
Editorial Statement Colloquy is a journal of the Department of Communication Studies, funded through Instructionally Related Activities at California State University, Los Angeles. Colloquy aims to represent the variety of scholarship conducted in the Department of Communication Studies as well as representing different types and levels of academic thought. Writing style varies with students’ experience with writing as a scholarly enterprise. The editorial board is comprised of students in the Department of Communication Studies and a supervising member of the Communication Studies faculty. Typically, the membership of the editorial board changes with each issue. The intention of the editors is to ensure that essays appearing in the journal are checked for consistency in style and general clarity in writing. Owing to the breadth of theoretical, methodological, and rhetorical approaches within the purview of communication studies, the editors subscribe to a general ethic of inclusiveness, and they endeavor to treat all essays with this ethic in mind. As representative of the scholarship in communication studies, a number of essays in Colloquy have been presented at national and regional conferences, including the National Communication Association convention and the Western States Communication Association conference. As such, Colloquy highlights the achievements of students in the Communication Studies department while providing a forum for scholarly discussion and innovation. The Editorial Board wishes to thank all those who contributed to this volume, including the authors who submitted essays, the faculty members who solicited materials and mentored students, and members of the production staff. Editorial Board Phindi Mthimunye Moya Márquez Shawn O’Rourke. M.A. Supervising Editor D. Robert DeChaine, Ph.D. Copyright 2015, the Authors Colloquy A Journal of the Department of Communication Studies California State University, Los Angeles Volume 11 Fall 2015 Featured Articles Women’s Rights in Public Address: A Feminist Rhetorical Critique 1 Julie Matos The Discursive Implications of Sexuality in the Final Scene of The 23 Legend of Korra Greg Langner An Analysis of the Differential Meanings Embedded in Two Main 44 Areas of Los Angeles Union Station Alice J. Marianne Fritz How the Leaking of the Pentagon Papers Was Framed by Mainstream, 67 Conservative, and Liberal Print Media Michelle Cornelius Electronic Dance Music Festivals: A Promise of Sex and Transnational 85 Experience Oscar Alfonso Mejia CHAOS: A Play 105 Greg Langner The West Wing and House of Cards: A Comparison of Narrative 126 Strategies of Two Politically-themed Dramas Alice J. Marianne Fritz About the Authors and Editors 153 Colloquy Vol. 11, Fall 2015, pp. 1-22 Women’s Rights in Public Address: A Feminist Rhetorical Critique Julie Matos Abstract Women’s rights is still a salient issue in the 2st century. Furthermore, women’s rhetorical contributions are largely overlooked within the field of rhetorical studies. As a rhetorical movement, there is little extant scholarship that analyzes and critiques modern discourse about women’s rights in public address. This analysis looks at Hillary Clinton’s (1995) and Emma Watson’s (2014) speeches on the subject of women’s rights and equality at the United Nations, and the respective use of the feminine style in their discourse. The article attempts to contribute to the field of women’s rhetoric by evaluating and uncovering contemporary rhetorical strategies of women in public address. Using feminist rhetorical scholarship will allow both a critique of the arguments used by Clinton and Watson to advance feminist goals and issues regarding white, privileged women speaking on behalf of the people they attempt to help. A recent NPR article, published on February 14th of this year, highlights another side to Valentine’s Day of which many might be unaware: “V-Day, the international day of ending violence against women and girls” (Poon). This day of activism, started by Eve Ensler, the creator of the Vagina Monologues, focuses in on the abuse and discrimination women face on a global scale. According to data compiled by The World Bank Group online, from 2010-2014 women in the United States made up 50 percent of our population. Globally, with few exceptions, women’s populations ranged from 49-53% in each country (Population, Female). Despite the fact that women are an almost equal part or in many cases the majority of a country’s population, women do not enjoy the same representation of power and equality within the private or public sphere. Poon’s article goes on to emphasiZe the many laws around the world that classify women as second-class citizens in their respective countries. From Yemen, where a husband “has the right to be obeyed by his wife in the interest of the family…she must permit him to have legitimate intercourse with her when she is fit to do so” (Poon), to Nigeria, where it is legal to hit your wife for 2 J. Matos the purpose of “correcting” her, to Russia, where women are forbidden from doing more than 450 types of jobs, women of the world still, clearly, face a long and unique challenge for equality. The struggle for women to be given the same basic human rights that have been afforded to men for centuries is certainly not a new pursuit but is still a very real struggle in the year 2015. From the decades-long struggle to gain voting rights to equal pay in the workforce, from domestic violence to access to education, women the world over have been overlooked ad nauseam. While the women’s liberation movement within the United States has done much to improve the conditions of and move us closer towards equality for women, this movement benefits a select few. As bell hooks notes in her book, Feminist Theory, when a child is born to a white couple the “factor deemed most important is gender,” but for a couple of color, there are multiple factors that impact the future of a child, not just gender, but race and class (12). Furthermore, hooks observes that the women’s liberation movement primarily benefited and improved the conditions of mostly white, privileged women. Achieving not only national but global equality for women is a complex mission. For to achieve this end requires us to recogniZe that forward progress is not just about gender, but socio-economic, ethnic, and political factors as well. Using rhetoric to promote the advancement of the feminist cause is not only imperative to global stability. It must also be carefully examined for its inclusivity, going beyond benefiting a select few and bringing attention to the globe's most vulnerable populations of women. Many historical figures have used their notoriety and public platform to take on the difficult task of bringing awareness and advocating change of these issues through public address. Two notable speeches in the last two decades come to mind: Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 1995 address “Women’s Rights are Human Rights” to the United Nations in Beijing, China and, more recently, Emma Watson’s 2014 address on gender equality, also at the United Nations. These two speeches are the focus of this essay for several reasons. First, these speeches have been widely established by mass media as exemplars of women's rights rhetoric and within the broader category of public address. Secondly, both addresses were given at the launch of two major gender equality campaigns. Clinton’s speech launched the United Nations “Millennium Goals” and Watson’s speech launched the United Nations “HeForShe” campaign. Both of these speeches and subsequent campaigns have had a great impact on gender equality whether it be helping women around the world with basic safety and educational needs as was and is the case with Clinton’s call to action, Women’s Rights in Public Address 3 or, in Watson’s case, engaging young men and women in conversations about and advocacy of gender equality. Third, these speeches are nearly twenty years apart but both speakers are representative of the primary benefactors from women's liberation movement of the 1960s and 70s (white, middle/upper-class) that many scholars challenge for its lack of inclusivity. While both speakers have certainly experienced discrimination for being women, they have not had to experience the intersectional challenges that befall women of different races and socioeconomic backgrounds. For these reasons, Clinton and Watson constitute excellent sites for comparing, contrasting, and critiquing the rhetorical style and arguments of these two speeches. The UN World Conference on Women, held in 1995 where Clinton delivered her address, is mentioned in this same NPR article written by Poon. In it, the author references the more than two-hundred countries that gathered and coordinated to end sexist laws still in existence. Additionally, at this same conference, the UN made gender equality one of their many “Millennium Goals” (Poon). However, both the article and a quick look at the United Nations’ online progress towards this goal shows us that while some headway has been effected in the last twenty years since this pledge was made, there is still much work to be done. As Poon’s article stresses, sexist, dangerous, and oppressive laws are very much a reality fifteen years into the millennium. These two speeches, given by Clinton and Watson almost two decades apart, highlight a continued need to encourage devotion to and discourse about the human rights of women around the globe. Hillary Clinton has devoted her time and position to campaigning for women’s rights. She has been consistently polariZed by the media, at times praised and at others punished for her perceived masculine and aggressive approach. Emma Watson, also an advocate for women’s equality as the face of the HeForShe campaign, has been largely commended within the media for her work, but also not without punishment.
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