Lindsey Gobert
Rhetorical Analysis
Rimun Murad
10-29-12
Discovering the Lost Truth The author of the article “The Future of Modesty” is Wendy Shalit. The article is from a section of her book called “A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Truth” which was published in 1999. The main focus of her article is to show how modesty has been portrayed throughout time and its effect on gender roles. She shares her own experiences that she had to go through in college as well as showing how others view modesty. Shalit uses ethos, pathos, and logos to present her argument and to show the readers that modesty and the lack there of will always be something that we as people might have to struggle with if we do not actually want to change our ways. Shalit graduated from Williams in 1997 with a degree in philosophy. Her articles have been published in Commentary, Readers Digest, and Wall Street Journal to name a few. With all of this, she receives credibility to discuss such topics and be very convincing. Also, in this particular article, Shalit discusses her own experiences she has dealt with and how much attention she received for speaking up for something that so many other women were afraid to speak up for. This also makes us as readers respect her a lot more as a writer and someone we would want to take advice from. Shalit targeted this particular article to young women around the United States. She talks about things that young girls have to go through in college and also about love. She gives valid examples from other articles she has read or surveys she has done to prove her point. She also talks to other women about their opinion and shares them in the article so that we as readers can see that maybe we are not the only ones feeling a certain way about certain things. “When I returned to college after publishing an anti-coed bathroom article, I was positively overwhelmed with letters and email messages from female students. Each began a different way…but all eventually got to the same point, which was, I thought I was the only one who couldn’t stand these bathrooms.”(253) This last statement proves to her readers that many people identify with what she has to say so this makes Shalit so much more convincing. Some of the article is based on Shalit’s pathos. She wrote an article while she was in college about anti-coed bathrooms. She was very surprised at how many other females felt the same way about having coed bathrooms. They all felt very uncomfortable about their living situation but were afraid to speak up, not wanting to seem “un-cool”. “ We all want to be cool, to pretend not to care, but our discomfort with immodesty keeps cropping up.”(254) To Shalit, this shows that even though it may seem like the new age is very immodest, in actuality they are completely opposite. She also talks about her feelings toward how modesty has affected not only her relationship but other people’s relationships as well. “I’m writing because I see so much unhappiness around me, so many women settling for