Speech To The Triumvirs Analysis

Classical female rhetoricians needed to utilise several rhetorical strategies in order to navigate the misogynistic landscape of past societies and to have their arguments heard. Logos, pathos, and ethos can be found within Hortensia, Julian of Norwich, and Christine de Pizan’s works as tools to allow them to speak and record their thoughts during a period where women were forbidden to do so, and subsequently make lasting impacts on society’s view of women. Hortensia uses logos in her “Speech to the Triumvirs” in 42 B.C.E. to assuage the uninterested and incredibly oppressive forum in Greece after the Republic had decided to tax 1400 of the richest women in order to finance a war. Hortensia reasons that the women should not have to pay taxes because they have no role within the war and mentions that “our mothers did once rise superior to their sex and made contributions… But then they contributed voluntarily, not from their landed property, their fields, their dowries… without which life is not possible for free women” (Hortensia 18). Hortensia logically cites …show more content…
Christine writes that her protagonist “finally decided the God formed a vile creature when he made woman, and [she] wondered how such a worthy artisan could have deigned to make such an abominable work” (Christine 35). Christine simultaneously apologizes for even attempting to use the male rhetor while demolishing all attempts to slander women because of her skillful use of apologia to lull her audience into believing that she loathes her own gender. Christine uses satire, which is a typically male tool of rhetoric to gain credibility as a female writer and to establish herself as a rhetorician in a period where female rhetoric was not yet