Rhetorical Analysis #2

Title: Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt: Advertising and Violence

Author: Jean Kilbourne

Date: 1999

Topic: How women are viewed today based upon the images portrayed in the media and everyday culture and how sex drives the advertisement world.

Exigence: To point out how the media displays women in a degrading and victimizing manner.

Purpose: To analyze the reasons why women are targeted and seen as lesser to men while they should be considered equals and viewed as such.

Claim: Advertisements can still sell their products without objectifying women and painting them as submissive unequal beings.

Kilbourne uses Ethos to gain credibility from her reader’s so that they can understand how familiar she is with the advertising world and what goes on in it. “Kilbourne has spent most of her professional life teaching and lecturing about the world of advertising. She has produced award winning documentaries on images of women in ads…” (575) Right of the bat readers can clearly see where she is coming from and how credible her information may be.

Kilbourne uses Pathos the most in her article by appealing to the emotions of all readers engaging in her writing. She paints many pictures with her very descriptive writing about the victimization and subjection of women in advertising today. For example, when Kilbourne is explaining how women are targeted in advertising and are therefore even trying to survive at home based on everyday difficulties she states, “Although usually numb to these facts on a conscious level, most women live in a state of subliminal terror, a state that…keeps us divided both from each other and from our most passionate, powerful, creative selves.” (585) Because women are so afraid of being victims they keep to themselves most of the time and don’t reveal their true colors. This can effectively grab any female readers’ attention if they have been dealing with a similar situation and can thus completely agree with Kilbourne.

Lastly Kilbourne uses Logos to address her points by giving countless examples of different varieties of advertisements that show exactly what she is trying to prove. She even has multiple advertisements from the same corporation, which address multiple different points that she makes about degrading women. One main corporation in which she draws many examples from is Calvin Klein.

I believe Kilbourne’s article quite effectively gets the point across by providing many examples, with a large variety at that, and a great credibility for her reader’s which grabs their attention and gets them looking at the facts which she clearly sets forth for all to see. She has a strong stance and wants prompt action in order to fix what advertising aids in flawing, and that is the overall image and attitude towards the female gender.