The hashtag #Meninisttwitter contains many offensive and sexist tweets, but some of them have an underlying point to them. They often vaguely point out a cultural problem that should be addressed. Although they may elicit a response, their rhetorical strategies are often ineffective in promoting change. This could be because change isn’t really what they want. Back to you, AdamToday I am analyzing a tweet found on #meninisttwitter, posted by twitter user Adam DeShong. His statement is simple, asking “why can a woman force a man to be a father but a man can’t force a woman to be a mother?” This is regarding how in society today, when men and women have sex and conceive, the woman can make the decision to carry the baby to term or not. When the woman decides to carry a baby to term, the man she had sex with becomes a father and may pay child support or become responsible for the child. He finds this fact unfair, and says a man should have the ability to make a woman carry a baby to term. The injustice is apparent, he points out a flaw in the system that should be addressed. Should a man have to pay child support if a woman makes the decision to carry the baby to term? Should a man have a say in abortion? He definitely has a point to make, but his rhetorical strategy fell flat. Who are you talking to?Twitter has an audience of about 316 million people. When tweeting to #meninisttwitter, that audience is concentrated into a denser category, but still, 316 million people have the ability to stumble on this tweet. Heinrichs, author of Thank You For Arguing, regarding the audience, says the mood “turns it into a receptive audience, eager to hear your solution” (p 22). I take this to mean choose your words wisely and people will respond appropriately. Twitter user Adam DeShong obviously didn’t have his entire audience in mind when he wrote his tweet. He was not using mood to his advantage, he was using mood to get attention. He wanted to elicit a response. He wasn’t concerned with changing people’s minds or providing a solution. With his use of the word “force” multiple times, he creates a hostile mood. This is not the way persuasion works, so it can be determined that he either is inept at using the audience’s mood for his benefit, or he wasn’t in it for real improvement. With 140 characters of possibility, Adam DeShong used the twitter post to get a reaction instead of make change. This isn't a "whodunnit"He chooses blame as his argumentative tool, which Heinrichs says “deals with issues of justice” (p 28). Yes, there is injustice in child support, but blame is not the best tool to use to make that point. He uses blame by pitting men against women. He sees the problem as existing naturally between men and women, instead of men and women against society. He pouts that life is unfair without offering any solutions or remedies. Complaining puts his argument into the past tense. Past tense is an ineffective tool here. If he brought it to the future tense, his argument would seem more reasonable, instead of dwelling on the past. The future tense is geared towards a solution rather than pointing fingers. He blames women by ignoring cultural problems and making it a battle between men and women. If he shifted to the future, he would have had more of an effect, but I don’t think change is what he really wanted. Using the Meninist CauseVirtue may seem like a complex term, but Heinrichs simply describes it as “embodying the values of a group or nation” (p 58). Here, Adam DeShong shows virtue by embodying the values of meninists. This is a strong persuasive tool, if your audience agrees with the cause. If not, it is a bit more difficult to use virtue to your advantage. By being a self-proclaimed meninist, posting to #meninisttwitter, he gathers an audience already rallying for his cause. But, any other twitter user can see this tweet. This problem is not specific to meninists, so why rally them? Because they are a novelty, they are known for their shockingly offensive behaviors and strong reactions. This is a community of attention-seekers. Where is the virtue in that? For feminists and non-meninists, there isn’t any. He closes off his tweet to the rest of the world by embodying the values of a highly criticized group of people. What do I think?Personally, I find his tweet more than off-putting. I believe wholeheartedly in a woman’s right to her own body, and her own choices involving it. This doesn’t mean I think men should be required to owe the child he didn’t want. This means monetarily or otherwise. I think that because he can’t make the decision involving the woman’s body, he shouldn’t be responsible for its outcome.
Still, when I see this tweet multiple things come to my mind. Does he possibly mean rape? The use of the word “force” could suggest that. He obviously thinks a man should have a say in abortion, which could put a lot of people into bad situations. Besides these fears, the tweet has other serious problems. His obvious need for attention overrides any quality arguments he has. The persuasiveness just isn’t there. Not that he was trying, of course. Tweeting something like this was not a call to action, it was a sorry attempt at fame in the form of favorites and retweets. It exemplifies meninists’ lust for reaction, their obsession with anger, and their unreasonable standings. I can clearly see that he wanted popularity, and offensive, threatening tweets go far in the meninist community. This tweet is appropriate to the meninist agenda, which has nothing to do with gender equality and everything to do with making crude jokes. Kudos to him for mocking feminism, vaguely bringing a problem to light, dropping it in the middle of twitter, and not discussing it any further or putting any reasoning behind it. As a feminist, I’m open to discussing any gender inequality issues and will think heavily about other’s points.
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Julia CoteGeorgia Southern Pre-Vet Student, nature enthusiast, avid movie watcher, animal-lover, and feminist. Archives
November 2015
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