A rhetorical analysis of hillary clinton speech on women's rights

Hillary Clinton is an American lawyer and Politician who served as a U. S. Senator and secretary of the states (2009-2013). Hillary Clinton gave a speech in the conference of the “ U. N. 4th World Conference on Women Plenary Session”. She starts the speech with pathos by thanking Gretrude Mangola. Secondly after giving thanks to the Secretary General she explains the importance of this conference in a few words to make her audience aware of the importance of the conference and her speech in such a conference. After a clarification about the conference she tries to lead her speech to her main point by giving logos as she values women`s efforts and contributions to the society in the very first part of her speech. Hillary Clinton`s main point from this speech is human`s rights which she defines human`s rights as women`s rights and women`s rights as human`s rights (31). The purpose of her speech is to persuade her audience that women`s rights matter same as human`s rights. She knows as in this conference there are important people from different countries so her audience are people from all over the world, and she can give her message to people from all over the world. After pointing to the main point of her speech which is human`s rights and women`s rights she brings up the questions that some of the audience might already have in their minds, she says “ There are some who question the reason for this conference. There are some who wonder whether the lives of women and girls matter to economic” (Clinton 31). By this she wants to make her audience realize that she knows what she is talking about and in this speech, she is going to give clear respond to all these kinds of questions. Hillary Clinton in the speech of the U. N4th Conference on Women Plenary Session uses the rhetorical strategy of using the facts, emotions, and credibility. By this she tries to persuade her audience and to achieve her goal, which I am going to analyse it all in this essay.

Using of the ethos is one of the rhetorical strategies that Hillary Clinton uses to grab the attentions of her audience in this conference. “ Using of ethos in speech shows practical wisdom, moral virtue, and goodwill toward the audience.” (Aristotle’s). Before Hillary Clinton continue her speech and bring any evidence to prove her claim she says “ earlier today I participated in a World Health Organization forum. And we talked about ways that government officials, NGOs, and individual citizens are working to address the health problems of women and girls” (31). By pointing about her participation in another such important conference she gives credibility to her speech and make her audience understand that her words are trustable as she has attend many important conferences like this. She wants to convince her audience that she is experienced enough about women`s and girls’ conditions and since she has worked with such important organization she knows about women`s problems more than everyone else. Continuing to mentioning about her participation in those organizations today, she mentions about her tomorrow`s schedule, she says that she going to attend a fund gathering program which will help women access to credit so that they can improve theirs and their families lives(Clinton 31). By referring about her tomorrow she gives another credibility to her speech. She tries to make the audience see that she still works hard for women so what she says in this speech is trustable and comes from her experiences of working.

By using the logos in her Speech, Hillary Clinton tries to attract the attentions of the audience. As logos are the facts, she brings live examples and facts about women`s conditions and relate them to the point she says in her speech so she can prove her claim. As her claim is that we must consider women`s rights as humans rights, in a part of her speech she says “ it is violation of human`s rights when doused in gasoline, set on fire, thousands of women are subjected to as a tactic or prize of the war” (Clinton 33). She knows this is a truth and it has happened or happening to women in different parts of the world. She uses this logo to grab the audience attention and make them realize what she says is based on facts and related to real situation of women in the world. She gives a strong evidence to prove her claim by using this fact about women`s lives. In a part of her speech, after giving a definition of freedom Hillary Clinton says “ Women must enjoy the rights to participate fully in social and political lives of their countries, if we want freedom and democracy to thrive and endure” (34). As a lawyer and politician, she knows that this is a fact for everyone that freedom means to have liberty for all society, so the quote about democracy in her speech says that as women are making more than half of every society, we have the democracy and freedom when we do not forget about the rights of the half of our societies. This make a strong evidence for proving her claim.

Using pathos is another thing she does to make her speech more attractive to the readers or the audience. In many parts of her speech she uses pathos. “ For Aristotle, pathos is an appeal to those states of mind that have an emotional component.” . This is a very right way that makes her point more clearly and also supports her prove the point. She starts her speech by saying thanks to the audience and those who invited her for this speech. Also as her main point of in this speech is about women`s rights, in many parts of her speech she make her claim stronger by using the emotion and being sympathy with women; as in a part she says “ it is a violent of humans rights when individual women are raped in their own countries, when women and girls are sold into slavery of prostitution for human greed…..”(Clinton 33). This is to show how these injustices has touched her heart. She knows that everyone knows that it is not fair when we say human`s rights but more than half of our society is being treated like this. Using of emotion has made her speech more attractive to the audience.

In a nutshell, in the speech of U. N 4th conference Hillary Clinton addresses about the violence and inequality the women are facing all over the world. She wants the world to be peaceful by making people realize that all the human rights belong to the women too. IN her speech she uses the rhetorical strategies like: Logos like facts and evidences about women`s situations in the world, pathos like emotion, and credulities. As her claim in this speech is women`s rights, she supports her point by using the rhetorical strategies. This has attracted the attentions of her audience. This it helped her achieve her goal from the speech which is persuading the audience about her claim.