The Power Suit: A Rhetorical Examination of Gendered Professional Attire Erica Lewis Faculty mentor: Cynthia Mwenja University of Montevallo
Textual Google inquiries can result in images and in longer textual resources, presenting a means of analyzing a population's collective ideas about certain images and the ideas that they are associated with. Upon searching various arrangements of words and synonyms, professional clothing images presented a plethora of gender rules for how to "look professional." From clothing color and cuts to the diction used to describe them, these Google images reflect what a majority of our society and the media that informs it agrees to be professional based on gender stereotypes.
Graduating in May 2019, Erica Lewis is pursuing her BFA in Studio Arts and her BA in English. Officially concentrating in printmaking and in drawing, Lewis is primarily focused on composition and rhetoric within her language studies and wishes to further her research into visual and textual rhetoric after graduation, possibly in an MFA Studio or PhD-track English program.
