Quinlan 1

Taiya A. Quinlan

Ms. Woelke 5

Pre-AP English 9

4 March 2020

Rhetorical Analysis of “Violence against Women and the Example of the Mirabal Sisters”

The Dominican Republic, for a brutal thirty-one years, was run by a horrendous regime

and dictator by the name of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, or as the Dominican people called him, El

Jefe(the chief). Under Trujillo, Dominicans were swallowed up by the demanded idolatry of their

president by the country’s government, and feared to stray away from the beliefs that their ruler

resembled God, and was glorious, incapable of any wrongdoing whatsoever. For, if they did fail

in holding those virtues, or at least pretending to do so, they would become targets of the

government, and suffer great consequences, facing peril in prisons, torture chambers, or even in

casual assassinations in public areas. However, as the masses cowered in fear of the regime,

being submissive to the oppression being placed upon them, many had the determination and the

will to go against the regime, objecting to the mistreatment of the citizens of the Dominican

Republic by the crumbling government. In particular, the Mirabal sisters, Patria, Maria Teresa,

and Minerva, were instrumental and absolutely necessary in the move toward democracy in their

country by challenging the status quo and questioning the true morals and values of the Trujillo

and his regime. The Mirabal sisters displayed vast courage in their actions, enduring endless

violence that had targeted them, yet paved the way for equality and inclusion of women in the

Dominican government, which formerly relied on only the values of the male sex instead. In

November of 2006, Minou Tavarez Mirabal, daughter of Minerva Mirabal, explains further the
 Quinlan 2

pioneering efforts her mother and aunts had made, and makes the case for why there should be

more awareness surrounding inequality for effective change to occur through use of parallelism,

anaphora, facts and statistics, and anecdotes.

As Minou Tavarez Mirabal commences her speech, she displays the importance of the

need for more awareness of inequality to allow for change to happen through uses of anaphora

and parallelism. She notes how often times violence targets women on a higher level than the

male population, yet, calling out the oblivion of the people, states that “No one, no historian” has

acknowledged the true struggles that women continue to endure in the Dominican Republic,

going on to describe women as being “virtually buried by history”(Tavarez Mirabal 1). Via the

use of anaphora, Tavarez Mirabal emphasizes the ignorance that history itself holds on the matter

of women’s issues, and also displays some shared frustrations that women may carry with the

problems that they face as a population. This signifies the need to stop overlooking the needs for

change and equality by making people aware of what women have historically fought for and

why they should be greater respected and appreciated for the battles they have waged in order to

clear the path to more freedoms and rights for women and other marginalized peoples. Tavarez

Mirabal also goes on to say that it is their mission to ensure the “rescuing and making visible of”

the initiatives taken by women to accelerate democracy in the Dominican Republic, through all

of their “achievements, tragedies, contributions,” and the example they show, inspiring others to

“continue in their footsteps”(Tavarez Mirabal 1). The utilization of parallelism in this instance

allows for the highlighting of why these brave women who have contributed and suffered so

much for the inclusion of the female population in political and social agendas should be

inspiring and held up as role models to those willing to create change and eliminate injustice.
 Quinlan 3

This also emphasizes how women are capable of pursuing less-limited opportunities, especially

in government positions, further conveying how significant the achievements of forgotten

women of the past affect how equality plays out in the present day, motivating people to make

choices now that can lead to positive impacts on their country in the future. Through the use of

anaphora and parallelism, Minou Tavarez Mirabal is able to captivate her audience and rally

them to fight for the changes needed to combat inequality.

As Tavarez Mirabal shifts to the middle of her speech, she relies heavily on facts and

statistics while also using anecdotes to persuade people to support her cause in fighting for

impartiality and metamorphosing male dominated societies into more women-supportive

environments. After Tavarez Mirabal recognizes the progress that has been made in the

Dominican Republic in recent history, she quickly turns, revealing the harsh reality to her

audience of what still happens in her country, stating that “911 women of various ages lost their

lives in ‘femicides’”, along with the fact that “intra-family violence affects six out of every ten

Dominican homes” and adds an even more shocking statistic that “a woman is raped every five

and a half hours” in the Dominican Republic(Tavarez Mirabal 2). These facts give the audience

an idea of what terrors women are faced with, and shows how on many occasions, crimes target

the stereotypically vulnerable female population. The use of these statistics also appeal to logos,

and the seriousness and anger that arises from hearing those statistics gives way into the

audience’s emotions, and it helps to resonate Tavarez Mirabal’s messages of a need for

awareness as it pertains to the struggles of women. Tavarez Mirabal continues by using an

anecdote involving her mother, Minerva Mirabal, to carry her point, saying Trujillo, the brutal

dictator, publically “tried to seduce her, which she resisted”, and in addition to that, she “openly
 Quinlan 4

took a political stand”, by defending someone who was considered an opposition figure to the

regime(Tavarez Mirabal 3). This anecdote shows that even the leader of the Dominican Republic

helped to foster mistreatment and abuse of women within his country, and in the case of Minerva

Mirabal, that power was used in order to eliminate her and her sisters in an attempt to fear

monger others into leaving their differing political ideas behind. This establishes the extent to

which Rafael Trujillo and his tyrannical regime would go to strip away the dignity of those who

disagreed with them, especially politically-aware, strong, and educated women, like the

Mirabals, through imprisonment, torture, and in some more unfortunate instances, assassination.

With the use of statistics and anecdote, Minou Tavarez Mirabal is able to weave in widespread

experiences of women’s abuse while providing an account of such behavior that affected her

mother and close family in order for the audience to become aware of the problems that women

have endured and are continuing to face in the country of the Dominican Republic.

As she closes, Tavarez Mirabal again uses parallelism and anaphora to finalize her point

that there needs to be more awareness of women’s issues in the country she calls home. Minou

Tavarez Mirabal explains how the “challenges, mobilizations, legislative proposals and lobbying

for their adoption” may take some time, but it is in their abilities to “seek consensus, to develop

strategies and set priorities and timetables” in order to give more access to women where

decisions are made(Tavarez Mirabal 5). Tavarez Mirabal makes use of this parallelism to put an

emphasis on the ways people are fighting, and how there are several pieces to this puzzle of

equality that are necessary to getting the whole picture of a world where ​all​ are equal. She

ensures her audience that so many are willing to take on difficulties in multiple forms to bring

about good change in today’s society. She continues and shows her appreciation for women like
 Quinlan 5

the Mirabal sisters, stating that along the trail to legitamizing the fight for women’s equality,

people must know that “Minerva lives, that the Mirabal sisters live,” and their contributions to

benefitting life for women are able are to be held as an example for all in and outside of the

Dominican Republic in efforts to cease violence against women and to build “a culture of peace”

worldwide(Tavarez Mirabal 5). Tavarez Mirabal uses the anaphora to emphasize that the sisters

and their ideals connect directly with the goals present-day activists hold in trying to make life

better and safer for all womankind. This also plays into the idea of how without the Mirabal

sisters and others like them, taking strides for rights and freedoms to hold views different from

the status quo would be almost impossible, because few would have had the guts and strength to

take on faulty, unjust beliefs, and people simply would not have footsteps to follow in terms of

equality. At the hand of Minou Tavarez Mirabal’s use of parallelism and anaphora comes the

overarching message of a need for equality and the awareness of female struggles, perfectly

wrapping up her speech on a note of solidarity and unification behind her cause.

Minou Tavarez Mirabal’s speech regarding violence against women is not only moving,

but motivating. She reiterates throughout how important it is for the world to know the battles

women face and the wars we wage with society’s expectations and agendas. Minou Tavarez

Mirabal is able to showcase the issues of gender violence and how it should be emphasized as a

profound issue in the Dominican Republic and beyond by using her platform and her voice to

speak for and shine a light on the oppression women deal with around the world. This tributary

speech also shows her audiences how the struggles, pain, and suffering that the women in her

family have faced were the beginning steps to clear the way so progress could be made for not

just women in the Dominican Republic, but for all women on all faces of the earth. Tavarez
 Quinlan 6

Mirabal perfectly weaves together use of parallelism, anaphora, facts, and anecdotes in order to

convey the need for awareness and acknowledgement of the struggles of women to give way to

positive change to better the lives of all people, for equality is key to this.