Rhetorical Analysis Of What Makes A Woman

Elinor Burkett’s article What Makes a Woman addresses the topic of gender stereotyping. She emphasizes the need to erase the difference between the definitions of what makes a man and what makes a woman. Due to her status as a woman, and one who has gone through gender studies, Burkett has considerable ethos behind her claim, along with support from anecdotes that build upon the pathos utilized throughout her article. However, while Burkett’s use of pathos strongly supports her argument, as does her credible background as a woman, she puts forth very few facts to create a solid logos core for her topic. As a result of this missing logos core, Burkett’s argument falls short from proving the point that women and men are equal and should be treated so. The genre that of this article is descriptive …show more content…
Certainly, she does bring up the fact that women’s “median pay was little more than half that of men” (Burkett), but in the sentence immediately following this statement she immediately returns to her emotional appeal with a statement describing how women fear walking the streets at night. She similarly brings up a solid piece of evidence to build upon her logos base earlier in the article with a cited quote from a psychologist. The psychologist describes how “the differences between male and female brains are caused by the… gendered environment” (Burkett), but once again Burkett turns this evidence into fuel for her point against Caitlyn Jenner’s ideal of what it means to be a woman. As a result of this, while Burkett does not altogether neglect to use facts or reasoning, she fails to use these elements to form a solid logos base to her argument, instead simply applying facts and reasoning to supplement her emotional