Richard Kasparian
March 6, 2013
English 1010
The Women’s Crusade - Rhetorical Analysis Essay
The New York Times 2009 article “The Women’s Crusade”, written by Nicholas D. Kristof and
Sheryl WuDunn, definitely calls attention to the oppression that women are subjected to throughout the
world. The article goes on to follow various oppressed women around the globe and retells their
hardships and triumphs as they found opportunities to contribute to society in meaningful ways. The
authors deliberately focused on the idea, described as a powerful truth, women and girls aren’t the
problem; they’re the solution. The article goes on to describe the Chinese saying that “Women hold up
half the sky,” further implying that women occupy half the population and represent a vast economic
and geopolitical opportunity. This article was extremely effective in how it calls attention to the
oppression of women around the world and provides solutions that can better society in general.
The authors of this article, Nicolas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, are widely known and
acclaimed authors, who happen to be married to each other. Their carriers allowed them the flexibility
to travel to various third world countries in order to gain a firsthand insight into the oppression of
women. Nicholas D. Kristof, born April 27th, 1959 is an American journalist, author and op-ed columnist
who won two Pulitzer Prizes for International Reporting on pro-democracy student movement related
to the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and his commentary on the genocide in Darfur in 2006.
Sheryl WuDunn is a Chinese American business executive, author, lecturer, and first Asian American to
win a Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of the Tiananmen Square protests. WuDunn and Kristof were the
first married couple ever to receive a Pulitzer for journalism.
In the article “The Women’s Crusade” the authors follows various women who have been
abused, raped, and not allowed to get a formal education. These women somehow found a way
through charities, escape, and self-education to better themselves, their families, and society. The
authors argue that in order for these poverty ridden countries to thrive and succeed the injustice and
prejudice against females needs to stop. The article goes on to describe the issue of oppressed women
and girls, who are brutality abused, murdered, burned, raped, and used for sex trafficking as this
century’s paramount moral challenge. The authors compared the oppression of women in this century
to slavery in the 19th century and totalitarianism in the 20th century. The story claims that there is a
growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid
organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global
poverty and extremism. A powerful quote form the article describes “Women and girls aren’t the
problem; they are the solution.”
The Women’s Crusade article, which was published in the New York Times, positioned a spot
light directly on the issue of female oppression in the world today. By providing horrific stories of
oppressed women the authors utilize Aristotle’s pathos appeal to emotion. The authors use saddening
statistics, which appeal to both pathos and logos. Another use of logos comes through the author’s
description of various charities and programs which help oppressed women turn their lives and their
family’s lives around. In addition to logos and pathos, the authors use ethos, by building credibility
through their first hand experiences of traveling to poverty ridden countries and interviewing these
women.
The intended audience for this article was readers of the New York Times. The authors used this
article to call attention to the oppression of women around the world and to enlighten the reader to the
fact that women are the solution to better families, less crime, more fortune, better economy, and
ultimately a better world. The authors also call organizing leaders to support microfinance. The
organizations usually focus on assisting women by giving women small amounts of money or loans to
invest in businesses or education. The article specifically mentions a study that found that when women
hold assets or gain incomes, family money is more likely to be spent on nutrition, medicine and housing,
and consequently children are healthier. A call to action for donor countries is also made by the
authors. The text states that donor countries should nudge poor countries to adjust their laws so that
when a man dies, his property should be passed to his widow rather than his brothers or sons. In
addition to death benefits, the authors call for the readers to take action by supporting government
mandates that make it easier for women to hold property and bank accounts in this nations.
The article concludes with a metaphor for the role of foreign assistance. The authors use the
metaphor of aid as a kind of lubricant. A few drops of oil in the crankcase of the developing world
allows the gears to move freely again on their own. Assistance given to the women in the article
allowed Saima, a mother who was beaten by her husband to start a business creating embroidery to
flourish. This business allowed her to become the bread winner in the family in order to stop the
beatings, educate her daughters, and live a better life. The Assistance given to Abbas, and Indian girl
allowed her to escape being locked up in a brothel. Now she is able to help other girls who have been
rescued from brothels. She also is able to obtain and education. The article also describes Tererai, a
young woman who was not allowed an education. Through the help of a teacher, she was allowed and
education. Now she is obtaining her PH.D. at Western Michigan University. She is focusing on fighting
AIDS in Africa and has become a significant figure in the battle against AIDS. These stories reinforce the
notation that “Women hold up half the sky” and women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the
solution.
I strongly believe the authors did an excellent job of calling attention to the terrible injustice
that some women live with every day. The authors used their journalistic fame to publish this article in
the New York Times, which allowed them to reach a very large audience. In addition to providing heart
wrenching stories, they backed up each story with statistics and data that drove home there objectives.
I think the best part of this article was how the authors did not just point out oppression, they pointed
out solutions to end oppression and gave examples of how ending gender oppression makes for a better
world.