The genre of Katha Pollitt's Why Boys Don't Play With Dolls is opinion article. Pollitt reflects on the strides feminism has made and how young boys and girls reflect them. The tone of the work is reflective and hopeful. The author rarely condemns anyone, instead she politely points out gender issues we still have today and how society has shifted towards fixing them. When discussing how toys are geared towards specific genders as they have been for decades, she includes a personal anecdote. The anecdote expresses the way that views of women are changing, as a mother apologizes to another for giving her daughter a Barbie as a birthday gift. The author includes this anecdote to show her audience that while we still have gender inequality, more people are seeing that it is an issue. Pollitt's audience is adult women, because the main topic is feminism. Also, the audience most likely has children as the article discusses toys and how gender roles are reflected in children.
Pollitt closes the article with a rhetorical question that serves as a call to action. This gets the audience to think about the way the want to raise their children. Pollitt also uses antithesis to compare women's aspirations to their actual success. This reinforces the idea that feminism is still an issue. The author begins the article by lending credence to the idea that boys and girls are biologically created differently. She does this by citing facts about brain differences between men and women. However, throughout the articles she explains that even if men and women are different, they should still have equality.
Works Cited:
Pollitt, Katha. "Why Boys Don't Play With Dolls." Web. 14 Oct. 2015.
Pollitt closes the article with a rhetorical question that serves as a call to action. This gets the audience to think about the way the want to raise their children. Pollitt also uses antithesis to compare women's aspirations to their actual success. This reinforces the idea that feminism is still an issue. The author begins the article by lending credence to the idea that boys and girls are biologically created differently. She does this by citing facts about brain differences between men and women. However, throughout the articles she explains that even if men and women are different, they should still have equality.
Works Cited:
Pollitt, Katha. "Why Boys Don't Play With Dolls." Web. 14 Oct. 2015.