Analysis of Sheryl Wudunn’s Speech at TedGlobal

    Upon watching Wudunn’s talk, it is obvious that she presents with different tones and gestures. Also, she involves interaction with the audience. For instance, she suggests a poll with the audience. As an audience, I find her speech interesting to listen as she catches my attention with the emotions she expressed. I feel like she is talking to me instead of giving a speech. Moreover, the audience should feel more involved as Wuduun suggests a poll. Finally, as she walks around and faces different parts of the audience, I feel that she has successfully taken care of every audience. In the past when I listened to speeches from invited guests at school, they usually presented their ideas with materials shown on the projector screen and they talked with serious tone while standing still.  Upon reading the transcript of the talk, it is obvious Wudunn uses a lot of lists to what she talks. She first tells the audience she is going to list a few points, then she begins presenting them one by one. This makes her speech clearer as we see how the ideas she suggests relates one another and she gives us a quick guide about what she is going to include.  Despite the credibility of the evidence, she involves a lot of evidence by telling cases that happened in places around the world. She must have done a lot of research of this and it makes what she says more convincing as we see that the issue is not just happening in one country but globally. 

     

     Sheryl Wudunn can be seen a experienced speaker as we see she is outstandingly confident throughout her speech. Again, she also knows how to get the audience hooked with her. She expresses her feelings effectively by having gestures and different tones; interacts with the audience by asking them questions and facing each of them. Her confidence makes the audience believe what she says as she says it with no doubt like she is telling all facts/truth. 

     Wudunn does not provide reasons to some of her claims and her evidence is too weak and one-sided even though it is seen throughout the speech. Wudunn’s central idea is that the oppression about women is common today and it is neglected. However, she fails to tell why women are oppressed today in the first place. Instead, she only tells how serious the problem is by giving examples and case studies. Perhaps women are oppressed due to tradition, or perhaps women are oppressed because they are physically weaker than men. She should have mentioned WHY women are oppressed instead of telling people to give opportunities to women. This will not only change women's lives, but also our perceptions about women.(For instance, learn how to respect women).  Wudunn offers mostly case studies to her idea. She suggests case studies about people around the world(Dai Manju, Mahabuba, Saima and Beatrice). However, the case studies are mostly based in rural areas. This might not necessarily tell how serious the issue of women oppression is since she fails to tell the situation in places around us. Instead, she should have provided case studies in urban areas to tell us how women oppression not only happens to poor people.  She also suggests research to slavery and maternal mortality statistics. However,  most of the statistics might not be true.For instance, she suggests words like “research has shown”, without telling who are the ones to research. We should know that the stats she suggests can be researched by non-professionals such as magazines or even students, which means the stats might not be 100% trustable. Some of her stats are one-sided. For instance, she only suggests that women slaves are worth a little money today without telling how much men slaves worth. It is possible that both men and women slaves are more disposable rather than girls are valued less. Moreover, even though she mentions how sex trafficking(women) is common today, she does not provide the seriousness of trafficking of  men today. We must know that not only women are trafficked today. Men can be trafficked too and the trafficking of men might be even more serious(men can do more labor work, yet they can work as prostitute too). If it were true, what Wudunn suggests about sex trafficking is common today will not support her idea(women are oppressed) since it itself is a problem no matter how unequal the society sees men and women. Finally, she suggests some of the claims like they are the truth with no evidence. For instance, she suggests that “most spending is done by men”. She supports this by saying that the money is spent on alcohol, cigarettes, soft drinks, prostitution and festivals. However, girls can spend money on the same things just like men do and some might even spend the money on buying makeup products, clothes, etc. She seems to be biased about only men spend money not wisely. (perhaps she is trying to conceal the truth that women too spend money not wisely by not telling it). She fails to defend her ideas by providing counterarguments throughout the speech. This makes her ideas weak as there are more chances people can find ways to criticise her ideas.  

     

     Wudunn’s speech is well-organised as she includes an introduction, body and conclusion. Her introduction gives the audience curiosity by not telling the topic. However, there is no central idea(thesis) at the beginning of her speech. Perhaps she can suggest her idea(women are oppressed) before telling the case to let the readers have a clear concept about what she is going to say.  Wudunn has effective transitions throughout her speech. For example, she uses phrases such as “let’s start off”, “turns out”, “and” and “so” to connect her ideas. this makes her ideas sensible as they are connected and reply to one another with purpose. The paragraphs are not similar to one another nor well-structured as only two of them has quotations and none of them has topic sentences. Without a topic sentence, the audience might not understand what central idea of each of her examples is trying to support. Even she suggests a quote from Bill Gates and Larry Summer, she does not analyse or explain their quotes effectively. Instead she might briefly explain what their quotes and then analyse them to show the audience the purpose of the quotes. Instead, her "analysis" of the quotes only proved that the quote is true rather than it's meaning. For instance, when she suggests Summer's quote, she immediately tells a story about how "the highest return on investment in the developing world is in girls' education is true without telling why it is true. She could have suggested the idea that girls can be as smart as boys and even smarter than boys to make the audience clear about girls and boys should be equalised. 

   Although the oppression against women(as Wudunn suggests) is true, I too think that it is not a major issue today. Such situation does not happen around us.   Her case studies only include rural areas. She can suggest cases in the society that we live in, for example, discrimination and stereotypes in workplaces and schools. Yet, I see women being treated fairly today as many females go to school today, and most workplaces hire females.(in urban areas) Wudunn can suggest the issue mostly happens in rural areas so the audience can have a clear direction about which specific groups to help. 
(1260 words)