Invitational Rhetoric

Invitational rhetoric helps people to understand perspectives that are different that their own. "Invitational rhetoric is a means of sharing one’s point of view, an invitation rather than an expectation marked by a commitment to parity, respect, and choice regarding one’s audience" (Kirtley, S., 2014, p.340). Invitational rhetoric focuses on equality, immanent value, and self-determination. There are three external conditions when it comes to invitational rhetoric. These conditions include safety, value, and freedom.

This Dove ad is a way of lashing back at Victoria's Secret. Victoria's Secret released a love my body ad showing tall, thin, models. This ad had a negative message because it seems that the only women who should love their bodies are those who are in shape and look like models. Dove decided to fire back with this real beauty campaign. This Dove ad shows equality in two ways. This ad shows a diverse group of women. There are different races and different body types portrayed in this ad. Every woman in this ad has immanent value. This ad shows that every woman with any body type is truly perfect. The Victoria's Secret ad shows only a narrow definition of what beauty is. The Dove ad makes every woman feel like they have value, regardless of what they look like on the outside. Self-determination means living your life the way you want to and making your own decisions. The real beauty campaign emphasizes that you're beautiful how you are. This encourages women to live their lives how they want to and not feel pressured to work out at the gym and go on crazy diets to look like models.

The first external condition of invitational rhetoric is safety. This means feeling safe and free of danger from the audience. The Dove ad shows this by expressing their message how they did. The message is free of judgement from the audience because you don't necessarily need to be a size 2 to be beautiful. You should be able to feel comfortable in your own skin. The next external condition is value, meaning the audience knows they have worth. As mentioned previously, the Dove ad is promoting women to feel confident with how their body is. Every woman is worthy of real beauty regardless of their body type. The final external condition is freedom, the power to choose or decide. Everyone has their own definition of beauty. Victoria's Secret is promoting tall, thin models while Dove is promoting everyday people. It is the viewer's choice of how he or she defines beauty and self love. Invitational rhetoric is all about understanding other people's perspectives. When Victoria's Secret created this campaign, they probably didn't think that there would be so much back lash. Dove had an opposing viewpoint and decided to do something about it. Although Dove is trying to create a positive self image for everyday women, it seems that they exclude skinny women from this campaign. Some might argue that Dove is promoting beauty for only those women who aren't model-like and are body shaming women who don't look like those in the campaign.


Kirtley, S. (2014). Considering the Alternative in Composition Pedagogy: Teaching Invitational Rhetoric With Lynda Barry's What It Is. Women's Studies in Communication, 37(3), 339-359. doi:10.1080/07491409.2014.946166