Summary Of Oh O. K By Lisa Selin Davis

An op-ed contributor author for The New York Times magazine, Lisa Selin Davis writes about the struggle of what her daughter has to go through on a daily basis due to her being mistaken for being a little boy due to the way she dresses. Lisa considers that her daughter is just a tomboy and not a transgender as you could tell by the title. Since the question gets brought up everywhere she goes, Lisa has become frustrated because she doesn’t want her daughter to have to go through the taunting at school when she knows for herself that she is, in fact, a girl. I will be analyzing the key elements of persuasive writing in the article that I chose. The author 's kairos is that she talks about this topic is being brought up at her daughter place

She identifies as a tomboy because that’s what some kids at school told her she was, though she has also said, “Why is it a tomboy?” When kids say she’s in the wrong bathroom, she tells them, “I’m a girl,” and invariably they say, “Oh, O.K” (Davis 17). She uses this quote to help the audience understand what her daughter is going through while she is at school. The next example of pathos is that the writer wants the audience to feel humble that this is going on to her daughter. “In fact, I love correcting them, making them reconsider their perceptions of what a girl looks like”(Davis 3). The use of this quote is to show that she isn’t angry about people mistaking her daughter for a boy but she doesn’t appreciate the reasoning behind why they are calling her a boy. And the last example of pathos is to make the audience feel more informed about what’s going on. “She is not gendered nonconforming. She is gender role nonconforming. She does not fit into the mold that we adults”(Davis 10). This quote was used to show that’s it’s not the children as much as it is with the

“My daughter wears track pants and T-shirts. She has shaggy short hair (the look she requested from the hairdresser was “Luke Skywalker in Episode IV”). Most, but not all, of her friends are boys”(Davis 6). This quote shows that the writer didn’t make the choice for her daughter, her daughter made the choice herself. The second example of logos is that she shows that there is a standard to what boys and girls are supposed to be held to. “would boys really never wear pink? (That’s rhetorical — pink was for decades considered a masculine color.) Would girls naturally reject Matchbox cars?”(Davis 11). The quote proves her statement to be logical because these are questions that people involved with this topic think about when the boy/ girl situation is brought up. And the last example of logos is that she will show her daughter that if she does start to believe that she’s not a girl anymore she will be there for her. “If my daughter does begin to feel that the gender in her mind and the sex of her body don’t match, I will be supportive. I will research puberty blockers and hormones (more than I already have). I will listen to her and make decisions accordingly, just as I did when she turned 3 and asked for a tie and a button-down shirt” (Davis 12). This quote helps support the argument presented because this isn’t the beginning of her daughter wanting to wear thinks that