Rhetorical Analysis On Emma Watson

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Emma Watson, an advocate for women’s rights, gave a speech at the United Nations Headquarters in 2014. In this speech, she urged for the public’s help in “HeForShe”, a campaign for gender equality. Watson attempts to persuade her audience to support “HeForShe” through the utilization of logical appeal, repetition of phrases, and short personal stories that create an empathetic response. These rhetorical strategies, in the end, create a compelling argument to step forward in the fight for gender equality. Through the article, Watson uses logos to appeal to the audience’s reasoning in joining the fight for women’s rights. For example, Watson claims that in 1995, Hillary Clinton made a speech in Beijing about women’s rights and only thirty percent of her audience was male. This claim gives the audience an overview of what percentage of men are participating in the campaign for gender equality. The audience assumes that participation should be fifty percent male and female, and because Clinton’s speech wasn’t, it strikes the male audience. The male audience, in turn, can’t help but believe it is now their duty to be more active in the effort for women’s rights. She also claims, it will take 75 years before women can be paid the same as men for the same work, fifteen and a half million girls will be married as children within sixteen years, and it will be 2086 by the time all African girls get secondary education. Watson barrages the audience with all of this information to