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Rhetorical Analysis Of I Want A Wife

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For centuries, women all over the world have been treated with absurd discrimination and misogyny. Judy Brady’s satirical “I Want a Wife” essay during the 1970’s demonstrates how privileged men can be and the objectification of women, otherwise known as, “A Wife”. Brady begins listing reasons on how having a wife would benefit the husband, but more importantly, she effectively proves how privileged a man really is, married or not. “Why do I want a wife?” Even though Brady is asking herself this rhetorical question, it illustrates how normalized it was to glorify the idea of ‘having a wife’. The tone she uses intends that she is taking the role of a man who wants to pick and choose through all the wife-like attributes that will benefit him …show more content…

She starts off with an ironic demand, “My wife must arrange to lose time at work… Needless to say, my wife will arrange and pay for the care of the children while my wife is working.” The readers should know by now it’s obvious a wife must have the burden of losing time at work but still to arrange for the care of the children while she is working. However, considering the role Brady is playing in the essay, calling it a burden for a wife is ridiculous. On the topic of ridiculous, the husband also demands that he wants “...a wife who will not bother me with rambling complaints… But I want a wife who will listen to me when I feel the need to explain a rather difficult point…” Brady successfully uses pathos to appeal to her audience’s sense of narcissism by claiming she wants her wife to sympathize for her, but not the other way around. The quote clearly expresses how it would not make sense for a wife to ever feel upset, or have any feelings at all. Brady ends the passage with a rhetorical question, “My god, who wouldn’t want a wife?” The last line in her writing treats a wife as a popular ‘toy in the store’ among men. Brady tells the readers that they should be agreeing with her and ask themselves the same question, who wouldn’t want a

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