Mary Robinson is the former President of Ireland, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and is currently the Executive Director of the Ethical Globalization Initiative. She gave a speech in New York about the HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa and also in Asia, focusing on women’s issues. I found her speech to be very unnerving in it’s facts and very powerful it’s approach to a solution.

It was a deliberative speech, undoubtedly. Her telos is to bring together many organizations that she has dealings with (which support her ethos throughout the entire speech, very subtly) to encourage microbicides, gender equality and rights, and proper healthcare for all. She goes into much more detail than I will here.

The amazing thing about her speech is her pathos and decorum. Neither of these devices are on the forefront of her delivery and rallying. She does not rely heavily on them, but they work well and her images/facts linger. The prime example of this (most of which is presented to the listener as logos) is her statistics of men vs. women who are infected by the virus, and why women have a much higher risk of becoming infected. It is very powerful to hear someone say that [in some cultures] “marriage is a danger to women’s health” and actually be able to believe it. The idea of monogamous women with few civil rights who become infected with AIDS due to their husband’s promiscuity and not always having the right/ability to demand protection, such as female condoms is very much an appeal to emotion and logic. She also mentions other biological factors that make women more vulnerable to getting the virus. She does not present this as a pity-party for poor women in third world countries, but as a very real problem that can affect global health and economy. The emotional heartstrings have been pulled, though.

One of her best lines is her end statement:

“We need to make microbicides the new Viagra. They have to be as sexy to R&D, to really make change, as Viagra was. If we can’t do that, there’s something wrong. Because Viagra is for men’s pleasure. Microbicides save women’s lives.”

Setting protection up as something that can be sold on a level of appeal to all people is a great way of going about controlling the pandemic. Her use of the words “sexy” and “pleasure” is a great start. Most of her speech’s decorum is aimed at gathering women together, on global and local levels, to do what they can to ensure not only their safety, but the safety of all.

This article can be found at
http://www.asiasource.org/asip/aids_womens_leadership.cfm

jillian