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Rhetorical Analysis of

“For Women Warriors, Deep Wounds, Little Care”

“For Women Warriors, Deep Wounds, Little Care” by Helen Benedict was published in the New York Times on May 26^th, 2008. It is an article addressing the fact that women are the fastest growing group of veterans, yet the Department of Veteran Affairs lacks the hospitals and staff to deal with the sexual assault that these women experience in the field. Yet alone the trauma and post-traumatic stress that they will face.

Helen Benedict a professor of journalism at Columbia University is the author of “The Lonely Soldier ”. A none fiction narrative about female soldiers who have served over seas in war torn Iraq. She received the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism work on women veterans of the Iraq war in April 2008. And has had other works published that addressing topic of rape.

The article was part of on ongoing debate in the Times about how war is effecting military personal on the home front. There is evidence that rates of post-traumatic stress disorder is the highest it has ever been for U.S veterans. I think that the writer wrote on Memorial Day in the hopes of touching the general public at a time then they were more open to thinking about problems that vets face. Her purpose in writing this piece was to alert the public to a little known issue. Sure we know about the blood and guts but how many of us think sexual assault then the vets are mentioned.

The writers perspective seems to be that even though most Americans do not know of this situation that they would be concerned to know what is happening to their service women in the field and the lack of treatment they will get at home. She does not write as one of them (as a service women) but writes more on their behalf. Stating figures and facts to support her claim that they face sexual assault large scale in the field and do not get the treatment that they deserve. For her article to have any impact on an individual they would have to be open to the

idea that women face sexual harassment in general.

Her tone in writing this piece is of someone well educated on the topic making it understandable to the everyday person on the streets. It’s neither light nor dark but someplace in the middle. I liked the fact she did not describes the sexual assaults themselves. Thus enabling readers to be alerted to the situation with out having to face some of the more gruesome details. Her use of words like rape, sexually assaulted, harassment and threatened brought up a vivid enough picture for me.

When I was looking through the New York Times the title

“For Women Warriors, Deep Wounds, Little Care” caught my eye. Why? at first glance I thought it was speaking of the blood and guts type of wound and I wanted to know why women where not getting the care that they needed. As I read I found out that she was speaking of a different type of wound, one that goes much deeper then flesh and blood. And the manner in which she brought things forward to the readers attention was smooth and effective. She made her main point in the introduction. The body

had tree main points that sustained and added to the introduction. Whenever she made a claim she would take the time to back it up with studies and numerical data that related. Which in my mind really helped to build her case. In the closing she wrapped things up with her solution. Over all I thought that her writing style was affective for what was she was trying to accomplish. In reading her article she has made me want to take more note of what is going on to our women over seas as well as at home.

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