Gloria Steinem was the founder and original publisher of Ms. magazine, and is generally regarded as one of the more influential feminist commentators of the late twentieth century. She certainly addresses feminist concerns in her article, but she also provides some interesting insight into journalism, more generally speaking.
We'll discuss and debate Steinem's argument on Friday. What do you perceive to be Steinem's primary argument here? Also, what rhetorical strategies -- logos, ethos, pathos -- do you see Steinem employing as she makes her case?
4 comments:
___Tim the most awesome, comforter of widows and orphans, saviour of the south, ender of wars, killer of kings Dugas___
I read most anything, and at times I do read women's magazines: Martha Stewart Living, Real Simple, O, etc.
I must say that most of what Ms. Steinem writes rings true. Many times articles seem like gigantic advertisements and advertisements are structured so as to look indistinguishable from any other article except for a small "advertisement" in small print along the bottom or top of the page.
This is not that much different from men's magazines, however, and I have seen the same things in Popular Mechanics, Nintendo Power, EGM, and in many others.
I have also seen some really good examples of advertising, especially from Nintendo, who makes advertisements for their DS and Wii in a large number of magazines. I recently saw advertisements for the DS and DS games in Martha Stewart living and Real Simple, magazines whose readers are far from what Console and Game makers usually advertise to.
The ads for the DS games Brain Age and Big Brain Academy are very well done and do not come out as feminine, though they are obviously geared towards an older audience.
the below is an advertisement for Brain Age:
http://accel2.mettre-put-idata.over-blog.com/0/01/53/72/psp-ds-consolespoche/ds-brain-age.jpg
Another ad is even simpler, with more text and shows a middle aged woman, relaxed and playing the game (the ad I saw in Martha Stewart Living or Southern Living, I forget)
I think this second ad especially would be one Ms. Steinem would approve of.
I think that Steinem's objective in publishing this article was to show yet another way in which society tries to single out a certian group and place them into a mold. Basically, all of these different businesses wanted to decide what women should buy or should even be able to look at in their magazines. Some of businesses even decided that women should not be able to decide on which car or techonolgy to purchase. Also, this article set out to show how the advertising world tries to control the magazines. One of the most striking parts of this passage to me was that Revlon refused to allow their add in a magazine because the women that were to be pictured on the cover were not wearing makeup (331). Regardless of the fact that the magazine and the women on the cover were part of a story describing the brave acts of women trying to gain freedoms for women in another country, Revlon was more worried about pushing their product on the female consumers.
I think that Steinem is able to utilize logos, ethos, and pathos to appeal to her reader's. First of all, she organizes her article into an easy to understand format as she places each different type of business and the problems her magazine encountered with them, using bullet points. She used ethos throughout the entire passage using stats and facts. Instead of saying that this type of company refused to place their add in her newspaper, she is able to pinpoint each company and describe each individual incident. Then she uses pathos frequently, such as when she talks about the early female magazines that taught women how to be useful to society, how to please men, and "how to maintain a goose quill pen" (336). What woman wouldn't be upset by that?
I thought it was interesting how Steinem not only explains the problems and mistakes in the advertising in womens' magazines, but also, at the end of the essay, provides ways in which the consumers can aide in changing the magazine for the better. Steinem does not merely point out what is wrong, but provides means to correct and improve.
I think that Gloria Steinem's objective in this essay was to emphisize that men and women need the same type of advertising in both of their magazines. Steinem showed this to the reader mainly through logos and ethos. She sites many statistics in her essay as well as proving her point by simple statements which lead to a conclusion that will support her idea.
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