After watching A.O.C’s speech, use commenting to respond to the following: How does it relate to Kothari, Douglass, and/or Wollstonecraft and the idea of discourse communities? Does it highlight anything new for you about the genre of the speech or on what makes a clear, well organized, persuasive speech? (approx. 100 words)
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Prof: Dr. Ruth G. Garcia
Email: RGarcia@citytech.cuny.edu
This is a course in effective essay writing and basic research techniques, including use of the library. College-level readings are assigned as the basis for classroom discussion and for essay writing.
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The A.O.C speech brings out very interesting ideas and very worrying problems with the dc community of women in genera l. the thing i found very compelling comparing her speech to Wollstonecraft’s was how women are still being disrespected in the same way so many years later. Also they both are very well spoken and address there problems well with the people who they have them with the one thing i really liked about aoc’s speech was how she was able to remove the shield of her verbal attacker like saying things like having kids and a wife doesn’t make you a decent man it was able to highlight a different problem that I didn’t notice which was mean using women to try and verbally disarm women. to me A.O.C did a very good job persuading people that this cant go on and bringing her point across as well as woolenstonecraft did
A.O.C’s speech about the sexist vulgarity and lack of remorse made by a republican lawmaker Ted Yoho hit home for many women. A.O.C.’s speech relates in my opinion the most to Wollstonecraft, both mention problems that women face in their community. Wollstonecraft was fighting for women’s rights and the 90s and how they are viewed as mere objects, this related to A.O.C.’s speech that even till this day women are facing issues with men thinking they can get away with dehumanizing a woman. A.O.C.’s speech was very concise and clear to the point that even powerful men can bash a woman despite having women in his own family, a wife and two daughters. One of the statements that A.O.C. made that I loved was by Yoho doing this he opened the door for the same treatment to be done to his wife and daughters. Both Wollstonecraft and A.O.C. share the discourse community of feminism, they address the issues as a global problem and that it should not be taken lightly. Men that do such things should be held accountable; the norm of such violent remarks being told to women should be changed. Both Wollstonecraft and A.O.C. made very good and persuasive points.
A.O.C. ‘s speech was very powerful and I think she gave a great example for many young girls. Many women get verbally abused by men day to day basis and it is always brushed under the rug or seen as typical characteristics or behavior of a men. I could relate her to Wollstonecraft because both are giving a speech regarding women. they both want equality, respect and better opportunities for women. During A. O. C’s speech I loved the fact of how she mentioned her parents and how she wasn’t raised by her parents to be disrespected by men. This method touches every parent with a daughter. Nobody wants their daughter to be treated with disrespect, especially at their job by co workers. Additionally, she was very clear of the situation and what happened during the interaction with Ted Yoho. She went step by step to make the audience clear of what actually had happened and gave the audience an image of the interaction.
Rep. A.O.C speech is about her being disrespected and harassed by Ted Yoho and Roger Williams. It relates to Wollstonecraft’s speech when it comes to how women are mistreated at the workplace and how the discourse community of being a woman is in society can have many disadvantages and must deal with derogatory comments. Women deserves to be treated with the same respect as men demands to get. Not because of their gender, but as a human. Human rights are not a reward, but inalienable. Her speech highlights that to get the audience to understand your message, the issue, the context around the issue and the solutions to end the issue, should be your focus. Also, her tone is very formal and attention grabbing. A speech will not make sense or persuasive if there’s unnecessary details and your energy is not up to par.
The speech from congresswoman A.O.C relates to the past readings we’ve done in class in the sense that she is also standing up and defending her discourse community.
In her speech she narrates that she has been treated indifferently many times for being a woman and for being of different ethnicity similar to Wollstonecraft and Kothari. In her speech she gives personal examples of discriminatory and sexist incidents she’s had to endure in the past,making it clear it is not the first time she has encountered this. The personal example she shares makes her speech so much stronger because you can feel her pain and emotions when she speaks . It was a moving and powerful speech and it made me emphasize with her. This method of using personal experiences demonstrates that it very effective in persuading the audience, similar to how it was done in Douglass oration.
A.O.C’s speech is similar to Wollstonecraft’s letters. They both present the same issue about women’s role in society. Women do not get the same respect and equality as men because this seems part of culture or hierarchy. Men used to believe women should be the ones to stay at home and take care of the children. Today, some men still do not want women to have more rights or powerful than them. Therefore, those men are indignant to women. I think her speech is great and worth taking the attention to this issue. She gives a clear incident about Rep. Ted Yoho was rude to her and mentioned other government officials as well. She continues to say this is not new, and these problems exist everywhere, which is true that she highlights these things.
The speech Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave had a strong message and it’s an issue many women face every day but the fact that this is considered normal is an issue that has to be changed, men shouldn’t feel comfortable enough to use insulting words towards women without receiving any sort of consequence and vice versa. I noticed this speech relates to Kothari, Douglass, and Wollstonecraft because each one wrote a speech and/ or letter that affected them and their discourse community each one of them had a different way of addressing their audience which made what they were saying stand out more. Each one of them had a discourse community they belonged to and they made that very clear in their writing. Something that I want to highlight about her speech though is how much her personal experience impacted the persuasion of her audience. Her experience was something that many could relate to she mentioned words like mother, daughter, sister, ect the use of these words not only had an impact on women but also on men which made her audience become even more large. She puts important figures of people’s lives in her speech just to show a different perspective, how someone could be saying those exact words to someone you love.
In Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speech, she speaks on the disrespectful language used against women. This speech relates to Kothari, Douglass, and Wollstonecraft speeches because they all had an emotional appeal towards the situation of something that affected them. As well as their discourse communities. In terms of a discourse community, sexism would be the one. What really made the speech persuasive is that it’s inspiring for other women to come forward in Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defense and to share their own experiences of dealing with sexism and/or violent remarks. One thing that stood out the most for me was that throughout the speech, Rep. Alexandria used Rep. Yoho owns words against him to support & make her argument stronger.
Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s speech directly mirrors the message in Wollstonecraft’s letter, the main difference is the time period. Which further emphasizes their points that, women are continuously disregarded and mistreated by most men within society. A.O.C would defend her stance with a anecdote, basing it off her experience with Representative Yuho. While Wollstoncraft based hers off current events, and the social norms of that time. The common goal for both speakers was to defend their Discourse community, and try to demolish the stereotypes and negative behavior towards women.
AOC did exactly what most of us professional women wished could do. She defends woman when woman are orally abused without cause like she was without making things worse for woman and by extension people who depend on us to be able to work. AOC is correct, and virtually all women have faced gendered attacks like this from men. I thought AOC’s rebuttal speech to Yoho’s non apology was absolutely awesome. in the United States it is common for men to use this kind of insult when they are angry with women. In particular, it is common for men to attack a woman’s sexuality when efforts to undermine her mind have failed. This need to change.
A.O.C speech in response to legislator Ted Yoho associates the idea of discourse community presented by Douglass and Wollstonecraft. In their speeches, advocacy is the main component. They are standing up for a problem that has undermined their discourse community and needs to be remedied for the best interest of future generations. In her speech A.O.C exposes a systematic problem of abusive behavior towards women which in consequence further propagates sexism. She presents the issue in a clear and calm manner with examples that are easy to assimilate and also testifies about her own struggles while experiencing sexism in her life. She goes on to expose that this behavior is practiced by men in positions of power and how their actions are setting a bad example and empowering others to follow in the same path.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her speech is fighting for herself and other women to be treated with respect. Douglass and Wollstonecraft were fighting for their discourse community as she did. All of them had faced injustice, inequality and stereotype. I like that she is using her personal experience to persuade the audience and explaining what happened as a movie scene you can imagine and feel it. She is taking advantage of her incident to draw attention to the problem most women face in work, transportation and everywhere basically. She is pointing also that being a successful man who is married and has daughter does not make you a decent man and if all men keep on treating women with disrespect his daughter will face the same thing. So as Wollstonecraft was pointing in her letter that all the abuse women exposed to will affect men eventually.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s speech regarding Ted Yoho’s sexist and vulgar comments about her correlates with Mary Wollstonecraft’s letter. Even though their topics were slightly different, both spoke about a woman’s place in this world and how she should be treated with respect and dignity. Evidently both women are part of the feminist discourse community since they strive for equality among the sexes, and make it clear that they are actively combating against sexism and the mistreatment of women. A.OC’s speech was very concise and extremely well structured. She not only uses other examples of verbal harassment directed towards her but she also explains how Yoho, being a public figure, has now shown to the world that it is okay to treat his daughters and wife the way he treated her. She clearly explains how this type of behavior is cyclical and how he cannot hide behind the guise of a ‘family man’ say what he said. A.O.C’s speech is a good template to show how to properly and effectively structure a speech or a letter while still being thorough.
Thank you all for your great responses. I want to pull out and highlight some of what you have all said:
I really like Evan’s description of what A.O.C. does. He writes, “i really liked.. how she was able to remove the shield of her verbal attacker like saying things like having kids and a wife doesn’t make you a decent man.” This is a tactic that Amenah also notes.
Shahnoza makes a good point that AOC uses a common relationship to appeal to and move her audience. She writes: “During A. O. C’s speech I loved the fact of how she mentioned her parents and how she wasn’t raised by her parents to be disrespected by men. This method touches every parent with a daughter. Nobody wants their daughter to be treated with disrespect, especially at their job by co workers.”
Shannon does a good job of pointing out the various elements to include in a persuasive speech–she writes: “Her speech highlights that to get the audience to understand your message, the issue, the context around the issue and the solutions to end the issue, should be your focus.”
Vanessa reminds us of the importance and usefulness fo personal examples: “the personal example she shares makes her speech so much stronger because you can feel her pain and emotions when she speaks . It was a moving and powerful speech and it made me emphasize with her. This method of using personal experiences demonstrates that it very effective in persuading the audience, similar to how it was done in Douglass oration.” Jayme and Anny also call our attention to this technique. And Beddour explains that it is important to not just mention your personal experience but to really get your audience to be able to see it by using detailed descriptions. This is something we see in Douglass as well. Related to the idea of personal examples, Guilherme points out that AOC uses other kinds of examples to back up her points as well–this is an important element of being persuasive–one must be able to back up the points made.
Kathy calls our attention to yet another strategy AOC uses and that is ground an issue in its historical context.
Amia points out that “Rep. Alexandria used Rep. Yoho owns words against him to support & make her argument stronger.” And I think the is something you can all keep in mind as you write. If you come across a quote from someone that represents the DC you are addressing you can use that to reply to them.
Maiya writes: “The common goal for both speakers was to defend their Discourse community, and try to demolish the stereotypes and negative behavior towards women.” And I would encourage you to also keep this in mind as you write. Perhaps you are dealing with stereotypes of the DC you are speaking for, in which case you can work to respond to those perceptions of the DC.
I would add that A.O.C also uses repetition of key words and phrases to keep our attention to drive home her point.
Finally, I just want to call our attention to a great point made by Abdulla: “In particular, it is common for men to attack a woman’s sexuality when efforts to undermine her mind have failed. This need to change.”
The speech A.O.C is very a powerful and inspirational. The speech relates to Wollstonecraft and other materials we worked on. Throughout her speech she tells that she has been treated poorly for being a woman and a different ethnicity. Wollstonecraft and her both are giving a speech regarding women. They both want equality, respect and better opportunities for women. No parents want their daughter to be disrespected especially at their own job. In the speech she’s very clear about her personal situation that makes the speech stronger. She makes it clear that her interaction with Ted Yoho is not the first time she’s experiencing something like this. In the speech you can understand what she suffers from. Since she gave her personal experience it helped support her argument and show how this is a problem that needs to be solved for future generations.