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Orianna Lopez

Ms.Woelke

Pre-AP ELA 9

03 March 2020

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

Minou Tavarez Mirabal delivers this speech at Middlebury College, over gender violence

especially towards women and how women deserve equal rights just as much as men do. Minou

dedicated this speech mainly for her mother, Minerva Mirabal, as well as her three aunts, Patria,

Dede, and Maria Teresa, since they lived during a time period when gender violence was a huge

problem, and even so she states how it’s a current problem taking place today. “Violence against

Women and the Example of the Mirabal Sisters” is an emotional yet truthful speech which

emphasizes the unfairness to see women less important than men, and that participation is a

central focus of the political dynamic over the use of parallelism or listing, anaphora, loaded

words, tone, and figurative language.

Minou mentions in her speech how women are a big part of history and not everything

that happens are revolved or caused only by men. With the use of anaphora Minou states that a

man named “Luis Vitale, referring to women, described [them] as ‘the invisible part of history.

Since Luis Vitale was a part of the women revolution, this is a great way for Minou to

demonstrate how women are important especially coming from someone like Luis Vitale. This is

a great way to start her speech, just going straight to the point over what she will be talking

about, and grabbing the audience’s attention right away before she starts talking about her mom,

Minerva, and her three aunts. Minou goes on and talks about how women can inspire us and we
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can make “visible the social and political initiative shown by those women, saving from oblivion

their achievement, tragedies, contributions and… highlighting their example, to guide and inspire

us”. There is use of parallelism when she says “achievements, tragedies, [and] contributions” and

this is and appeal to pathos since it contains emotion and a strong, powerful effect in just those

three simple words. Minou is trying to demonstrate or allow the audience to realize how history

has blinded the fact that women are just as important as men, and just like we can blind that from

history we can also make it visible that women have rights and can be just as strong and even

stronger than men, not physically but definitely mentally and emotionally.

Now that Minou is beginning to talk in more detail about what the Mirabal sisters,

especially Minerva, did to make a change in Trujillo’s time, she speaks about what they had to

live through and see from a very young age all the way to when they were mature determined

women who would not step down to Trujillo. The word “violence” is mentioned many times in

Minou’s speech. More specifically she mentions “gender violence” quite a few times. This use of

loaded words emphasizes the topic over women being taken advantage of throughout her speech.

The title of the speech itself starts with the words “‘Violence’ against women…”. Not only does

this produce emotions, it also keeps the speech from going off topic. Gender violence is the

whole point of Minou’s speech and it’s exactly what Minerva Mirabal sacrificed her life to

attempt to change, and even though the Mirabal sisters did cause a huge change in the

Dominican Republic, gender violence, especially towards women, is still a problem that still

occurs today. Speaking more about women being just as strong as men, Minou states how her

“father, another great hero of Dominican democracy” would be the president of the 14th of June

Political Movement. However “some accounts say that [Minerva] was the person who showed
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the most leadership, firmness, organizational ability and political acumen to guide the group,

but… it was inconceivable for a political movement made up mostly of men to be led by a

woman”. There is another use of parallelism with the words “leadership, firmness, organizational

ability and political acumen.” This ties back to men thinking women aren’t capable of being a

leader, or at least one as good as them. Minou is trying to prove that even though Minerva has

the ability to lead a group and be stronger than all the men in the movement combined, women

still couldn’t lead such a big group especially if the majority are men.

As Minou concludes her speech, she reminds everyone how even today we must be

strong and not let women be seen as less important at any cause. She uses figurative language as

she states along our journey “Minerva, Patria, and Maria Teresa have been with us… together

with you, our friends, we wish once again to raise our voice and say that Minerva lives, that the

Mirabal sisters live… here among [us]”. What Minou is trying to say is that the Mirabal sisters

aren’t with us physically but they are with us spiritually and mentally. In other words, the strong

spirit of the Mirabal sisters are still with us, and is what is keeping us from fighting for women’s

rights and against any sort of gender violence. This can cause an impact on the audience since it

gives us courage and hope for our future to be more fair and away from the horrible things

humans have done every since laws were a thing. Finally ending the speech, Minou mentions

that Minerva never let Trujillo over power her. “Minerva was not wrong when she would hear

warnings about how dangerous it was to stand up to Rafael Leonidas Trujillo and would always

reply with these same words: ‘...If they kill me, I shall reach my arms out of the grave and I shall

be stronger.’” This portrays Minerva as a courageous, and determined woman. The tone in this
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phrase that Minou says allows people to see her mother as role model to other women that could

have gone or are going through what Minerva went through herself.

In conclusion, Minou goes over how gender violence has been a huge problem in society

and how it still affects our world today. The story of Minerva and her sisters was a huge impact

in our history and Minou dedicates this specific speech for her mother to encourage other women

going through the same issues that took place in the time of Trujillo. Through the use of

parallelism or listing, anaphora, loaded words, tone, and figurative language this speech is an

emotional yet truthful speech that should be heard all around the world.