A Woman's Beauty Susan Sontag Analysis

We live in a society where being an ugly woman is the greatest sin. In today’s world, it is every woman’s job, or duty, to be beautiful. It does not matter if a woman is intelligent, delightful, or strong because no matter what, she will be judged on her looks. In Susan Sontag’s article, “A Woman’s Beauty: Put-Down or Power Source?” she uses the rhetorical devices ethos, pathos, and logos to argue the claim that women are seen as nothing but decorative objects who’s personalities are irrelevant. Sontag explains her claim that women are judged only on their looks by stating, “For it is everybody, a whole society, that has identified being feminine with caring about how one looks. In contrast to being masculine — which is identified with caring

This statement appeals to the emotions of her readers using a rhetorical device called pathos. She helps her female readers feel the judgement of society around them, trapping them with the word beautiful. She then builds them up, empowering them by saying, “to get out of the trap requires that women get some critical distance from that excellence and privilege which is beauty, enough distance to see how much beauty itself has been abridged in order to prop up the mythology of [being] feminine” (Sontag, 389). The word “trap” in this quote is extremely powerful and causes the reader to feel a very deep and hurtful emotion towards the way society has been hurting women for so long. This one words helps Sontag connect with her readers in a very personal way, opening their eyes to the harshness of

“Women are [seen as] the “beautiful” sex . . . women are dependent and inferior” (Sontag 387). She uses this vivid language to connect with her reader’s emotions, this is called pathos. Sontag uses many different adjectives to describe how society interprets the word “beautiful.” When thinking of the word beautiful, most often the words “delicate,” “graceful,” or “nice” come to mind as well. Very rarely is the word beautiful associated with “strong,” “independent,” or “powerful.” This is because the word beautiful has been reserved for women only, and women are not typically seen as anything other than fragile. Through the use of pathos, Sontag makes every female reader feel just how weak the world perceives her to be. She uses strong words, such as “inferior,” to make her readers feel, and further understand just how upsetting this issue can be. Men are instead called “handsome,” “Handsome is the masculine equivalent of —and refusal of— a compliment which has accumulated certain demeaning overtones, by being reserved for women only” (Sontag, 387). Handsome is a synonym for the word beautiful and yet, society sees them as having entirely different meanings. Handsome is associated with power, independence and strength simply because we have reserved this word for men. But why can it not be used the same way for