RACHEL PICHETTE
Ethos as Narrative
“Many women rhetors fınd that there is no comfortable ethos to employ if they want to shift the dominant discourse on a particular topic. Common, normalizing the roles (i.e., Mormon woman, mother, angel of the house, whore, bitch) ascribed to women do not lend themselves readily to public speaking.” -Celeste Conduit
“An individual’s ethos cannot be determined outside of the space in which it was created or without a sense of the cultural context.”– Nedra Reynolds
What question or problem did you examine, and why?
In my research I examined the way that women in the field of professional writing and communication can build their invented ethos. Aristotle thought of ethos as the character of a rhetor/speaker that made them worth listening to or credible in the audience’s eyes. However, this classic Aristotelian model of ethos doesn’t consider the fact that individuals can’t fully control the way others may perceive them due to their social positioning. People have all kinds of biases and prejudices due to race, gender, sexuality and many other factors. Women do not have the same inherent situated ethos in the workplace that white cisgender men do. This places women and other marginalized groups at a disadvantage when it comes to their credibility through no fault of their own. I was interested in interrogating the question how can women build their ethos and professional identity in a way that will minimize this disadvantage?
I have been interested in the concept of ethos since I started studying rhetoric as an undergraduate. Of the three rhetorical appeals ethos always seemed like the most nebulous to me. As a result I was interested in thinking about alternate ways that ethos can be built outside of what we would traditionally think of. I also wanted to find a way to take this powerful rhetorical concept and see if there was some way to combat some of the disadvantages women, especially women of color face in the workplace.
Through my research I concluded that to build an effective ethos women should use all the tools at their disposal even ones that might be seen as a disadvantage. It’s particularly important for female professionals to focus on cultivating a distinct area of expertise within their field and connecting their skills indirectly and directly to the job they want. Ethos as a narrative or a story that is an important strategy in this endeavor. When I say narrative I mean a story that women can build around themselves as professionals that draws on their experience, expertise, and specialization within their field. It can draw together all of the other elements that female professional communicators utilize when developing their ethos.
What excited you most about your research?
In my research I was most interested to learn about the potential solutions to this problem. I found reading about the different ways women have cultivated their ethos in order to be taken seriously as professionals exciting.To me the ways that women have subverted traditional gender roles and used them to their advantage was especially fascinating. Even though these pre-prescribed roles might be perceived as a disadvantage for women, they have the potential to be twisted in order to build ethos. An example of this was some of the research I conducted on Michelle Obama and the way she positioned herself as a rhetor while she was first lady. As a black woman she had both racist and sexist attitudes to overcome in her audience.
She built a narrative around herself as the “mom-in-chief” and used it to make herself more credible to her audience. Even though the role of mother can be seen as limiting, Michelle Obama was able to subvert it and use it to create a powerful professional ethos. Even though it is frustrating that women are still having these constraints placed on them I was excited to find alternate methods of ethos building that women can use.
How does this research reinforce or change your work as a professional?
For me this research project made me realize how crucial a strong professional ethos is. It reinforced the idea that I want ethos building to be part of my own specialization as a professional writer and communicator. Even though I have always been interested in ethos as a concept this research project has placed even greater emphasis on its importance to me. I would argue that for a modern audience ethos has now passed logos as the most important of all rhetorical appeals. We emphasize the importance of credible sources and receiving information from the best possible outlets. People largely judge rhetors based on their likeability or trustworthiness when deciding whether or not to listen to their message.This can be reflected in society’s fixation on the idea of “fake news”. Individuals gauge rhetors on how credible they personally perceive them to be. In some cases it doesn’t always matter to people if logic supports that credibility. As a result I think studying ethos and learning how marginalized groups can build it is more important than ever.