Elijah Garland ENG 104 Rhetorical Analysis Breaking Down Jean Kilbournes Two Ways a Women Can get

Hurt; Advertising and Violence An ongoing battle of the sexes has stricken American culture for years. The fight over equality amongst genders has been a roaring subject that seems to have no end. On one hand women believe they should be viewed, paid, and treated the same as a man. On the other hand men continue to be characterized as hungry, controlling pigs that look down upon women and see them only for their sexual appeal. In the article, Two Ways a Women Can get Hurt; Advertising and Violence, written by, Jean Kilbourne, it is suggested that women are victims in the world of advertising and are made out to be sexual objects rather than human beings for the benefit of product sales. While the argument was made with reasonable support from various articles, the point she attempted to make in my opinion backfired due to her lack of support from the male perspective. Are men not subject to the same treatment if we are all equal? In the article the author presents many different pictures of adds where a womens sexual appeal is used to entice the buyers and in turn she believes that this victimizes the woman and also the outlook of women in general. The picture shown to the left is one of the many the author chose to support her claim yet what are we really seeing in this photo? Is it a woman be victimized as a sexual object due to her choice

of clothing? Or do we see a man being deemed as a sex hungry pig who cant keep his hands off of a woman? In the article the author states, In other words, hell understand that you dont really mean it and he can respond to the scent like any other animal, (Kilbourne pg. 402) clearly making an attack toward men in saying we are animals. Kilbourne tries to use pathos and get an emotional response from her female readers. Are men not also the victim? While the add for perfume does tell girls to wear it and be chased, do the women not consciously make the decision to put it on then expect a man, for whom the fragrance is meant to attract, not to respond? If you put a sign on the front door of a store thats closed and the sign says, Open for Business, people will assume and respond as if you are in fact open for business. So if a girl willingly dresses in provocative apparel and douses herself in a sexual scent, men will respond as if she too is open for business. The author of the article also uses an emotional appeal and makes a claim that girls are taught from a young age to become a sexually appealing to their male counter-part. Using a photo of the article below displaying a young teen covered in makeup showing a skin. The author is for girls not to learn environment in which and open contempt for (Kilbourne pg. 472) Is it boys? In many Calvin shown without shirts substantial amount of quoted saying, It is hard self-hatred in an there is such widespread women and girls. not the same for young Klein adds men are having very fit abdomens

and sweat dripping down their muscles. To a boy it is known from a young age that in order to be sexually appealing to women you need to have a six-pack and wear Calvin Klein. Does this approach not also teach a self-hatred for young males? Guy or Girl if we are equal in all aspects then we are both victims in advertising and we can both be affected just the same. The author makes the claim women are taught to be submissive, and I will venture to say that men are taught to be aggressive. Every view the author shared about each photograph can be countered with a similar view from the opposite party. Kilbournes attempt at a logical approach couldnt fully be formed because she failed to include the other side of the argument. I think she supported her claim well from the female perspective but her claim needs support from the other side. The author goes on supporting her claim with ethos including statistics showing that men are not only responding to these ads with a degrading view of women, they are responding with violence upon women. She makes claims that women are sexually abused in response to these ads as well as sexually assaulted and uses statistics of violence in general to support her claim. But how can we pin point such a broad claim to such a small cause? Violence upon women and men alike is something that has happened for years and will continue to happen but this is not due to a picture in a magazine. The author makes reference to a case in which a man, William Kennedy Smith, was accused of rape yet was acquitted because the woman who accused him was wearing Victorias Secret panties. After the author presents this key evidence she states, it is too frightening to face the fact that male violence against women is irrational and common place. (Kilbourne pg. 463) Couldnt the

argument be made that it is frightening how often women attempt to use their innocence against men to claim rape after they made a choice they werent proud of with such a broad claim it requires a more broad explanation that the author failed to take into account. The advertising in todays world is a fair ball game as far as men vs. women. The men are made out to be aggressive pigs where the women are made out to be submissive loose girls. Both have an impact on the youth and how they believe they should look and act but the author failed to convince me that these ads make man violent. The author targeted middle-aged educated persons and in my opinion she wrote this article with too big of a bias against men. Had the author wrote it from the outside looking in I think she couldve made a better argument in saying, Men and Women can get Hurt in Two Ways; Violence and Advertising. This way she can present both sides equally and not so much from a feminists point of view.

Citations
Kilbourne, Jean. Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt; Advertising and Violence. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.