The Effect of Gender on the Persuasion Process in Political Discourse

Abstract

The current study aims at speculating the notion of persuasion in relation to gender. Persuasion as a technical term is a process of convincing others rationally to change their state of minds in accordance with a specific purpose.        The study hypothesizes that persuasion is a process rather than a state of affairs.  Also, it hypothesizes that female speakers are more successful in following the persuasion techniques to convince their audience of their points of view than men. Also, it is hypothesized that women rely more on the mode of pathos than the other three modes; logos, ethos and kairos, while men rely more on the logos mode of persuasion.       The study comes with some conclusions the most important of which is that men use more persuasion techniques than women with the preference of the techniques of evidence, repetition and  analogy. Women prefers to use the techniques of  inclusion and repletion. It is also found that women rely heavily on the pathos mode of persuasion while men rely on the modes of logos, ethos and kairos. Furthermore, it is found that there is a strong relation between the mode of persuasion the speaker prefers and the techniques followed. Finally, it is found that the technique of repetition is relative to the notion of relativity since it use is successful  when it is rational and  unsuccessful when used frequently.