riley s mullin "the destructive male" rhetoric

Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s speech, “The Destructive Male”, uses the rhetoric to tell people that a women’s say is necessary to balance society because the male gender has been dominating it too long and has led to numerous negative outcomes.

In her first sentence of the speech she uses ethos by her urging for a sixteenth amendment while at the same time claiming that a man’s government is of disorganization. In the same paragraph, she displays her use of logos, saying to look back into “the pages of history” for the overwhelming evidence that man’s government has only lead to negative outcomes. She uses the examples of slavery, slaughter, sacrifice, etc. that happened under man’s rule to support her argument against a male dominated society. Stanton speaks to the women next by using pathos to appeal to their feelings of how they have no voice in society, relating to how they feel they have been overpowered. In doing so, she acknowledges women and their more divine qualities than that of a man. She says how women have been barely recognized as a power until recently, again using the pathos to appeal to the struggle of women having virtually no voice.

Again using pathos she appeals to women who have conformed to men’s ideas and standards. She uses the examples of reflections and how women are reflecting men and losing their own characteristics. She uses this to argue that this is why there is no femininity in society, because the women conform to the men’s ideas. The emotion, the feeling the need to fall into step with man because they help provide for women is what she is trying to get at. Women need to be able to keep their own stances, rather than reflect that of a man.

She also continues to solidify her ethos more because she next refers to another point made by people, the idea that giving women more power like this will make them more masculine. By doing so, she demonstrates her knowledge of other’s opinions and makes her just that much more credible. With her having more knowledge and still being able to say this gives her that much more opportunity to have less loopholes in her argument. Using logos again, Stanton brings up how men are looking at their past and what man’s previous actions have brought them to. Man is “appalled at the results of his excesses” and, in her opinion, is in need of something new. She says how men now need women in society, to play a real and influential role. She uses pathos to appeal to the women by saying how pure and how special their womanhood really is. Telling women them their purity, morality, virtue, etc. is needed to help the men to act on better ideas.

Her speech concludes with talking about the disturbance of the natural world and it’s balance and then how everything is not being balanced betwixt men and women. Also with the use of the analogy of, as Stanton says, matter and mind. By bringing this up she is displaying her use of logos, using the scientific points of balance in nature and the need of that between men and women to finish her argument.