Bros before Hos

“Kimmel’s text uses a lot on ethos, Logos and pathos to help get the message across more effectively to the audience. The intended audience is not geared towards women because in paragraph 1 Kimmel talks to a woman about what does it mean to be a women and she responds with “it doesn’t mean anything” (108), but this essay is for men that feel oppressed by this code but it’s also for everyone that feel like they are being oppressed by other standards set by society.

Also, credibility comes from the publisher as well, it was published by Harper Collins publishers in 2008 The ethos of the essay is created by the credibility of Kimmel himself. Kimmel has written or edited more than a dozen books on men and masculinity as well as editing the journal Men and Masculinities, he teaches at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is also a spokesperson of the National Organization for Men Against Sexism (NOMAS) and has served as an expert witness for the U.S. Department of Justice in two key sex discrimination cases against military academies which had excluded women. Which leads to the pathos of the essay.

Kimmel backs up his claims with emotional appeals or pathos. Emotional appeal is built up through the article by Kimmel presenting the meaning of being a man is important in paragraph 1 but then Kimmel builds up the emotion behind interviews from what other men have said to men in paragraphs 9-12 (108). Kimmel uses strong, sad emotion to connect with the audience. Kimmel summarizes, in paragraph 4, the “Real Guy’s Top Ten List” which includes; “Boys Don’t Cry”, “Its Better Mad than Sad”, “Don’t get mad- Get Even”, etc. (108). The list shows that its wrong for men to show emotion and they have to be tough no matter what the situation is. He uses stories throughout his essay to express the sad stories of others such as the college student in paragraph 29 that showed Kimmel’s main purpose in depth which, in a sense, builds up the depth of his essay through these interviews making it persuasive.

The way all the elements in the essay come together convey an argument or logos. The essays emphasize of people’s different experiences with this code throughout the essay shows how Kimmel is trying to connect the situation to real life problems which helps his whole argument. The fact that everyone is different and grow up in different settings makes it unfair that there is one preferred code for masculinity and if you don’t follow this specific code you aren’t considered to be a “man”. Men follow this code not for other women but for other men.

Take a little boy for instance he looks for the approval from his father, so he follows his lead. If that little boy is with his mother too long, he is considered a “mama’s boy”. That dad probably feels pressure to toughen up their boys at very young age because when that little boy grows up and is not seen as a “man” it looks bad on the father, according to Kimmel, which is wrong. The Guy Code keeps young men from venturing beyond the borders of Guyland, it oppresses young men from truly being themselves.

The Guy Code standards silence the good guys and the predators and bullies are encouraged. It should be the opposite; the silent guys should be empowered over the predators. This method would help to facilitate young men entry into adulthood by encouraging them to become who they want to be and not what society wants them to be.”

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