In Street Harassment: Current and Promising Avenues for Researchers and Activists, Dr. Laura S. Logan, aims to mitigate the dearth of scholarly attention to everyday forms of harassment remains comparatively limited amidst growing public interest in gendered violence and feminist activism. Logan employs a blend of empirical findings, personal narratives, theoretical frameworks and a call to action to establish the seriousness of street harassment as a social problem. In doing so, she aims to shape future scholarly and activist efforts without explicitly spelling out each objective. This rhetorical analysis will therefore detail the efficacy of how Logan calibrates her appeals to their knowledge and values, and explore the interplay between stated and implicit authorial purpose as well as analyse the stylistic and tonal choices in relation to genre conventions.
Audience
Logan’s article is addressed primarily to a readership of academics, graduate students, social movement practitioners, and activists in gender-studies. It can be inferred that her appeal to such a diverse pool aims to bridge the gap between documented personal experiences, grassroots activism, and extant scholarly research. She reaches these audiences collectively by weaving together empirical literature with personal experiences. This allows the article to adhere to academic formalities whilst retaining a degree of readability for laymen. Her appeal to the average though is further evidenced by her incorporation of quotes from activists and victims as well as descriptions of initiatives, such as Hollaback! and HarassMap, to entice readers who might not be fully versed in academic discourse. Evidence of such hybrid appeal emerges early: opening vignettes feature harrowing incidents experienced by women in diverse settings, from a U.S. suburb to London’s Jobcentre to Cairo’s streets. These vivid anecdotes serve both to humanize distant statistical figures and to mobilize emotion that readers in academic contexts may not expect in a research review. Logan anticipates that her audience will possess baseline familiarity with concepts such as rape culture, intersectionality, and feminist social movements but will not necessarily have internalized the specific terminology or breadth of street-harassment scholarship. She therefore defines key terms, surveys multiple disciplinary studies, and contextualizes empirical findings in ways that ease non-specialists into the conversation without sacrificing rigor for experts. I believe I am part of Logan’s intended audience. As a student in a tertiary education, I meet her criteria of an academic background. I am, however, self-admittedly uneducated about the topics covered, particularly their world-wide prevalence, and therefore I am also part of the laymen being called to action.
Readers of academic journals, such as Sociology Compass, often expect a genre blend that is more synthetic than a typical empirical article and somewhat more substantive than an editorial or blog post. Logan meets these expectations by structuring her piece as a literature review and commentary. She provides definitions of “street harassment” and related terms, traces historical and international manifestations, and highlights methodological gaps in existing research. At the same time, she avoids overt didacticism or prescriptive policy proposals. She instead stokes scholarly curiosity by pointing out unresolved questions, and by advocating for intersectional analyses that incorporate critical race theory and queer theory. An example of the former occurs when she illustrates how class and race interact to shape harassers’ motives and victims’ experiences. The effect on her intended audience is twofold; for scholars it reads as an invitation to address underexplored areas, underscored by concrete suggestions for empirical and theoretical work that must be done. On the other hand, for activists and practitioners, Logan’s integration of grassroots efforts and legal considerations offers validation for their strategies.
Purpose
Logan states her purpose indirectly in the introduction, noting that street harassment is frequently “seldom cited as a serious, and sometimes lethal, social problem” and that feminist activism in the late twentieth century marginalized it. She asserts that scholars should refocus on street harassment because it occupies “a continuum of violence against and oppression of femininities and the people associated with femininities.” This passage, although concise, conveys both academic and activist ambitions. In rhetorical-analysis terms, Logan’s declared purpose is descriptive (to survey existing literature), interpretive (to highlight underlying theoretical patterns), and persuasive (to spur further research and activism). She never says “I aim to persuade,” but her appeals to data and theory, coupled with vivid anecdotes, make clear that she expects readers to leave feeling compelled to engage.
Evidence that Logan fulfils her purpose appears in multiple segments of the article. Such evidence includes her illustration that 100 percent of women surveyed in Gardner’s study had experienced harassment and that 65 percent of women in a national U.S. sample reported street harassment. These data are not merely cited but woven into a narrative that juxtaposes global contexts with local U.S. developments. This contrasting of early 20th century reformers’ anxieties about “male licentiousness” on American city streets with 21st century internet-enabled activism enables Logan to situate street harassment within a continuum of social movements and theoretical debates about public space, gendered power, and racial control. Such historical and cross-cultural framing deepens the reader’s understanding of how street harassment both reflects and sustains broader patterns of inequality. The recurring citations of scholars across disciplines demonstrate the Logan’s mastery of the literature and her ability to triangulate evidence so that multidisciplinary scholars recognize their own work in her account.
In addition, Logan also realizes her purpose through her use of narratives from victims as rhetorical foils. The article opens with three stark examples, namely a rape at gunpoint after a benign greeting, a teenager’s verbal assault outside a London Jobcentre, and the fatal stabbing of a fifteen-year-old lesbian in New Jersey. These accounts function as kairotic devices that generate moral and emotional urgency without descending into sensationalism. In the lay audiences these stories serve to inspire emotion and empathy, while in educated readers it primes them to view street harassment not just as a mere nuisance or trivial offense, but as a phenomenon etiologically associated with homicide and lifelong trauma. Consequently, they have both pathos and logos rhetorical significance. They act as emotional appeals grounded in concrete experiences rather than abstract hypotheticals as well as logical premises for the subsequent argument.
Tone
Logan, in the article, blends scholarly objectivity with a subtle sense of urgency. She uses passive voice sparingly, As such, an active voice is pervasive in the writing. This serves to maintain clarity. For instance, consider the phrase, “studies indicate that the most frequent victims of street harassment are women and girls.” In it, her diction refrains from sensational adjectives. Nevertheless, the inclusion of graphic details in opening vignettes and references to “leered at, growled at, spit on, stalked” evoke an emotional response. This calibrated tone respects the reader’s intelligence while reminding them that street harassment is neither abstract nor peripheral.
Moreover, Logan occasionally uses first person plural pronouns to invoke a sense of collective responsibility. She does not catalyse the effects of this style with another as that would be overt activism. Such activism may alienate some readers, thereby detracting from her purpose. Her refraining from personal activism is also in adherence to scholarly norms. Such norms stipulate that personal involvement should be minimized in order to preserve analytical distance.
Ongoing Conversation
Logan cites foundational works on fear of crime and feminist critiques of violence. She uses such literature to demonstrate how street harassment dovetails with concepts such as rape culture and the policing of gendered public space. She also references contemporary humanities’ principles such as critical race theory and queer theory. These illustarate thatLogan gestures toward intersectional frameworks that many readers, particularly Gen Zs, will recognize as necessary. Similarly, she highlights gaps in research on class, noting that “class intersects with race to shape victimization” but remains under-examined, thereby encouraging scholars to fill that void. A reader versed in intersectionality will find logistic coherence in her call to examine how race, gender, and sexuality converge within street harassment. At the same time, a reader unfamiliar with intersectionality receives a brief primer on how multiple identities shape experiences of harassment. This is further evidence of the versatility of Logan’s work with respect to audiences.
Summary
Collectively, Logan’s article exemplifies how a scholarly review can simultaneously address multiple audiences without sacrificing depth or coherence. Her rhetorical choices reflect a clear awareness of audience expectations. She accomplishes this through a seamlessly incorporation of empirical data, academic discourse, and personal anecdotes. She also utilizes a style and tone that align with academic norms while integrating empathetic appeals that reveal her investment in social justice. These stylistic choices illustrate a mission to offer concise, accessible overviews of evolving sociological topics; a mission typical in academic journals, such as Sociology Compass.
References
Logan, L. S. (2015). Street harassment: Current and promising avenues for researchers and activists. Sociology Compass, 9(3), 196-211.