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WAGE GAP: A GENRE ANALYSIS

Wage Gap: A Genre Analysis

Evelyn Fernandez

University of Texas at El Paso

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WAGE GAP: A GENRE ANALYSIS

Gender Wage Gap: A Genre Analysis

The wage gap between men and women has been a widely disputed issue for the

past few decades. A wage gap is difference in percentage of the median annual earnings

between a working American male and female. Although the average earning of woman

is calculated to be about 80 percent as much as men in the United States it fails to

acknowledge that wage gap also varies drastically by race, that is, in the United States,

the wage gap will affect Hispanic women in more drastically than it does an Asian

woman. This concludes that the wage gap is not only sexist, it is also racist. To bring

awareness to this issue, many organizations and programs advertise using different

means of communication. This essay will analyze two genres of communication: A

website and an illustration. A website created by the National Partnership for Women

and Families promotes fairness in the workplace and is an advocate for womens issues.

An illustration published alongside an article by Huffington Post serves to portray the

wage gap issue in a much simpler manner. The areas this essay will analyze are:

audience and purpose, structure and delivery, as well as rhetorical issues.

Audience and Purpose

The website targets all Americans, more specifically, women within the United

States. This websites purpose is mainly to inform the audience on womens issues,

including the wage gap, by providing a wide range of information and statistics gathered

from different sources. It also tries to persuade you to bring awareness and act on behalf

of all women. The website utilizes a very formal language with no special vocabulary and

has pink text on certain titles that symbolize the female gender. Since the wage gap

affects all women in the United States, this website is gendered to an all women
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WAGE GAP: A GENRE ANALYSIS

organization. The approximate time it takes to view this website and analyze it may vary

from a few minutes to an hour. It is a bit time consuming however the reader will be

well-informed.

The illustration targets all Americans, more specifically, women within the

United States. The purpose of this illustration is merely to entertain or inform by

providing a simple image with characters. The illustration features four women of the

Hispanic, African American, Asian, and White races alongside a single White man. The

man stands alone with a bright smile on his face and a light aura surrounding him

meanwhile, the women stand on the side staring at him with a displeased look on their

faces. They all have a price tag on their bodies that show the women as being of less

value than the man. The image contains no text. The approximate time it takes to view

this illustration is only a few seconds.

Both genres share the same audience. The difference can be acknowledged in the

purpose. Although the purposes are similar the website inform the audience in a much

broader sense meanwhile the illustration has very little to no information.

Structure and delivery

The information in the website is structured so that large amounts of research

can be summarized into individual fact sheets. These fact sheets are organized so that

there are topics, subtopics, and charts. The topic on wage gap is divided into subtopics

titled, African American Women and the Wage Gap in 20 States, Latinas and the

Wage Gap, Americas Women and the Wage Gap and The Paycheck Fairness Act.
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WAGE GAP: A GENRE ANALYSIS

Since this genre is a website, there is no limit into what and how they choose to express

themselves.

The structure of the illustration is intended to be vague so that the audience may

receive the message in a straight forward manner. Although it contains no words, the

characters on the image have price tags on their bodies which portray women as having

less value than men which is the overall message. Since, the image contains no text, it is

limited in the information it may try to deliver. On the other hand, this image is free to

be shared by anyone online whom can spread it to many places online or not; it can be

printed to make posters and advertisements with permission from the artist. Also,

Huffington Post is prominent among the media so anyone with access to this site may

see it.

The genres are completely different in the area of structure and delivery. The

website is mainly text meanwhile the illustration has no text. The website may be

unlimited to information meanwhile the illustration is limited in information. They are

only similar when it comes to deliver since both of these may be shared through the

internet.

Rhetorical Issues: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos

The website uses statistics and surveys gathered from the U.S. Census Bureau

and other different organizations to provide credible information to the reader. This

contributes to the websites credibility or ethos. The website may evoke a feeling of

empowerment towards women by describing the different ways wage gap impacts

families and provide various different ways to solve the issue. This contributes to the
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WAGE GAP: A GENRE ANALYSIS

websites expression of emotion, or pathos. The website displays a massive amount of

information and provides the audience with fact sheets which include facts, charts,

and a list of at least twenty different sources each including the U.S. Census. This

contributes to the websites reason, or logos.

The illustration is published by Huffington Post, an American online news blog

and aggregator prominent among the media. This contributes to the websites

credibility, or ethos. The illustration attempts to evoke feelings of discomfort and anger.

This is achieved by looking at the characters facial expressions. The women illustrated

seem to be displeased meanwhile the man illustrated seems to be content. The price tags

placed on the characters illustrate the women as being less than the man. These

emotions appeal to pathos. The illustration is published alongside a well-informed

article on Huffington Post however the image itself contains no facts or textual figures

(logos). This however, does not really affect the message since the majority of it is

expressed in art form.

Both genres include ethos and pathos as they both provoke emotion and

credibility. Logos is only prominent in the website since the illustration does not provide

any form of reason or logical text.

In conclusion, both genres fulfilled their individual goal. The website is full of

important information and persuades the audience to speak up and act on behalf of

women. The illustration entertains the audience and provides an overall awareness to

the topic of wage gap. Overall, the website is more effective than the illustration since it

provides facts, emotions, and credibility in order to deliver a message on wage gap and

inequality.
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WAGE GAP: A GENRE ANALYSIS

References

National Partnership for Women and Families. Fair Pay. (2017). Retrieved from
http://www.nationalpartnership.org/issues/fairness/fair-pay.html
Vo, T. The Huffington Post (2014). Retrieved from
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/soraya-chemaly/what-is-the-wage-gap-costing-
you-every-day_b_5108147.html