New AND Improved

Here is a new and improved rhetorical analysis of the same article that I read for the last assignment. This article,http://elitedaily.com/women/skinny-should-stop-being-used-as-a-compliment/, discusses media’s current role in “demonizing fat” and the issues with why saying someone looks skinny is NOT a compliment. I will analyze this authors argument article through the use of logos, ethos, and pathos.

The authors argument in this article is very clear and concise….being skinny is no compliment, and the author brings many examples of how women, both celebrities and average women, struggle with body image. The author’s argument is that media is controlling what size women “think” they should be through various forms of medium. The author provides numerous examples of how the media influences young and old women’s perception of body image. The fact that the author is a woman gives her a large amount of credibility of where her opinion is stemming from. What woman hasn’t looked in the mirror and wished a part of her was skinny or had less cellulite? What woman hasn’t looked at a celebrity’s body and used that as a standard to one day reach through diet, or lack of, and maybe exercise. Using the Tori Spelling story really provides not only strong evidence that the media can “twist” how things are perceived, but how women in the lime light face strong scrutiny from the media and feel forced to be upheld to a higher standard in terms of how their body looks. The use of these elements provides ethos for the author.

The author uses a lot of emotions throughout the article and it makes her argument even stronger. She shows sympathy for every women no matter what their size. She expresses her concern on the way media influences young women to be skinny and the effect it has on the women that struggle with their weight. At the end, she even expresses sympathy for the women that are already extremely skinny because at that point you have no weight to lose and you don’t even have to go to the gym. On the other hand, the author shows her hatred for what the media has done. I really enjoyed her opening paragraphs about women’s role in society and its relationship with being “skinny”. Through the combination of emotions and sympathy, the author utilizes pathos.

While reading this article, I felt the overall structure was easy to follow. The author opened up with a powerful, inviting opening statement about the norms of females role in society.  It was clear and concise. The author respectfully got her opinions out there in a way that was supported by evidence and connected to her main argument that skinny is not a compliment. Women know that media’s influence is hindering women’s confidence on their body weight, but what’s worse is they continue to let it control their daily habits. The logos of this article is clear: that media influences body image negatively and that women shouldn’t use skinny as a compliment.