1. use of humor. He reveals that stereotypes still exist even in his own life in a simple sentence that says, "This seemed pretty accurate to me, so I thought I'd just tack it on to the end here, while she makes waffles (page 63)."
2. Other techniques used include the use of assertion, which is a statement that a writer claims is true without necessarily providing objective support for the claim. This strategy can be seen in statements such as, "Men are still basically scum when it comes to helping out in the kitchen (page 61)." and, "I think most males rarely prepare food for others, when they do, they have their one specialty dish (spaghetti, in my case) that they prepare maybe twice a year in a very elaborate production, for which they expect to be praised as if they had developed, right there in the kitchen, a cure for heart disease (page 62)."
3. Causal analysis is another rhetorical strategy that I observed being used. It examines the relationships between events or conditions and their consequences and can be seen at the end of the essay as Dave Barry talks about his and his wife's opinion on the issue. He states that, "Women do not make it easy to learn. Let's say a woman is in the kitchen...and the man...offers to help. So the woman says something like: "Well you can cut up the turnips." Now to the WOMAN, who had all this sexist Home Economics training back in the pre-feminism era, this is a very simple instruction. It is the absolute simplest thing she can think of (page 63)." However, his wife makes the point that, "Before Women’s Liberation, men took care of the cars and women took care of the kitchen, whereas now that we have Women’s Liberation, men no longer feel obligated to take care of the cars (page 63)."
4. He states that “most men make themselves as useful around the kitchen as ill-trained Labrador retrievers” and that he “would no more enter that kitchen than I would attempt to park a nuclear aircraft carrier.”
5. He informs the audience...