Women’s Equality
In 1995 at The United Nations’ fourth world conference in Beijing, China, Hilary Rodham Clinton speaks out on the injustice women have endured. She is getting people’s attention by bringing this topic out in the open. Her speech is effective in motivating world leaders to improve the lives of women because she focuses on the unity and the importance women in the community play, She also exposes the challenges and abuses women face around the world in order to invoke an emotional response in her listeners and she is sure to make a point of the experience she has with women’s issues and shows her determination to end the discrimination.
Throughout her speech Clinton centers on the unity and importance of women’s roles in society. She uses repetition to stress the importance that women play on the family and community. In the beginning she uses the words “family” and “flourish” several times in one paragraph and points out how families cannot survive without the work of women to hold them together. Clinton also lists the many jobs that women take part in when she says, “At this very moment, as we sit here, women around the world are giving birth, raising children, cooking meals, washing clothes, cleaning houses, planting crops, working on assembly lines, running companies, and running countries” (3). Through that statement she expresses the true value of women. A couple of paragraphs below she states again the different jobs women have in the community but lists them more specifically such as nurses, hotel clerks and chefs careful to point out that they have to sacrifice so much just to support their families but receive little in return. By using repetition Clinton is demonstrating that no matter how different the culture is all women can relate to one another when it comes to work and family. Her use of pathos makes her audience think about their lives as women or the women in their lives. If they aren’t a woman in one of these roles she has listed then they more than likely know a woman who is. The repetition of these key elements is to help it stick out in her audience’s memory, so they can relate to women as a whole and realize they are key to making our world go round.
Clinton invokes an emotional response when she exposes the challenges and abuse women face around the world. She states that these abuses have continued throughout the years and even today due to our silence. Clinton specifies the different types of abuse women suffer worldwide when she gives examples such as “women being doused down with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death” (4). She also talks about countries where baby girls are denied food, or even killed simply because they were born females. She again uses repetition by continuously saying “it is a violation of human rights when…” followed by examples of the different types of abuse (4). She invokes an emotional response from the audience when she states “we are the primary caretakers for most of the world’s children and elderly. Yet much of the work we do is not valued—not by economists, not by historians, not by popular culture, not by government leaders. Clinton calls all women to take action and break the silence that has only been to our detriment, which is made apparent when she says, “those of us who have the opportunity to be here have the responsibility to speak for those who could not.” This statement gives her listeners a sense of responsibility to make a change.
Clinton gains credibility on the subject of women’s rights when stating the vast experiences she has dealt with on these issues and her determination to make women’s rights human rights. Clinton makes a point to provide specific examples of her participation on improving women’s rights. On page two, she says “I have met women in my own hemisphere who are working every day to promote literacy and better health care for children in their countries.” This shows that she is knowledgeable because of her own first-hand experiences. She makes her dedication to this cause very clear by attending different functions and letting her voice be heard for those whose voices go unheard. She speaks of how she has worked persistently on issues relating to women, children and families over the last twenty-five years. She then goes on to tell about the variety of struggles that her eyes have been opened to when meeting face to face with women from all different cultures. By using this approach, she convinces her listeners that she is well-informed as well as driven to educate others on the apparent discrimination that women face daily.
Clinton uses this speech to persuade her audience to be called to take bold steps to better the lives of women. By doing so, they will also be bettering the lives of children and families. Her tactics are effective in motivating world leaders to improve the lives of women by focusing on unity and the importance of women in the community. She conjures an emotional response in her audience by exposing the challenges and abuses that women face around the world. Clinton gains creditability by speaking of the experiences she has had with women’s issues. Ending the discrimination and bettering the lives and conditions of women all around the globe is her main focus. Her intent is to educate people by bringing their attention to these issues. All of these strategies that she incorporates are effective in convincing even the naysayers to show empathy for justice. Clinton wants women to have the opportunity to enjoy all basic legal and human rights.

Works Cited
Clinton, Hilary “Women’s rights are human rights” AmericanRhetoric.com. 2012. AmericanRhetoric.com. 1-5 web. 3 Sept 2013