When Sex Doesn’t Sell: Using a Qualitative Analysis of a Feminist Magazine to Teach the Rhetorical Situation

Abstract

© 2015 by the board of trustees of the university of ill inois As an instructor at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) and USAFA Preparatory School, where the male-to-female ratio is generally around eight to one, I find that feminist ideals are poorly understood, if they’re known at all. The following annotated bibliography teaches students how Aristotle’s rhetorical situation, which focuses on context, author, audience, purpose, and text, may be applied to specific contemporary examples and does so through both feminist and political economic lenses. Bitch magazine is a periodical with a feminist slant that seeks to be economically viable without having to use traditional “sex sells” advertisements, which would undermine both its content and its audience’s values. As such, Bitch magazine and its online counterpart BitchMedia crafted a different rhetorical situation through which it could ensure its economic sustainability without compromising its feminist principles. In doing so, it also elucidates a critique of the capitalistic, patriarchal systems employed via the mass market. annotated bibliography