A Rhetorical Analysis Of Hillary Clinton

On September 5, 1995, first lady Hillary Clinton delivered a speech on women’s rights at the United Nations Fourth World Conference of Women. The conference was held in Beijing China a city where there is a lack of rights for men and especially women. Clinton challenges the audience of thousands “If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights once and for all.” This chiasmus identifies that the phrase women’s rights is interchangeable with human rights. The purpose of the conference was to educate the audience of government officials and the public on the problems women throughout the world face. Clinton’s speech argued that women were not treated

equally, and that women’s rights should be equal to human rights. To evoke sympathy from the audience, Clinton provided harsh examples of the abuse, rape, death and discrimination women face. Her overarching goal was to get action among government officials and motivate women across the world to take control of their lives and not suffer from these circumstances. Clinton used a mix of pathos, ethos, logos, and anaphora to deliver a definition argument on why women’s rights are human rights.
The conference was organized to achieve equality and opportunity for women throughout the world. At the time women had few rights and were not able to contribute to society the same way men could. First lady Clinton was chosen to serve as an honorary chair member of the conference. While she representing the United States, she presented her argument on how the lack of women’s rights is an issue throughout the world. At the time of the conference, Clinton received the international living legacy award and was recognized as the Arkansas woman of the year. She was well known throughout the world and had spent twenty-five years advocating for women's rights. By explaining that the way the world treats women is not a fair representation of human rights, Clinton was able to give a clear definition argument. This was not the first time a definitional move has been made to redefine human rights. In 1964 Malcolm X in his speech, “The Ballot or the Bullet” presented a similar definition argument to argue that the definition of human rights is the same as civil rights. Clinton made a similar definition argument, to argue that women are entitled to the same rights as any other human. This redefinition was needed since women across the world were suffering from a lack of rights.
To engage and capture the audience’s emotions on women’s rights Clinton used pathos throughout her speech.

Clinton used this rhetorical device to show the abuse and discrimination women suffer by sharing the horrifying situations in which women were forced. These situations include rape, abortion and honor killings. Clinton referenced the struggles women faced, “It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.” The example of rape as a tactic or prize of war was used to evoke the audience's sympathy. This sense of sympathy was instilled in the audience's brain to raise concern for the lack of rights women have. Clinton used pathos to emotionally connect the audience and encourage them to strive to make women’s rights

equal.
Connecting with the audience on an emotional level is important, but credibility is another important factor in the delivery of a definition argument. Clinton shared her experience and knowledge with the audience, “Over the past 25 years, I have worked persistently on issues relating to women, children, and families. Over the past two and a half years, I've had the opportunity to learn more about the challenges facing women in my own country and around the world.” Here Clinton proved to the audience she has spent time learning about the challenges women face which makes her an important person to present this argument. By sharing her prior knowledge and experience Clinton was successful in gaining credibility of her speech through ethos.
Along with emotionally connecting and proving credibility to the audience, Clinton used logos to speak logically.

She included important facts and percentages that gave the audience a better understanding of the issue with women’s rights. Clinton presented facts about rights women lack when she said, “Women comprise more than half of the world’s population, seventy percent of the world’s poor, and two-thirds of those who are not taught to read and write.” Here Clinton explained women are a huge majority of the world's population, how most of them are poor and a huge number of them are uneducated. The facts Clinton provided gave a mental picture to the audience and showed how big of a problem women’s rights are in the world. Logos allowed Clinton to persuade the audience through authentic

facts.
Throughout Clinton’s speech she uses anaphora, a technique of repetition at the start of a claim to emphasize the importance the statement. In a section of her speech, Clinton repeated, “It is a violation of human rights” in a stern tone multiple times while describing the horrifying situations women were forced into. This repetition of the phrase created an important message that the way women were treated violated their human rights. Clinton also repeated, “I have met”, several times to express that she met with women around the world who are also suffering from a lack of rights. Clinton also touched upon this topic when she argued women’s freedoms differ from humans in the world. When speaking about the lack of freedom among women, Clinton sternly said, “Freedom means the rights of people to assemble, organize and debate openly. Freedom means respecting the views of those who may disagree with the views of the government.” By repeating “Freedom means” several times, Clinton emphasized details on what freedom entitles for both women and humans. Using anaphora throughout Clinton’s speech drilled the ideas of the lack of women's rights to the audience.
After the conference and Clinton’s speech in 1995, there was no immediate action to make women’s rights human rights. While it could have changed the way, people look at women’s rights throughout the world there was no evidence that it truly did. However, years after Clinton delivered her argument at the U.N. World Conference women began to have opportunities to get an education, work and raise a family. These progressions contributed to Clintons goal for women to share the same rights as any other human. As a current presidential candidate in the upcoming election, Clinton has the possibility to continue to advocate and make a change for women who suffer from a lack of rights.
Around the time of the conference women across the world suffered from a lack of rights. Clinton realized that women’s rights and human rights were two different terms and there need to be a redefinition. This redefinition focused on expanding the meaning of human’s rights to include women rights. Clinton used her to speak at the U.N. World Conference to address the need for redefinition. Her use of rhetorical techniques helped the audience understand the cause she was speaking about, created sympathy for women, and guided the world in the right direction redefine human rights.