TOW #3 "Letters To A Young Scientist" (Written)

The book Letters To A Young Scientist is by renowned entomologist (ant biologist) and author E.O. Wilson. An excerpt from the book is titled "First Passion, Then Training." In it, E.O. Wilson uses a narrative technique to illustrate his purpose, which he outlines at the end. Wilson writes, "My confessional instead is intended to illustrate an important principle I've seen unfold in the careers of many successful scientists. It is quite simple: put passion ahead of training." Wilson directs his writing toward young high school and undergraduate students. He hopes to either inspire them to become scientists or guide them along their career paths.

However, Wilson is not entirely successful in achieving his purpose. His goal is to convince readers of the importance of passion -- especially above any technical training. At the end of the excerpt, Wilson writes, "Feel out in any way you can what you most want to do in science, or technology, or some other-science-related profession. Obey that passion as long as it lasts....Decision and hard work based on enduring passion will never fail you."

This attempt fails because Wilson is not being sensitive enough to his audience. Very few high school students feel an affinity with their childhood interests. At least, very few feel an affinity that would be strong enough to constitute a career. His advice to "feel out" potential careers is simply too vague and almost laughable. High school and undergraduate students are sometimes presented with so many options (even those only looking in the field of science) that "feeling out" different courses is impossible. Cost and time are also factors that would limit a student's ability to try on different scientific hats for fun.

It would be unwise to assume that high school students are completely jaded and cynical. They can be inspired to place passion before any other factor in choosing a career. Before that, though, they require truly inspirational reading to do so. In order to inspire his readers, Wilson required a great appeal to pathos, such as using figurative language or more descriptors in his anecdotes. Because Wilson failed to include these devices, his attempt to inspire readers fell flat.

TOW #2 "It's Toasted" (Visual)

 This image is an ad for cigarettes originally published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1951. The advertiser is the famous cigarette company, Lucky Strike, known for their emphasis on quality of taste. In this image, the text that readers see first is the line, "IT'S TOASTED TO TASTE BETTER!" At a time when cigarette companies were struggling to maintain their customers against numerous health warnings, Lucky Strike decided to focus on the high quality of the product. In addition to the caption, there are three images to the right showing baseball player Ted Williams enjoying himself fishing and smoking. Lucky Strike wanted to remind readers of lighthearted and fun activities, alongside which they would also be smoking. The black and white effect on the pictures also give readers a sense of nostalgia. These pictures generate an appeal to pathos: the readers associate their hobbies and happiness with Lucky Strike cigarettes.

Lucky Strike also makes an appeal to ethos by including a testimony from Ted Williams. The opening line, again, links the activity of fishing to smoking. It reads, "Baseball's fabulous Ted Williams is an expert fisherman and enthusiastic Lucky smoker." Lucky Strike is assuming that their audience, which would be the general readership of the Saturday Evening Post (i.e. the general public), has at least heard of Ted Williams. He is first characterized in a way that all readers will recognize: a baseball player. More importantly, however, he is shown to a normal everyday person, who, just like readers, fishes and smokes Lucky Strike cigarettes. Because he is shown to be a normal person like everyone else, readers will trust him when he advocates for Lucky Strike cigarettes. His image takes up the majority of the page, and the focus is largely on his face. What readers can see of his clothing is, again, representative of an everyday person. He is not wearing a baseball uniform or formal clothing; instead he looks comfortable and friendly. The focus on his facial expression emphasizes his smile and eyes, which will make the advertisement feel inviting to readers.

It can be a bit odd looking back on cigarette advertisements, as the cultural attitude toward smoking has completely changed since the 50's. However, it is clear this ad contains many components which draw readers' attentions and associate a positive feeling with Lucky Strike cigarettes.

TOW #1: We Should All Be Feminists (Written)

In its early years, feminism (originally known as the suffragette movement) was vilified as an evil, demonic movement threatening to disrupt all that was good and holy within the world. While there is still plenty of opposition to the movement, feminism (now in its third wave) has come back into the public eye, in large part due to social media. A trademark of third-wave (or liberal) feminism is its desire to appeal to all. A popular mindset is that feminism is not just for women, but all people. This inclusiveness is demonstrated in speeches like Emma Watson's gender equality speech to the UN and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TEDxTalk, "We Should All Be Feminists."* An unofficial transcript of Adichie's talk can be found here.

Adichie is welcomed on stage to much applause and commands the podium with ease. This is because she holds automatic ethos; the audience already knows who she is and trusts what she has to say. At the time she gave this talk, Adichie was already a lauded author and named in the 2012 edition of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in the World. Nevertheless, Adichie understood she had to do more to win over her entire audience. The purpose of Adichie's talk was not only to explain feminism (and clear up misconceptions) to an audience seeking innovation and discussion of ideas, but to convince her audience members to actively fight against everyday sexism.

To close her talk, Adichie says, "The best feminist I know is my brother Kenny. He is also a kind, good-looking, lovely man, and he is very masculine." Adichie wants her audience to leave with the idea that men can be feminists as well. She includes anecdotes that specifically target the men in the audience. Early in her talk, Adichie says that there are many men who mean well, but simply do not believe that women face sexism anymore. To disprove this idea, she tells stories about life in Nigeria, where she is often ignored because she is a woman. This is Adichie's way of incorporating pathos into her talk. The stories are lighthearted, but the audience understands the serious implications of her experiences. She often uses humor to tease the audience for being a little sexist themselves, so as to criticize without hurting them. Most poignantly, she says about being ignored, "I feel invisible. I feel upset." Two simple sentences can convey how much sexism hurts on an individual level, let alone nationally or globally.

Adichie motivates the men in the audience to become feminists by using logos as well. She talks about toxic masculinity, a construct of the patriarchy that forces men to behave in certain ways that is harmful to themselves and others but that also reinforces how "masculine" they are. Adichie talks about the concept of "hard man" in her own culture: "We do a great disservice to boys in how we raise them. We stifle the humanity of boys. We define masculinity in a very narrow way. Masculinity becomes this hard small cage and we put boys inside the cage. We teach boys to be afraid of fear. We teach boys to be afraid of weakness, of vulnerability." Adichie points out that socialization, just as it can hurt girls, can also hurt boys. Furthermore, the methods that will liberate girls from harmful socialization will also liberate boys. This is a logical argument that also uses pathos (the struggle with vulnerability) to appeal to men.

In spite of her idealistic purpose, Adichie also establishes ethos by reminding the audience that neither she, nor all feminists, are perfect. She explores her own struggle to overcome internalized sexism. She acknowledges that "gender is not an easy conversation to have." When she mentions her discussion with a black man, she points out the failure of feminism to be intersectional and include all oppressed groups (not just white women). By including these weaknesses, she strengthens her overall argument by allowing her audience room to fail while transforming themselves into better people.

*The discourse and ideas included in these speeches may not be representative of my personal views of feminism, but that's a discussion for another day.

IRB Intro #1: The Feminine Mystique

A couple years ago, my friend handed me my birthday present that I insisted she get me. It was a white T-shirt with pink block text reading, "FEMINIST KILLJOY." Unfortunately, the shirt was way too big to wear proudly, but many people wouldn't be surprised that I own it. Most of my peers are tired of hearing me talk about social issues, but hopefully Mr. Yost and Ms. Pronko won't be by the end of the year.

Although I've learned a lot about the good, bad, and ugly of third-wave feminism (a.k.a the feminism we're currently experiencing now), I still have yet to learn about second-wave feminism (the feminism of the 1960's). There's no better place to start than The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. The book (originally intended to be a magazine article, but no magazine would publish it) discusses Friedan's research about the collective unhappiness of housewives. A quick Google search of the title reveals the words "groundbreaking," "classic," and "life-changing" in the results. I chose the book for its place as a touchstone and starting place for many modern feminists (second-wave feminism is sometimes called radical feminism; third-wave, liberal). Beyond learning, I also hope to apply much of what I have learned about sociology and sexism. I begin my reading with several questions: how has feminism changed in the last few decades? What are ways in which second-wave feminism is lacking? What are ways in which third-wave feminism is lacking? Is one better than the other? Are there issues or groups of people that feminism has ignored and continues to neglect? By the time I finish the book, I wish to have at least partial answers to these questions.