SWA #10 - 02/14/12 - Essay Outline

Thesis: In her article “Sports: A Powerful Strategy to Advance Women’s Rights,” Astrid Aafjes argues that people should recognize the need and invest in sports based programs to help women and teach them their rights. She tries to convince her readers by first establishing her credibility with her vast knowledge of these programs and their goals and also by appealing to her readers’ emotions with staggering statistics.

Main Point #1: Aafjes makes it clear throughout the first half of her article that she knows a lot about these types of programs which in turn gives her a lot of credibility to the reader.

·      Talks about the founder of Safe Spaces, why it was created, and what it does (quotes on pgs. 286-287)

·      Gives a ton of information on the Women Win program including specific program goals (quotes on pgs. 287-288, 291)

·      Information on areas where these programs work and the facts about these areas that make them needed (quotes on pgs. 288-289)

Main Point #2: Aafjes also uses a vast array of alarming statistics to appeal to the readers’ emotions as a method of convincing them of the necessity of these rights based programs.

·      Stats on the lack of financial and economic knowledge of girls in India (quotes on pg. 289)

·      Stats on how prevalent violence is in Kenya, Egypt, and Uganda which demonstrates the need for an outlet for these girls (quotes pg. 290)

·      Stats on girls’ confusion over sexual and reproductive health (quotes pg. 290)

Conclusion: In the conclusion I’m going reiterate my thesis, bring up the overall goal of Aafjes article, and discuss how motivated she made me to do something to help out these programs. Also, I’ll talk about how the fact that Aafjes is a woman affects her argument and any relevant omissions the article had.