Women at the Frontline

                Jennifer Turpin’s Women Confronting War talks about the affects that war has on women in active military counties and war occupied countries. Some of the affects are women becoming refugees, being subject to more domestic violence, being sexually abused, and even death (Turpin 2008 325-326). Turpin’s collection of facts and layout creates a logical understanding and an emotional reaction. I believe that her target audience is mainly women because this would create a stronger reaction thinking it could happen to you. Laying out the facts she is also able to create an understanding to a male reader.
                Turpin uses deductive reasoning to show her point of how much women really are affected by war. She has tons of informative facts that show the percentage of women who die in war and how domestic violence increases. Turpin is also able to give numbers for amount of women who are sexually assaulted and/or placed into prostitution. The amount of facts that she presents is over whelming and makes it difficult for even the people who oppose her ideas to refute them because of the amount of facts. 

                On another note Turpin is also able to connect it emotionally to readers by explaining what some of the situations are like for women in different situations. She talks about the stage a refugee would be in and what they go through and usually all while they are trying to support a family (Turpin 2008 324). Turpin describes how many women enter prostitution houses or rings because they have no other means to support their family. Lastly she talks about military authorities responses to charges of rape. The examples she uses show a disregard for the victims and they treat the situations as boys being boys (Turpin 2008 327).
                Using both logic and appealing to the readers’ emotional side she effectively engages the reader to want to make a difference. The best examples she uses are the ones where she has stats of grotesque proportions. One of the least effective examples are domestic violence ones which are the only real examples that affect North America, but they seem so miniscule compared to the concreteness of the other examples.

I have decided to post two questions because some may not like the first one.

Do you think that Turpin poses women as someone who needs to be protected by men? Why or why not?

What are some possible solutions that would prevent things like sexual assult being inflicted by soldiers?

Is Entertainment Brainwashing us?

Sissela Bok’s essay Aggression: The Impact of Media Violence tells readers that just like smoking is banned from public places, there needs to be a guideline in censoring the amount of violence in our media. Bok talks about how violence and aggression are showing up more and more everywhere and in younger people more often. I believe that she directs this essay at families and working class people because these people will most likely identify with the concerns of violence in entertainment.

As for the intentions of the author I am somewhat confused because after reading this I am leaning more so towards not allowing others to decide what I can and cannot watch.  Before reading this I would have generally agreed with the author’s intent, because I do feel strongly about keeping violence from children who cannot comprehend its meaning. Bok does use a form of ethos by stating the refuting evidence that would contradict her conclusions, but because she does this so well she makes her own evidence seem insignificant. At one point she states that “No reputable scholar” (Bok 87) would blame television for crime rates being so high. Then after she uses a study that estimates TV violence being accountable for half of the violent crimes, which completely takes credibility away from the case study. Many of Bok’s examples are not very effective, but there were a few that did hit home. When she related TV violence to a study done with sexual violence and watching violent pornography, she showed how becoming desensitized to crime makes it easier to commit one. Bok also ended on a strong point by using an example that would have a protective instinct on families. I realize that this article was written about ten years ago, but many parents that I know would not allow their children to watch Loony Toons because of the violent nature, so all in all Bok would get two thumbs out of five.

So if you could rewrite this essay today would you push for censoring children’s programming? Adults? Or maybe none of it? Why?