Pregnant man?

For this blog post I chose an advertisement for pregnancy. On the ad there is a man, seemingly distressed and near his due date and a caption under him that reads, “Would you be more careful if it was you that got pregnant?” This ad just screams pathos and logos. It makes the audience, males in this case, think and reflect on their insensitivity to women as it relates to childbirth.  

The emotion or pathos is evident in the visual aspect of the ad. The man looks tired and in pain as he does the cliché pose of a pregnant woman grasping her back and holding her stomach (I wonder if he’s barefoot in the portion of the frame we cant see). However, this image evokes sympathy and allows men to put themselves in the shoes (or lack there of) of women and start to wonder how much of a toll childbirth actually takes on them. Could a man handle carrying and birthing a child? If the tables turned would women be respected more? Would men be more careful if biology as we know it had a hiccup?  This ad should spark all of those inquires.

The logic behind this advertisement is in the caption. Often times women are left to care for their young on their own because a man, as the advertisement implies, (really both of them) wasn’t careful in pregnancy prevention methods. Even if this isn’t the case and the man is still in the picture, they may be insensitive to all that a woman has to go through when dealing with pregnancy. Men may often just think of the joys of making the baby, and avoid preventative measures, then forget the hassle that comes along with it because its not them that has to harbor another human being for 75% of a year.

As a whole this ad is successful in using rhetorical devices to persuade people (men) to feel a certain way about their actions. The use of pathos and logos is evident.