Jynx Guthrie

Professor Bladl
UWRITE 02
07 Nov. 2016
Rhetorical Strategies in Denise Trauths The Changing Role of Women
One step forward, two steps back: this is the seemingly never-ending struggle of women
who are trying to progress in the world. One woman who is fighting this dance, is Dr. Denise
Trauth. As Wikipedia will tell you, shes the president of Texas State University (since 2002),
and has attended college at Mount St. Joseph University, Ohio State University, and the
University of Iowa. Her history of education proceeds her coming onto the stage where she
addressed an audience of southern college women in America. Her purpose in speaking to the
Hays-Caldwell Womens center on October 10th in 2002 was to address The Changing Role of
Women. The most effective element of Dr. Trauths speech, which she uses to encourage
women to continue seeking change in their roles in and out of the house, is her use of specific
words to play on her listeners emotions, her use of ethical appeals of mentioning many different
women of note and her use of statistics and citations.
The strongest element in Dr. Trauths speech is her use of specific words to play on her
listeners emotions and her use of personal stories. At the beginning of her speech she establishes
an easy-going, mentor/mother personality with humbly thanking the audience for having her. She
proceeds to make her speech more personable by openly addressing that it is a topic that every
woman in this room has thought about at one time or another (Trauth). Her word choice
effectively and emotionally binds us to her, since we (her audience) have the common ground of

being women. The rhetorical strategy of using narratives, stories and emotional words is called
pathos, and this strategy is the most effective of the three she uses in her speech.
Trauth continues to use pathos as she mentions friends that have given her information.
Women as a whole are raised to cling to one another. From a young age we are taught there is
safety in numbers, so Trauth mentioning her friends helps the audience accept her. Additionally,
mentioning her friend keeps the speech conversational, casual, and inclusive. She effectively
leads her audience to believe its more of a conversation than a one-sided lecture.
Another way Trauth uses pathos in an efficient way is when she uses keywords to elicit
emotional response from her audience. Within the first few minutes of her speech she quotes
from an article written in 1943 where she uses terms like use older women and use them to
the best advantage and shell keep busy without bothering the management for instruction.
Words like use and bother in the previous quotes are trigger words. The word use triggers a
very specific response from women, because no one likes to be used, but many women feel that
they are used. This negative connotation to the word use prompts her audience to listen closer
and makes them more keen to listen to the changes Trauth intends to push for. The word
bothering is another trigger word, as many women are accused of being nagging or bothersome.
Due to the negative connection to the word bothering, this trigger is also effective in motivating
women to make the changes Trauth intends to promote.
Trauths second most effective element is her ability to provide statistics and citations.
The rhetorical strategy of using statistics, facts, reasoning, graphs, charts, steps and other like
methods to convince an audience is called logos. In the beginning of her speech she cites an
article from July in 1942, an article which describes what male supervisors were looking for
when hiring the most efficient women available, to use them to the best advantage (Trauth).

In her speech, Trauth begins by pointing out how the business world was back in the 1940s, then
moves on to highlight in bullet points how the role of women has changed since then, by citing
statistics and examples. She summarizes that the biggest change in the role of women has been
a change in opportunity, in options. The statistics provided in her speech help motivate her
audience to her ultimate goal, which is to promote them making more changes for the roles of
women. She cleverly uses statistics that make it seem like women still have a long way to go, in
an effort to encourage her audience to want to make a larger change. Ultimately her tactic is very
effective, though slightly less so than her use of personal connection to her audience.
Lastly, Trauth attempts to appeal to her audiences ethical ideals, in which she is least
effective. This rhetorical strategy is called ethos, and it is how believable the author/speaker is
based on their credentials. She mentions how the famous tennis player Jennifer Capriati was put
under fire by the media for not knowing what Title IX was, but then argues that it is a mark of
growth. She argues that Capriatis lack of knowledge on the title was a direct reflection of how
well it was working, that it gave Capriati opportunities she took for granted. She concludes
that the fact that Capriati didnt even realize that she was given a gift, and that she felt entitled to
play tennis, where women before her were unable to do so due to mens regulations preventing
them, represents how far women have come.
Trauth transitions into talking about the different ways women have begun to take on
more leadership and active roles. She mentions how its better to have women and men working
together than separate and illustrates this by comparing women and men to different school
faculty groups working together. She peppers her speech with more statistics, both in and out of
the United States and then begins to draw a line to the media toward end of her speech. She
expresses that the changing roles of women are complicated, made so even more by other

women who hold contradictory views. She leads into her closing statements by summing up
where weve been as a gender and where we are currently in the world. She concludes by
returning to her main element of pathos with expressing her hope for the future and playfully
reminding her audience that they have come a long way from where they were.
In conclusion, Trauth was most effective with emotional appeals, statistics, and citations
and not as effective with her use of ethically appealing to her audience. Though she mentions
many different women of note, whom she cites, she does not establish how she knows these
women or where she stands in regards to them. She fails to mention who she is, which might
have been acceptable in person but this article was recorded and put online, so her online
audience is left to either google her or just assume shes important because shes speaking at
Texas State University. Her use of trigger words throughout her speech and the many different
citations and facts that she draws upon are very effective in moving her audience towards her
ultimate goal, which is to encourage women to continue making waves and changes in society.
Her use of pathos frameworks her speech by a humble beginning and a playful, hopeful, ending
line of, So, if you think we havent come a long way, baby, think again! I do appreciate your
asking me here tonight. Thank you for your kind attention.