Eng 1a - the Longest War

Tiara Turner

English 1A

Section 1551

February 6, 2018

The Longest War

        Sometimes men take their masculinity too far and feel the need to be in control of women. Solnit’s uses pathos and logos in her argument to inform us how women are abused and sexually assaulted by men, and her tone of voice in the argument shows us that it was personal to her. While using logos, Solnit wanted to apprise her audience that abuse is happening too frequently in our country. She also pathos to inform us how men tend to put that their powerful and dominant over women’s head. Even though she talks strongly about men she let us know that not all men are the same and that there are men who are also feminist.

        Solnit uses logos listing many facts and statistics in her argument. “A woman is beaten every nine seconds in this country.” (Solnit 527). This statistic stood out to me the most because it shows us how frequently this is happening to women and it just adds to the evidence that she is trying to argue. Some men feel as if a woman should get hit and I tend to ask myself why, majority of the time men are way stronger. Women often put themselves in dangerous situation where horrible thing can happen and I’m not saying its their fault but us as women need to make sure we are safe always. A woman should never feel that a man can control her, you are responsible for your actions and own life. Some women don’t make it out of abusive relationship and when they have had enough they lash out and end up killing the abuser.

        Solnit appeals to pathos by giving us different stories on how woman not only in our country, but the entire world is being raped by men. In India, a woman was riding a bus home when she was ganged raped and killed. “a pattern of violence against women that’s broad and deep and horrific and incessantly overlooked.” (Solnit 523). Solnit informs her audience that these cases are often not taking too seriously like it should be and that these sexual assaults are due to gender. Men are raping women and these cases are in the hand of a man who is powerful in the court system, which is a reason why nothing are happening to these men and they can feel like they can do it to whoever without any punishment. All the rape cases in her argument shed a light to the audience that something must be done and that it starts with everyone in this world to make change. Solnit gave awareness that it is not all men who are violent and rapist and its men in this world who want change.