Sarah Hall Hall 1

Mrs. Dorothea Williams-Arnold

1040 AP/IB

6/07/2019

As a woman living in the United States, it may be hard to adjust to a society that does not

treat you fairly. In a commencement speech to a women’s college in Massachusetts United States

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright address what is like to be a female in america society or in

the world generally. While persuading these impressionable soon to be graduates, Albright uses

emotional appeal, allegory, and anaphora to get her point across that as young women we cannot

give up no matter how difficult.

Albright begins her speech stating that because of President Clinton, America is better; in

doing so, she used the Berlin Wall being taken down as an example of how Clinton has made

America a better country. She appeals to the emotions of the audience when stating “Largely

because of the U.S. leadership, nuclear weapons no longer target our homes. We could relax , “in

this quote she is stating that because of the president putting a stop-to other countries and their

nuclear weapons America is safer now. She is using the leadership to appeal to the audiences

emotions by stating that we are all safer now because of what the leadership has done. While

using leadership as a vehicle to people emotional appeal she is emphasizing the women who

attend this college by pointing out that you can be apart of this system and stop threats to this

country.

Next, albright attempts to connect with her audience by telling an allegory about how she

visited Burundi and saw women taking the lead to avoid becoming like Rwanda, where

“seventy-five percent of the population is female and half widowed.” Albright tells this story in

an attempt to empower the soon-to-be college graduates and convey can break the break the
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glass ceiling and “claim our rightful place as full citizens and full participants in every society on

Earth.”

Additionally, to emphasize her point that women are equally as powerful as men she used

anaphora. “I have met...I have seen...I have talked…”, Albright conveys her message that women

can do anything a an can do by talking about all the people and places she has traveled to where

she witnessed women taking charge and leading men around, even leading their communities. “ I

have talked to women striving to ensure that their new peace endures and is accompanied by

justice and attend to discrimination and abuse.”, in this quote Albright has met women standing

up to men who believe that equal rights do not exist and women are just property. Also, by using

anaphora she is shedding light on herself and how as the U.S. Secretary of State you get to

witness and participate in breaking the glass ceiling or rise from the ash.

In conclusion, Albright conveys her message to young women not let anyone or anything

deter you from your goals. She uses the strategies of ethos, allegory, and anaphora to convey her

ideas of how women should demand respect and treat themselves. Similarly, she compares

women to her leadership in office, to empower the citizens of tomorrow and tell them that just

because he is a man he can not perform the job better.