Queen B Takes A Stance On Gender Equality Is A Myth
1998 Words8 Pages
Jasmyn Keomala
Albert Rintrona III
Rhetoric
October 9th, 2015
Queen B Takes a Stance on Gender Equality
Have you ever realized how much influence one person has on the world? Have you ever realized how much influence a woman has on the world? What about Beyoncé? Beyoncé is known to be a modern day feminist. In fact, she even wrote a speech over Gender Equality. Beyoncé titled the speech “Gender Equality is a Myth!” While reading this (take into consideration that I am a fan of Beyoncé) I wanted to listen to Beyoncé because of her fame and influence on me but through learning Sophistic rhetoric I feel she is only using her opinion to gain fame because her statistics are unsupported. My first impression when I read “Gender Equality is A Myth”…show more content… I think so. I don’t think she should be allowed to talk about it because she is famous but more because she is a woman and wants to talk a stance on her point of view about the topic. I also think that men could talk about this topic as well but might not be as understood as Beyoncé because one, she has all of this power and influence due to her career and two, they are the opposite gender. With that being said, I believe that Beyoncé’s speech, “Gender Equality is a Myth”, is a contemporary example of Sophistic rhetoric. I believe it is Sophistic rhetoric because it applies to the culture specific of women. Sophistic rhetoric ideas come from Gorgias and Isocrates. The ideas were that language can affect the human soul and it is based off of morality. In fact, in the reading of Gorgias he compares “the power of language to magic and drugs, and even characterizes it as deceitful”. The takeaway is that by using Sophistic rhetoric you can change the way people perceive things (Gorgias, pg 43). This takeaway is important because it shows how you can persuade an audience with your opinion if you structure your words correctly. In order to prove this, Beyoncé’s background, outside source opinions of Beyoncé’s speech, and implications will be…show more content… Earlier in this essay I quoted that “Gorgias compares the power of language to magic and drugs, and even characterizes it as deceitful.” (pg 43). This quote means that Gorgias believes that language has a lot of power and the way you use the power in language can be scary because of how powerful it can be. The way you structure your sentences and use your “status” has a huge impact on how you can influence an audience. This quote also supports the reception by showing that though some people think gender equality is solved, others might believe otherwise because of Beyoncé’s speech. The findings support my thesis because it’s saying that her speech is Sophistic. It is Sophistic because of the technique she uses. The techniques consist mainly of her status. She knows she is powerful, and because of that it doesn’t take much for her to persuade an audience. By studying Sophistic rhetoric, I noticed that it provides a new insight to the reception by bringing up strengths and weaknesses in Beyoncé’s argument. Rhetoric provides what the reception misses by hitting points over ethos, pathos and logos. It is obvious that Beyoncé has a lot of credibility due to her status. She also chose gender equality as her topic because her main audience consists of females and is towards females. Song titles such as “Single ladies”, “If I Were A Boy”, “Run the World”.