"The Wife-Beater" by Gayle Rosenwald Smith is an essay that talks about shirts that many men wear as undershirts that is commonly referred to as a wife-beater. There are many fallacies made in this essay.
In fact the first sentence is a fallacy. It says, "Everybody wears them". This is a hasty or sweeping generalization. Not all men wear these kinds of shirts. Neither my dad or brother have ever worn one before. Therefor this is a fallacy. You cannot include all people in your opinions because chances are that not all people will fall into that category because everyone is different.
Another fallacy that comes from within this essay is that a wife-beater is worn by husbands who are physically abusive. This is a fallacy because we all know that all men who are physically abusive to their wives do not wear these shirts. This is another generalization.
"The association of the undershirt and the term wife-beater arose in 1997 from varied sources, including gay and gang subcultures and rap music." This was said by Jesse Scheidlower, in a section of the New York Times who is the principal editor of the Oxford English Dictionary's American Office. This is an example of a appeal to doubtful authority. How do we know this is really when this term arose? This is just stated there are no facts to back it up. Even though she is of high authority in her job status, that doesn't mean that every word she says is true.
Hey Anna,
ReplyDeleteI like your first example, in fact I used the same exact quote! You could also say that since this quote is the first sentence of the essay, she is jumping to the conclusion that everybody wears them rather than waiting to say this after she used some evidence that could back this point up. I get what you're saying for your second fallacy example, but try to make sure to use a quote with quotation marks around it so your readers know where the specific quote is. The third fallacy that you used is not as clear to me as the rest of them. I guess it could work, but she might know information about when the term arose since she is an editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. This is also a fact so it doesn't really need to be backed up, besides maybe being backed up by including the source information somewhere in the essay. Also, when you quote something, put the page number that the quote is on right after you quote it to let your readers know where you found it. Good job!