Of the 17 UN goals one that resonates with me is goal 5, gender equality, specifically the movement of woman empowerment. While it has been an issue addressed for years, taking what was seeming to be decent strides towards success, recent events have caused backpedaling in the fight for gender equity, and one commonplace has jumped out as a prominent representation of the movement, making wave across countless nations. The future is female.
While there is no single clear event that bred this commonplace, it’s safe to say that now more than ever it’s a strong and meaningful slogan, used everywhere from t-shirts, to posters at women’s rights rallies, to campaigns for popular brands, such as Wittner Shoes, who based an entire new collection of shoes and the promotional video for them around “The Future is Female”, as seen below.
Although widely used and supported, this commonplace has also caused a bit of backlash. With it’s seemingly straight forward way of “cutting men out of the equation” as some put it, people in disagreement claim that it’s aa push for roles to be completely reversed in the future, with men being in the position of lesser treatment while women gain success and opportunities.
This advertisement however does not seem to make any of these types of claims or insinuations, and instead focuses on showing off the beauty of both women and their product, using what would have already been an existing advertisement to spread a message of support during these less than ideal times in so many places for women’s rights. This advertisement is a great example of the way that a simple few words without context can mean so little, but adding context can make all the difference in the world. The future IS female, but that doesn’t mean it’s anti-male, it simply means that women WILL get the rights we deserve, and this commonplace is a great asset on the track to change.
I think that no matter where you stand on this topic everyone can agree that this movement is trying to better society. Without prior knowledge of the movement, I can see where people are coming from when they jump to the conclusion that they are trying to switch the roles of men and women, but that clearly isn’t the goal. Based off some of the things you said about the slogan, it seems to be very widely known, but I actually hadn’t heard of it until I read this.
Due to most of our lives being lived on social media, and every opinion being shared online, it can get difficult to see the goal behind certain campaign. The same backlash is being faced by people who call themselves feminist, this could be due to the simultaneous rise is pseudo-feminism.
The youtube video that you posted stays true to what feminism is all about.
This might be a very interesting topic to explore!
This is a great analysis of a powerful message. You integrated the Sustainable Development Goals well; I like how you mentioned it as a way to develop your central ideas for this post in the introduction. It’s also great that you included some background as to why this message is so powerful and how people misunderstand it. Great job, keep it up!
The civil artifact that you chose directly conveys the persuasiveness of a commonplace, as well as deeply delivers the rhetorical situation that it is. This story is immensely deep, and I truly admire how you chose a story that is so personal as you. The way that you incorporated sustainability is a very well thought out.