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By July 1994, Politically Correct Bedtime Stories had appeared for the third time on the New York Times bestseller list with sales exceeding 100,000 copies. One year later, there were almost 1.5 million copies of Politically Correct Bedtime Stories in print as it continued to excite public commentary. This popular book is an ideal case study for exploring the benefits and limits of satiric humor, the book's primary rhetorical strategy and the focus of this essay. We argue that because of its polyvalent nature, the use of ironic satire as a rhetorical strategy to debunk a position is unpredictable. In fact, as this essay demonstrates, some forms of humor may facilitate audience acceptance of the very ideas the satirist intends to disparage. In this case, Garner's use of satiric humor may have facilitated acceptance of moderate forms of political correctness.

Despite its success and the publicity it has received, the STOP ERA movement, led by Phyllis Schlafly, has received little critical attention. This article examines: (1) the image which the group develops of its opponents; (2) the image it projects of its supporters; (3) the ideological framework indicated by these images; and, (4) the rhetorical implications of (1), (2), and (3). It concludes that, although the movement's ideology is implicitly fatalistic and manipulative, its reaffirmation of traditional perspectives and its appeal to the need for personal security make it extremely effective rhetorically.

This essay examines the rhetoric of the STOP ERA movement. It traces the elements of a divinely ordained order which STOP ERA advocates perceived in women, families, and societies and explores the contrasting anomalies and anomy which STOP ERA supporters perceive in the opposition. The essay also examines the rhetorical function of the vision offered by STOP ERA to its members and assesses the social impact of the message.

The success of Marabel Morgan's Total Woman indicate its rhetorical effectiveness despite its substantive flaws. This article argues that the book's strong appeal to readers stems from: (1) its promise of fulfillment if woman expiate the guilt they bear for marital discord by self sacrifice; (2) its reinforcement of readers perceptions of themselves and their husbands; and (3) its emphasis on the power of “Total Women”; and its encouragement of sexual fantasy and play. These strategies produce a persuasive message which plays on readers’ concerns for their marriages, offers an alternative to the self consciousness urged by feminists and permits women to fulfill comfortable stereotypes yet experience the power and sexual freedom promised by liberationists. For readers with troubled marriages Morgan provides an alluringly simple, emotionally attractive answer to complex questions. Her message is rhetorically effective even if intellectually weak and psychologically misleading.

Examining the medical journal reports of the Tuskegee syphilis study, this essay explores the role that rhetoric played in the study's continuation. The essay argues that depicting patients as scen...

This case study of the rhetoric of Emma Goldman explores the relationship between ideology and rhetorical strategies. After tracing Goldman's use of argument by incongruity and embodiment, the essay explains why these strategies were ineffective for an American audience. Finally, the essay argues that these strategies are inherent in anarchist ideology and that, consequently, anarchism could not be rhetorically effective as a social movement within American society.

The continuity motif, a prominent feature in the rhetoric of the Right to Life movement, pervades the group's depiction of human life, western cultural traditions and the group's sustained efforts against abortion. Moreover, the motif colors and intensifies the group's description of the controversy. Rhetorically the motif helps members to justify their substitution of one hierarchy for another, to legitimize their activities, to redefine group and member activities and to provide an effective form of internal and external expiation. The motif functions, thus, as an integrative symbol and goad to action for RTL members.

By drawing its structural pattern from the romantic quest mythoi and developing characterizations of supporters and opponents which reflect elements of Jung's mother archetype, the rhetorical vision of STOP ERA becomes especially potent and appealing to many American women. The impact of such mythical archetypes is both subtle and pervasive.