and appointed Eleanor Roosevelt as chairwoman, and Betty Friedan published her famous and groundbreaking book, “The Feminine Mystique” (Imbornoni). The Women’s Movement of the 1960’s was a ground-breaking part of American history because along with African-Americans another minority group stood up for equality, women were finished with being complacent, and it changed women’s lives today.
Gloria Steinem, a renowned feminist activist and co-founder of the women’s rights publication Ms. Magazine, gives a commencement speech at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, on May 31, 1970. Steinem’s speech “Living The Revolution” is delivered to the graduating class of Vassar College, founded in 1865 as a liberal arts college for women and then became coeducational a year before the speech was delivered in 1969. The intent of this speech is to inform the listeners and to shed light on the fact that women are not treated equally to their white male counterparts, though society has been convinced otherwise and to argue that it is crucial for all minorities, and even white males, to be relieved of their “stereotypical” duties in order for balance to exist. Steinem executes her speech’s purpose by dividing it up into four parts to explain the four different “myths” put against women while using a few rhetorical strategies and logical, ethical, and emotional appeals.
The entirety of society holds some form of responsibility in overcoming the inequality women face in male-dominated domains. It is the responsibility of everybody, but especially those who are already successful in such professions, to remain neutral and avoid sexism when speaking to women peers or subordinates. In addition to this, each individual must make a decision about whether or not to practice feminism or consider themselves a feminist.
As women, those of us who identify as feminists have rebelled against the status quo and redefined what it means to be a strong and powerful woman. But at what cost do these advances come with?... ... middle of paper ... ... Retrieved April 12, 2014, from http://www.feminist.com/resources/artspeech/genwom/whatisfem.htm Bidgood, J. 2014, April 8 -.
Among the many subjects covered in this book are the three classes of oppression: gender, race and class in addition to the ways in which they intersect. As well as the importance of the movement being all-inclusive, advocating the idea that feminism is in fact for everybody. The author also touches upon education, parenting and violence. She begins her book with her key argument, stating that feminist theory and the movement are mainly led by high class white women who disregarded the circumstances of underprivileged non-white women.
Throughout history, women have remained subordinate to men. Subjected to the patriarchal system that favored male perspectives, women struggled against having considerably less freedom, rights, and having the burdens society placed on them that had been so ingrained the culture. This is the standpoint the feminists took, and for almost 160 years they have been challenging the “unjust distribution of power in all human relations” starting with the struggle for equality between men and women, and linking that to “struggles for social, racial, political, environmental, and economic justice”(Besel 530 and 531). Feminism, as a complex movement with many different branches, has and will continue to be incredibly influential in changing lives.