Running head: THE DOCTRINE OF MALE HEADSHIP IN RELATIONSHIPS 1

The Doctrine of Male Headship in Relationships

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The Doctrine of Male Headship in Relationships

Patriarchy, systemic barriers, stereotyped perceptions of the role of woman, and despite

the rather propagated ideas of a growing level of equality and civilization, continue though

subtly to fan prejudice against females and foster double standards and designate husbands as

sacrosanct heads that commands unequivocal control. The modern woman has become more

enlightened, economically empowered and with higher literacy level, thus largely incapable of

conforming to socially constructed roles. Even as she tries to carve out a better position for

herself in the contemporary society, she must be prepared to appreciate that she might have to

make several compromises such as marriage breakups and remain in perpetual conflict with a

bunch of male conservatives that perceive an enlightened woman as a threat to their existence.

Regardless, women's emancipation is a reality and most debates on the issues have often focused

on the possibility of informing a more accommodating treatment of women, to preserver families

as the most basic social units, while helping all parties to navigate through all the possible

altercations. In the sections that follow, two genres, Yu Tube, and news article deliberating on

the women's subordination will be analyzed for their efficacy in conveying information on the

subject. The Yu Tube clip, what respect means to a man is a female-directed counsel, by a

colleague on the art of husband respect. Its maker, however, does not seems to anticipate an

emergence of a more independent woman, certainly more sophisticated than males, or even take

cognizance of retrogressive subjugating tendencies that exist in the society. The news article,

'Submit to your husbands': Women told to endure domestic violence in the name of God, in ABC

is more satirically castigates religious indoctrination for setting up women as male subordinates

in the society. The author imputes the possibility of abuse of some scriptures that expressly

command women to respect males, effectively qualifying exploitation of women in marriage

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contexts. In unique ways, both of these genres are in a way successful, similar by far, but

distinctive in most subtle ways that make it imperative to study them in detail.

The text in ABC news and the Yu Tube clip largely shares in their purposes and audience,

but bear minute differences. The Yu Tube clip is essentially a “female talk," thus, essentially

targets women in marriages and those who hope to get into one. The content of the clip might be

of particularly profound help to recently married women with problems matching the

expectations of their partners on critical issues that have a perspective on the respective. From

the onset, the maker starts by uncovering an incongruity of perception of respect from the male’s

dimension. The news article genre does not focus on a particular category since it discusses a

matter that is of public interest.

While not refuting that the author could be an expert on the subject, the assertions of

YouTube can be dismissed as merely presumptive. The simple reason for this is because they are

not a statement of facts and the fact that she is a female raises serious credibility issues.

Arguably, her assertions are experience-based from certainly a single union she has been part of,

which can be undeniably insufficient to conclude therewith. Precisely put, it is not possible to see

how YouTube claims to fail to be at foul for the error of generalization. In addition to that, the

genre does not provide evidence-based instances to corroborate her experience from her

marriage. A typical marriage is fundamentally different from another for the obvious reason for

the person-level dynamics of couples in each, and the variances in circumstantial factors such as

prevailing customs. The news article in ABC does not seem to make such onerous and

potentially fallible claims. Like will be seen in the next paragraph, part of the reason for this

difference can be attributed to the age description of the target audience. The ABC article is a

more open criticism, based on a real-life case example of Sally, but without making express
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statements on the author’s position. The author adopts a third-party position to explain the details

without personalizing the discourse and in that avoids the risks of individualized attacks by the

reader. The approach is typical of newspaper genres for the obvious reasons; the authors are only

expected to be reported as a contrary practice can set the ground for public discredit of the entire

publication (Requejo, & Belmonte, 2016). Noteworthy, most newspaper articles undergo

thorough editorial reviews to expunge personal opinions, which habitually acclimates most

authors to focus on the presentation of facts.

However, regarding gender orientation, there is a slight distinction between the

target audience. Typical of most Yu Tube materials, the clip in question is highly specific because

experts produce them, whether real or merely self-proclaimed. There is a deliberate effort from

the current Yu Tube by the make to present herself as a marriage counselor for both credibility

reasons and attracting views in her channel. Just like in other clips in the Yu Tube, the maker will

always have vested future interests, which are often pecuniary unlike in the news article where

the author is just an employee not so much driven by financial gain, but on performing a duty as

designated by hiring firm. On the other hand, the ABC article, though emancipating to women,

does not seems too specific as to which category of readers it targets. The neutrality of the

discourse it propagates is anticipative of a highly heterogeneous audience that could constitute

the religious devotees, pagans, married and unmarried. This genre is known for a high level of

devotion in guard its credibility, thus avoids getting into murky and divisive issues such as the

one in this article.

Both genres appear to be sharing the same purposes, but, in a rather subtle way, certain

variances can still be seen. The primary purpose of these genres is to emancipate women on best

practices within marriage. However, by considering the underlying intentions of both genres,
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other purposes reveal. The Yu Tube genre is articulate in streamlining women's behavior to guard

their status quo of women (unquestionable submission). Right from the maker’s authoritative,

counseling and persuasive tone, the genre appears hell-bent on teaching women to fit the socially

constructed roles. Part of the reason could be because the maker anticipates a woman who so

many desires to be in a marriage, incapable of influencing the systems, thus with the only option

of conforming. The news article is also informative, but by detailing the systemic nature of the

exploitation of Sally, it anticipates that women, the primary audience, would feel compelled to

resent the system and take bold measures to overcome males’ subjugation. Unlike the other

genre, the author does not require the audience to behave in a particular manner, but leave them

to their devices to decide what to do with various factual claims. The practice is typical, of news

articles genres, as even when they consolidate facts to support a certain point of view, the authors

never want to be held accountable for personal decisions the readers may make.

The mode of presentation observed in this Yu Tube genre is typical, where preciseness is

seen as a defining factor to match the viewership behaviors of the target audience that has

become used to mimetic messages. The approach largely focuses on a generation that is far

distancing itself from the once-revered reading culture. Thus, concerning the audience, the

YouTube genre seems to be going further and foresees a viewer more likely a millennial both in

age and within the range of behavioral expectations for that category. This is different from the

ABC article, that, that although has the woman in mind as the primary target, anticipates the

older woman for whom reading remains a revered practice. Considering the length of the article,

which all factors held constant, is beyond ordinary, clearly target newspaper lovers, a category

that often, though not exclusively so, is constituted by the older generations.
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The ability to appeal to the reader's emotions is interestingly for capturing their attention.

From a quick view, apart from the fact that a reader is likely to feel interested in listening to Tomi

Tuluhi for the declaration that it is the “best place to be for a great relationship,” the genre does

not make further efforts to appeal to the is an important quality in appealing to people’s

emotions. Beyond Toni’s declaration, the rather elderly physic rightly supports her claim as a

marriage expert, thus likely to attract viewers to keep watching and believe her claims. Tomi

perfectly leverages the strengths of Yu Tube’s visual capability, to cultivate an image of a happily

living woman, which is doubt persuasive to many women who would aspire the same. Right

from the choice of wording, carefully selection of offending biblical scriptures and the

description of Sally’s lived experiences, the newspaper genre effectively moves the readers’

emotions in a way that captivates them to read further as well incite them against “misleading”

religious obligations. This genre does not enjoy the benefits of visual capability, but its authors,

Baird and Gleeson, appear to have excelled in the art to combining words so well to create

required mental pictures, thus making it possible to reap immeasurable benefits from the readers’

pathos. For instance, the sarcastic combination of phrases, “domestic violence” and “in the name

of God” is intended to evoke reader's emotions as they try to empathize with the plight of

married women believers ( Baird & Gleeson, 2018). The paradox is an interesting one as a reader

might want to know how religion perceived by many as an all-good thing can be a source of

suffering.

In conclusion, despite the few notable differences described above, both genres are in

their unique ability to convey information in an appropriate way to respective target audiences.

The article from ABC can be considered a far more credible source of information due to several

factors such as authors’ independence, lack of underlying financial motives, culture of

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presentation of facts, and no doubts it is assured of a wide readership dues to ability to leverage

on words’ choice to appeal to emotions. The Yu Tube genre enjoys much preference today among

the millennials due to the preciseness and prevalence of viewing culture. YouTube has a sure way

of appealing to readers’ emotions even though the credibility of information can be a

controversial aspect.
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References

Baird, J., & Gleeson H. (2018). 'Submit to your husbands': Women told to endure domestic

violence in the name of God. Retrieved from: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-

18/domestic-violence-church-submit-to-husbands/8652028

Osborne, T. (2016). Vitalism as pathos. Biosemiotics, 9(2), 185-205.

Requejo, M. D. P., & Belmonte, I. A. (2016). Genres and online newspapers: newsbites from a
socio-cognitive perspective. Genre in Language, Discourse and Cognition, 33, 277.
Toluhi, T. (2017). What respect really means to man. Retrieved from;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPjQCip5MEM
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