Comparison/Contrast of Sheryl Wudunn and Kevin Bales’s Speeches(rough draft)

     At the Ted Global conference, Sheryl Wudunn and Kevin Bales each speak about global challenges they think are neglected by most people today. Wudunn suggests that gender inequality against women is common in some countries and yet the mass media rarely present it. Her argument is that women are part of the support to the society and they should be given education and job opportunities. On the other hand, Bales suggest slavery is neglected the same way as gender inequality and it happens in many countries. His argument is that slaves should be helped to build dignity, stability in order to have a happy life and most of us are capable in helping them. Despite their different topics and ideas, Bales defines his topic more effectively and is more persuasive, Wudunn adds up to a more effective call to action. 

     First of all, Bales defines his topic “slavery” with all aspects. Not only who, what, where and when is slavery about, Bales suggests why slavery happens today. According to Bales, “people do not enslave people to be mean to them. They do it to make a profit”(1:25). In other words, slavery happens for a reason in which slave holders benefit from it(can use them to work without paying, saves the money for hiring workers). With the reason that slave holders enslave people out of their greediness and laziness(not willing to hire workers and work on their own), now the audience understand why slavery is evil and it is unfair to slaves and even us. For the slaves, they can be spending their own time to leisure, earn money and live of their families. Now they are benefitting people they do not know and are even being tortured. For us(developed countries), we pay domestic helpers relatively high wages while giving them sufficient food and resting time. Knowing that we do pay and respect to workers, it makes much sense to us that we should stop slavery(or at least treats slaves fairly). Also, according to the United Declaration of Human Rights, “No one shall be held slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.” In other words, slavery is strictly outlawed with a consensus all around the world. If we do not help stop slavery while we know exists, we are thinking it is normal and we are somehow helping the slave holders escape from their behaviour. This means we are as well offering the UDHR article. On the contrary, Wudunn does not give any reason why gender inequality happens today. In her case studies, she suggests that parents do not let females go to schools. She then adds “This happens to girls in remote areas”(0:32). Here, Wudunn only tells the situation and how common it is, but she never seem to tell why exactly girls are not allowed to go to school and why they are seen unequally. Females can be seen unequally due to many reasons such as physical inferiority, tradition, cultural belief. Even if girls are as smart as boys as proved by Wudunn, if the gender inequality is caused by tradition, it will still happen unless the tradition disappears. However, if we know gender inequality is caused by tradition, we can start educating parents about how the tradition should not persist(for instance, telling them females and males can have same sizes, thoughts, goals, actions, desires and have they are the same). This way, in the long term, people will not have reasons to be bias against females anymore and females and males will be treated the same. Some may say that Sheryl already proves how females are the same by giving examples about how smart and successful Dai Manju and Biira may be. However, they might be smart and successful because they have poor families and they are motivated from it.(They do not want a poor life anymore). In other words, their success might only prove that how living in a poor family can make you push yourself and girls in rich families might still be the problem. Instead, Wudunn can suggest how successful women are in urban areas, workplaces, colleges to how how women in general are equal to men not just in rural areas.

    Bales’s talk is more persuasive based on his experience on the topic. Bales has large experience about slavery he seems to be familiar to his topic According to Bales, he has done all the research by himself. He has read over 3000 articles, been to five countries around the world, met both the slaves and slaveholders. In other words, he has first hand information about the topic and it is reliable. Also, he has perspectives from the slaves and slave holders since he has talked to them. That means he has seen what the people involved have seen and knows their feelings. This makes his talk persuasive because he proves the audience that he gives facts about the issue and is not making assumptions to what is happening. Moreover, reading 3000 articles takes a long time and it proves that he has put a lot of effort and passion about the issue, this makes his talk persuasive because the audience see the importance of the issue from his seriousness(makes sense for a person to pay effort to something he thinks is important). On the other hand, Wudunn does not tell where her research is conducted and has only visited one person from one country as she mentions. Throughout the talk, Wudunn does not mention where the research about spending(5:14) and slave price(7:31) is about. In other words, her research can be done anywhere or from non-professionals that are not credible. Her research might be found on the internet and we should know that there are always false information on the internet. The research might be made up from magazines without credentials and experience in doing research. Moreover, the story content that she tells other than Wudunn might also be fake or altered by newspaper since she has not met the people in person(Mahabuba, Saima, Beatrice).

     Finally, Wudunn adds up a effective call to action after her ideas. At the end of the speech, Wudunn says “there was a micro lending group in the village that gave her a 65-dollar loan”(11:31) and then suggests how the loan has helped Saiman to become successful. Here, she is implying that micro lending organisations are helpful to poor people. We should know that there are many organisations that raise money and claim to help the poor today. For instance, organisations that raise money to help the poor buy food, clothes. However, it might not work in the long term since the poor will finish the food and break the clothes someday. Giving them a micro loan can help them in the long term since we are helping the poor to help themselves and they will learn how to make money on their own and eventually be able to buy clothes and food on their own. Wudunn is suggesting the immediate action we can do is to donate money to the micro lending groups. Also, she is suggesting such method that we can help and then proves how it works. Moreover, Wudunn mentions a group Niantic Community Church Group in Connecticut and how it has helped the organisation Heifer International with donation. Here, Wudunn is giving a more specific way we can help. She is telling us that we can donate money these two groups and they are truly helpful to the poor. On the contrary, Bales does not give a clear call to action to the audience. His call to action is not specific to the audience. At the end of the speech, Bales does not mention any groups that have helped the boy in Ghana or any other people he has suggested. Instead, he only suggests how much they are helped with. The audience might find it hard to give immediate action to slaves after his talk since he does not tell who(groups, organisations) specifically they shall donate the money to. Since slavery is neglected from the mass media and people as mentioned by Bales at the beginning of the speech, these groups and organisations might be even hard to find or even not exist. The audience are not any experts and professionals about slavery and it is normal for them to not know any organisations and groups that aim to help stop slavery.

     To conclude, Bales defines his slavery more effectively with telling why it is happening; his talk is more persuasive with his experience and passion about slavery; Wudunn has a clear call to action to the audience. After analysing the two authors’ merits and flaws about their speeches, I now understand to form a strong, persuasive, informative speech, one must have good experience and understanding about his topic, and be able to bring out the purpose of the speech(message to audience).

(1495 words)