Persuasive Essay

‘Brick Walls, Glass Ceilings’

Task: Reading
Read the following persuasive essay. This is an exemplar written by a real student. It provides
a useful model of the type of writing you’re aiming to produce for Final Assessment Paper 2.
However, it’s not perfect.
There are some tasks to be completed after reading. You’ll see details of these following the
essay.

`Persuasive Essay – ‘Brick Walls, Glass Ceilings’ by Lucy Logan

(Unpublished. With permission).

On November 8th, 2016, businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump was elected the 45th
President of the United States. That day, on television, we saw tears from minorities, outrage
from Democrats, and dignity and despair from Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent, who felt
compelled in her concession speech to encourage young girls to never give up hope and to fight
for their beliefs. She told them to "never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and
deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world". Her defeat made her speak directly to
young women who she feared would be disheartened. Some put Clinton's election loss down to
the Glass Ceiling Effect. She was a woman who was pitted against a man who campaigned like an
Alpha Male. And it was Trump’s Alpha Male policies and behavior that brought about the result.
Trump’s most high-profile policy was his pledge to build a wall from one coast of America to the
other along the Mexican border, to keep out the "bad hombres". In his campaign he won support
despite rude aggressive behavior during debates: stalking Clinton around the stage, putting
women who accused her husband of sexual assault in the front row and constant interruptions. No
matter how increasingly shocking or unforgivable his behaviour, how outlandish his tweets, and
how spiteful or untruthful his claims were, the more exaggerated his speeches became and
Trump's support only grew. The more he seemed to break all the rules of what is acceptable, the
more he appealed to his "base". So why did he win? How did a man who started as the outsider,
even in his own party, emerge to win the US Presidency against a veteran politician with over 35
years’ experience? Was it a simple case of any man being preferred over a woman?

Before analysing Trumps winning campaign, it is important to understand how Clinton was
viewed by female voters. Her slogan was 'I'm with Her'. Sadly, not enough voters were. Many of
the demographics Clinton expected to dominate, even in her own party, – especially female and
young voters - supported her opponent for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders – a
socialist. Millennials embraced Sen. Sanders' promise of college tuition fee cuts and this
appears to have won him the youth vote. (Twice as many of this group voted for Sanders than
Clinton for the party nomination.) In addition, he appealed to female voters in the Democratic
party more than Clinton. They do not appear to have changed loyalty to Clinton in their entirety

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as would be expected, as shown by the "Bernie or Bust" advocates. So even before the
Presidential election Sen. Sanders, a white, rich, male politician like the majority of senators,
had kept widespread appeal among the young and female. Despite him urging his followers to
support Clinton, this did not happen.
The Presidential election resulted in Clinton winning almost 3 million votes more than Trump -
65,853,625 to 62,985,106. This did not translate into enough Electoral College votes. In addition to
not getting as many of the youth and female votes as could have been expected, she missed out
on many key states – those states nicknamed the "Rust Belt". Clinton had lost support from the
poor white voters who had suffered high unemployment and disadvantage, like miners and former
car workers. White, rich, male Trump gained these voters with his macho brand of politicking -
Making America Great Again.

There is not one, single, defining factor that led to Clinton losing the 2016 election, but her
gender was undoubtedly an issue. She was criticised for being "robotic" where he was
captivating. She relied on her vast policy knowledge, which was boring to voters, while Trump
had a strong single message to 'Make America Great Again'. She focused on her
accomplishments where he focused on the potential of the American people. However, there is
one factor that everyone pretended to ignore – Clinton is a woman.
The anti-Hillary advocate will suggest other reasons. It was because of Clinton being a professional
politician that some of the public regarded her as untrustworthy. It was Trump’s Islamophobia, his
racism, that gave the American public an enemy to blame while Clinton’s campaign of unity did
not. But was America simply not ready for a woman to be named President? The tee-shirts with
slogans such as “Trump that Bitch” being sold at the Republican Convention, her husband Bill
Clinton’s affairs being mentioned at every given opportunity, and Trump claiming that his
admission to sexual abuse was simply “locker room talk” were all laughed at by growing numbers
of voters - jokes at the expense of American women. At the time of the first ever female nominee
for President by one of the major parties, their opponent happened to be the man who made the
most misogynistic comments, claims and policies of recent presidential candidates. This woman
was up against a man who knew no boundaries.
The breakdown of who voted for who makes interesting reading. Clinton did not bring as many
women voters with her as she expected. Clinton won women 47% to Trump’s 38%. Her advisors
would have expected her to have a much higher percentage, especially among the young. The
shocking statistic afterwards was why so many women backed Trump, with analysts surmising
that women do not vote en bloc as other groups do. It's now thought, according to politico.com,
among others, that "there is no 'women's vote' … we've all experienced the powerful empathetic
connection between women. But it is not political".
Trump's base was the white voters - around 36% of white, registered voters voted for Clinton,
compared to an overwhelming 50% for Trump. This is in huge contrast to black voters, who voted
82% for Clinton, and 3% for her opponent.
Despite there being no "women’s block vote" many women's issues have been acknowledged.
But many of Trump’s stances on what may have been gender related topics did not create a
united women's position. For instance, Planned Parenthood. In an interview Trump said there

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had to be 'some form of punishment' for women who have an abortion. He is against Planned
Parenthood. His choice for running mate, Mike Pence, co-sponsored a bill to redefine rape to
"forcible rape" to further restrict abortion access. This appealed to many religious voters, both
male and female.
If we look more deeply at how race and gender combined to back the candidates - 53% of the
white women’s vote went to Trump, while 69% of Latinas and an overwhelming 94% of black
women voted for Clinton. So Clinton appealed to women from ethnic backgrounds, more than to
white women – her own demographic. Ethnic minorities responded to Trumps openly racist
policies by voting against him and for Clinton. They recognised the potential severe consequences
of Trump’s campaign – particularly toward immigrants - and rejected his threats of deportation,
isolation, segregation. But, interestingly, the white women in America did not respond the same
way to the sexism and anti- feminist policies of Trump and Pence. Vast numbers supported him
over the female candidate.
Many of the voters for Trump appear to have followed the widely stated assertion that "the press
takes him literally not seriously; his supporters take him seriously but not literally" by Salena Zito of
The Atlantic. This comment goes a long way to understanding the Trump voter. To call all of
Donald Trump’s supporters racist, misogynistic, and homophobic would be ignorant, just as it is
ignorant to call all Mexicans "criminals" and "rapists". However, all of Donald Trump’s supporters
saw a racist, a misogynist, a homophobe, and they decided that it didn’t matter to them. It was
seen as a personal, not fundamental flaw; something they could accept.

The conclusion is then that Clinton did not have the backing she needed from women in order to
become the first female President. The Glass Ceiling remains because not enough women united
to break it; the wall is being built because an Alpha Male can be understood when he talks about
a massive construction project.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/03/ku-klux-klan-supporters-give-nazi-salute-
north-carolina-rally/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-37230916

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2016/9/27/13067822/debate-
clinton-trump-sexism

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2016

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/04/daily-chart-19

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a6963161/hillary-clinton-unlikable-human-robotic/

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https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/02/bad-hombres-
reports-claim-trump-threatened-to-send-troops-to-mexico
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-women-214454

http://edition.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls/national/president

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/30/donald-trump-women-abortions-
punishment
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-makes-his-case-in-
pittsburgh/501335/
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2016/11/9/13570328/hillary-
clinton-concession-speech-full-transcript-2016-presidential-election

Task - Reading
Create another map for this essay, showing the main and supporting arguments. Do you think
this candidate made their main argument clear? What is this candidate trying to persuade you
to believe?

Task - Reading
Do you think that this candidate cared passionately about this topic? If yes, can you pinpoint what
it is about the essay that makes you think so? If no, can you explain what it is about their writing
that shows a lack of engagement?

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