DOMESTIC VIOLENCE DISCRIMINATION

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Domestic Violence Discrimination

Geraldine Lopez
The University of Texas at El Paso

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Domestic Violence Discrimination

Domestic violence is presented in homosexual and heterosexual relationships. Victims
sometimes are discriminated by society or public services because of their sex or sexual
orientation. This community problem is communicated thru posters, articles, and organization.
The purpose of this genre analysis to compare and contrast a non-professional poster made by
Rob Stephenson and the scholarly article Gender-Role Stereotypes and Perceptions of
Heterosexual, Gay and Lesbian Domestic Violence, by Sheila and Eric Seelau, to determine
which sources is more efficient to learn more about discrimination towards victims in domestic
violence. This two sources support the idea of discrimination by using pathos, logos, and ethos.
Poster Analysis
Rob Stephensons poster analysis focus more on the pathos, emotions, presented.
Emotions are presented very fast when observing this poster. First the colors in the image make it
seem like dark which gives the emotion of sadness, a feeling that something is not going well. In
this poster there is a part of a humans face the look of the person looks devastated. Around of the
person's eye there is the color purple, the person have marks of a physical abuse. Emotions like
deception or impotence are also presented. Society can communicate the problem to the rest of
the community, but public services and laws have the full control of making a difference, which
gives the audience impotence of really ma0king a change to help these victims. The caption
Domestic violence hurts everyone gives the feeling of deception because society is lets this
problem hurts everyone because of their beliefs. For example men are supposedly stronger
then women so they cannot be harm by women or homosexual fight are considered a mutual
fight so there is not a real victim. This excuse makes society part of the discrimination toward
victims. This image is very simple, but strongly supports the problem thru emotions used.
The author of this image fails in giving logos. The image does not provide

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research, statistics, metaphors or analogy of the subject. One of the logo used is the image by
itself the humans face with marks on the face supports that violence does exists. The problem
with the image is that audience by looking at image would not receive the message that victims
sexually orientated differently are being discriminated. The caption domestic violence hurts
everyone is another logo used by the author. The caption is obvious from the audience that
domestic violence can be presented in many ways; it can happen to anyone, in any kind of
relationship. In one thing this logo fails is that is not communicating to society the discrimination
towards the victims of domestic violence.
Credibility or ethos, are hard to determine because is a nonprofessional poster used in an article about a case of gay male being abused by his partner and he
explains how he was discriminated. There is no a personal phrase of the author in the poster.
Audience can assume he is confidence about the topic for publishing in a website. From other
researches and evidence society is concern that this community problem does exist, and this
poster is a good visual supporter of the topic.
Article Analysis
The article Gender-Role Stereotypes and
Perceptions of Heterosexual, Gay and Lesbian Domestic Violence, used logos in a professional
and efficient way to communicate the problem to the audience. The authors created a study to see
how community respond to different scenarios and the results were reflected in charts. From
these charts, authors did comparisons, and the results are evidence that community will response
in different ways depending who is the victim and who is the perpetrator. At the beginning of the
article, the authors present facts like laws that exist in some states that will protect heterosexual
victims but not homosexual victims from domestic violence. These laws protect women

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especially with shelters, restrictions orders to perpetrators, or psychological help.

It is hard to find emotions in this article
because it is professionally written. The pathos that can be presented is a feeling of seriousness
and this is because the tone of the article is more serious than a dramatic tone. The authors voice
in the article is important because it makes the audience believe there is a problem. The audience
reading the article may also have the feeling of making the difference from those people who
think the same way. The evidence in this article is important for the audience because the
audience is convinced that this community problem is affecting people. This article fails in
giving emotions and this is because is a professional article. This fail is important and very
helpful to the author because audience will receive the information in a serious way; it is easier
for the audience to capture all the types of discrimination presented. If the author changes
emotions constantly is harder for the reader to focus on the message the author is trying to
communicate, with one simple tone all the information will be communicated the same and there
is no distractions for the reader.

The credibility of the author in this article is

reflected in how some sentences are expressed. Some of these ethos are for example feelings
about the topic or opinion, In real-life cases of domestic violence, perceived extent of injury
should not be the determining factor in whether or not that victim receives protection. When a
crime has been committed, male and female victims should be treated equally.(Seelau, Seelau
pg. 370). The author are giving their opinion in a professional way. The authors feeling about the
topic are reflected in how the results demonstrated that their assumptions of society
discriminated are true.
contrast

Compare and

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After analyzing both resources the article and the poster, and analyzing ethos, pathos, and logos
that both provide it is easy to point out some similarities and differences. The poster have a great
focus on pathos, all feelings that the author is trying to communicate to the reader are presented
when observing the image. The articles focus more on logos providing evidence from research
and charts. Both have good information for a certain section but fails in at least one. In
Stephensons poster it fail in providing logos to audience, there was no professional support, in
comparison the article of Seelaus has professional evidence but fails in providing emotions, but
a difference is that the fail in Seelaus article helps the article to be taken more serious than the
poster.
One of the similarities both sources have is that is not targeting a specific audience. Both
authors do not specific the audience because both believe that domestic violence can happen to
anyone, and it is important for all community to be informed of discriminations that they might
face if they ever go thru domestic violence in their relationship. Another similarity found is that
both sources provide proof of violence, in the poster is the humans face with marks on its face,
and in the article they present evidence from research done by the authors. Both sources support
the main point of discrimination in a unique way.
After analyzing both sources and compare and contrast their ethos, logos and pathos, it is
more efficient to use the article Gender-Role Stereotypes and Perceptions of Heterosexual, Gay
and Lesbian Domestic Violence, by Sheila and Eric Seelau, because it is a professional article.
Seelaus research is well organized it did not only provide researches they made, but they did
there own study to prove the topic. Charts were used to compare how community responded to
different scenarios and the results prove that community does discriminate certain kind of
relationships. The article is efficient in proving community with good evidence, professional

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observations and opinions. This is important because audience will belief more an article than
just a picture found in the internet

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References
Seelau, S. M., & Seelau, E. P. (2005). Gender-role stereotypes and perceptions of heterosexual,
gay and lesbian domestic violence. Journal of Family Violence, 20(6), 363-371.
http://thefeministwire.com/2012/11/forgotten-victims-domestic-violence-among-gay-men/