Women's Rights Advocacy: Analyzing Hillary Clinton's Speech

School: Florida South Western State College, Fort Myers - Course: ENC 1101 - Subject: Accounting

Naomie SylvestreSylvestre ENC1102 Dr. Rebecca Harris February.2nd , 2023 Rhetoric Essay The controversial debate on women's rights has been an issue for a long time, and many still believe women shouldn't have rights. However, women did not let this controversy define them and took action to be heard. At United Nations Fourth Conference, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a speech on women in 1995 in Beijing. Clinton addressed creating a world in which every woman is treated with respect and dignity; although there was a minimal amount of men in the audience, Hillary still delivered the speech because women's rights meant so much to her. Throughout Clinton's speech, she speaks about freedom rights and they shouldn't be taken away based on their claims and statements. Hillary states,"Freedom means the right of people to assemble, organize, and debate openly. It means respecting the views of those who may disagree with the views of their governments. It means not taking citizens away from their loved ones and jailing them, mistreating them, or denying them their freedom or dignity because of the

peaceful expression of their ideas and opinions." Unfortunately, gender, race, ethnicity, etc, play a role in whether or not a citizen should have the right to speak their mind which is unfair and selfish. Hillary believes everyone no matter the minorities should be able to speak their mind and put ideas together to help grow as individuals, communities, and as a government. Another claim Clinton makes is there shouldn't be a difference in rights because the rights are for all citizens regardless of anything. Her speech declares, "If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, it is that human rights are women's rights - and women's rights are human rights." Regardless of gender, the rights that were made are human rights, so the same rights that are made for humans were also made for women because women are human and shouldn't be treated as less than because of their gender. Overall, Clinton's speech was to explain to the audience that women shouldn't be treated any differently just because they are women. Rights shouldn't be taken from an individual because one believes that their race or gender has to do with their thoughts. After all, many individuals can think similarly and be of a different race and gender.