Response to a speech of my choice- Hillary Clinton's speech on Women

Despite the challenges Hillary Clinton faced while her husband was President of the United States, she continuously remained a credible, admirable, and respectable leader of our country, especially where women’s issues were concerned. The speech I chose was given by Hillary Clinton in China, regarding the treatment of women around the world. The speech appears to have mostly epideictic and deliberative qualities. It is epideictic in the fact that she praises women of the world and their sacrifices they have made for the good of their families. It is deliberative in the fact that she emphasizes that there is a need for change in regard to how women are respected and treated by the rest of the world. Her goal of the speech is to encourage her listeners to take action and “bring new dignity and respect to women and girls all over the world- and in so doing, bring new strength and stability to families as well”. As she says, “when families flourish, communities and nations will flourish” as well. In my opinion, she does an incredible job of establishing ethos, with the numerous mentions of her involvement with organizations, such as the United Nations Development Fund for Women, and with the list of hardworking women she has encountered in several other countries such as Denmark, South Africa, Bangladesh, and Belarus. At the same time she is establishing ethos by mentioning the women she has met, she does a great job of developing pathos. She lists the work they are doing everyday, such as promoting literacy and better healthcare, building democracies, and working just to ensure their children are safely cared for. She evokes sympathy from the audience as she mentions that the work done and contributions made by these women are being ignored and the women are not being acknowledged for their efforts. She stresses that women are being undervalued and the audience has no choice but to feel for the women who give so much of their time to better the lives of others. Logos is effectively used with her statistics of the rate of illiteracy among women and the noting of the large amounts of abuse they suffer. Knowing that the troubles of these women are indeed facts, leads the audience to feel even greater sympathy for this unrecognized suffering gender. Hillary Clinton uses this speech to convince her audience that our world is in desperate need of a change in how we regard women. I think she does an excellent job of convincing her audience.