In her article, "For Women in America, Equality is Still an Illusion", Jessica Valenti subject matter is to describe the discrepancies between what is perceived as gender equality to what is really occurring in America in hopes of ending the mistreatment and injustices of women. Valenti writes this essay in hopes of disillusioning women that believe they have the same equal rights and treatments that men have in America. She conveys a certain emotionally upset tone in her work (mainly due to her being a woman) to grab the reader's attention.She uses selection of detail to show the hardships of women not only in America, but in other countries as well.
Valenti provides many statistics of abuse against women here in the United States as well as examples of evidence for the mistreatment of women. Valenti's appeals began before she had written a single word, mainly due to her being a woman. She appeals to the emotional side of her readers, writing that we “cry with Oprah and laugh with Tina Fey”, that we are “fooling ourselves” into believing that a “mirage of equality..
. is the real thing."She is trying to explain that it is a sort of ignorance-is-bliss situation: look at all these successful women on television so how could equality not exist? She also cites facts, while maintaining an emotion, by mentioning George Sodini, who specifically targeted women in his shooting “killing three women and injuring nine others. " This intends to bring out the moral woe within the reader.
One of the strongest of Valenti’s uses of emotional tone is when she states that the leading cause of death for women who are pregnant are murdered by their partner.It is almost unthinkable: with so much emphasis in America on the sanctity of life, whether or not to allow abortion or the morality of stem cell research; the fact that “the leading cause of death for pregnant women” is the person who caused the pregnancy is not an outrage proves her argument. The main argument Valenti makes is that women still do not have the same equality with men in the United States. She supports this argument extremely well by citing facts about issues still left to be discussed and fought for: “issues from reproductive justice and racism to pay equity and motherhood.
”She also describes situations of well-known famous women recently being attacked. She uses examples of physical abuse, “such as when singer Rihanna was assaulted by her then-boyfriend Chris Brown,” or mental and emotional abuse, such as when Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin were barraged for their gender during the 2008 presidential election. These attacks were all similar in their nature, regardless of the kind of abuse they faced. All of these attacks were based purely on the gender of the victim, ignoring any other aspect they have.In many ways, Valenti felt as though women in America ignore the fact that there is no equality among them and men due to the harsh treatment of women in other countries.
What could we possibly have to complain about when there are women being beaten, sold into sex slavery, and raped overseas? She writes "We have no problem condemning atrocities done to women abroad, yet too many of us in the United States ignore the oppression on our doorstep. " This is her way of explaining how unaware women are to their own justices and by attempting to give women a better sense of open-mindedness to how they are treated in America.She wants those women who can do something to prevent the injustices they have to help themselves and those unable, to spread gender equality. In summary, Jessica Valenti writes in her article "For Women in America, Equality is Still an Illusion" the illusion women face in America that there is gender equality.
She discusses the challenges faced by women both in the United States and in other countries, as well as the motivations for why these injustices occur. She uses a strong emotional tone and her being a female to grasp the reader's attention and to show a sense of rapport between her and the female audience.
