Jean Kilbourne's story "Two ways a woman can get hurt" gave me a shock reaction. After I could get past what she was actually saying and start noticing things about her writing I noticed first her use of advertisements to uphold her words. She relied heavily on the different fallacies used in these ads and the suggestive nature of them.
There were times that I would wonder on some of her ads whether they could possibly be ads she had made up. I would say they were about 50/50 of whether or not she actually told us where the ads came from. Still, even with the 50% that she did cite or tell us where they came from this is a disturbing story.
Kilbourne used stacking in her story. She never presented a different side to the problems she was writing down. Perhaps that could have made her story a little better if she could have presented a different side and used what she had to show us how stupid it is to think of it in the first place.
Statistics used in this story were also shocking. Kilbourne writes "one in five of us has been the victim of rape or attempted rape, most often before our seventeenth birthday." There were many more but this one made me stop and think.
I found that Kilbourne did a very good job at keeping her article as her own. She used quotes from other places but her voice was the main one throughout the entire thing.
Near the end Kilbourne points a finger at Advertisements but states that it isn't the only problem, but an important part of it. She never gave a solution to all the issues in her piece, but they are heavily implied.
I have no doubt what Kilbourne believes should be changed in our society and strangely enough (because this has never bothered me before) I agree. I don't believe I will ever look at an ad the same way again. This is disturbing...
Strike In Geology
10 months ago
ya this was very distrubing text. i could not image some this ad were mention. its just made its clear how our society is against women.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point that she never did bring up the other side. Without bringing up the other side it sounds even worse than it is. I would have liked if she was more thorough about where some of these ads were found. A few I had heard of or seen, but others I was left wondering how could they get away advertising like that and in what venue is it being advertised?
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