Rhetorical Analysis Essay On Women By Stephanie Coontz

Stephanie Coontz uses different ways to argue for her beliefs. Her article is written in a formal tone and the choice of words and phrases indicates a high education level. This is also expressed in her great use of numbers. Her main way of arguing is through logos, as she backs up her assertions with statistic facts numerous times. An example is when she compares how girls and boys have done in school lately. “Today women earn almost 60 percent of college degrees, up from one-third in 1960.”(lines 35-37) and again when she mentions the female representation in businesses “Between 1970 and 1985, women’s share of computer and information sciences degrees rose from 14 percent to 37 percent. But by 2008 women had fallen back to 18 percent.”(lines 50-54). She uses these numbers to convince her readers as it gives a visual image of the point she is trying to get prove.
She also takes use of

When Coontz speaks of the male gender she refers to them as you would with a young child or an animal “The results is that many guys who would have been obnoxious husbands, behaving badly behind closed doors,”(lines 66-69). Furthermore, she continues to mock them by saying “are now obnoxious singles, trumpeting their bad behavior on Youtube”(lines 69-71) and calling them “pathetic”(line 72). When the purpose of her article is to prove that the ascent of women does not equal the descent of men, this way of referring to poorly behaved men could be conflicting with her article’s main message. She attempts to save this message by showing sympathy for the men that are “behaving better than ever”(lines 75-76) and she puts her point as the end of the article “the ascent of women does not portend the end of men. It offers a new beginning for both”(lines 110-112). She sets up her final comment as a summary of all her earlier arguments to convince the readers as they are left with a positive outcome for both