Rape Culture in Media: Victim Blaming and Slut Shamming
Freda Adler, an educator and criminologist, states, “Rape is the only crime in which the victim becomes the accused.” People are taught not to get raped; instead, of teaching people not rape to anyone, under any circumstances. More people sympathize with the sex offender; while, only few people support the victims. Victims are disbelieved, blamed, and shamed for the attack. Based on Nick Phillips’ book, Beyond Blurred Lines: Rape Culture in Popular Media, the term rape culture, “describe how violence against women has been normalized in our society through a process of linking sexual violent aggression” (3). The media perform a significant part in shaping the prejudice, misconceptions
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According to National Institute of Justice, “The National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS) sampled 8,000 women and 8,000 men and found that 1 in 6 women (17 percent) and 1 in 33 men (3 percent) reported experiencing an attempted or completed rape at some time in their lives.” This survey shows that not only women have been victims of rape; as well as, men are also experiencing sexual violence. Victims are afraid to report because of the stigma of shaming and they were often told that it is their fault or that’s not even true. The stereotypes that men don’t get raped, women don’t commit sexual crimes, all men are rapist, men love all sex, male-on-male rape do not happen, anal penetration is not rape, but merely a sexual assault, and men are genetically strong, so they should be able to defend themselves are blatantly false; moreover, some people think that male-on-male rape victims are homosexuals which is undeniably not true. Male survivors are afraid to be labeled weak and not a real man so they tend to keep the horrifying events to themselves; in addition, they are often not taken seriously by the people they concede to and who they thought that they can trust, especially the authorities. They suffer more retaliation than female …show more content…
The rape victim stereotypes are making it difficult for victims to fight for justice because almost everybody, including the people who they thought that will support them are chastiing them. Rape victims, especially men are afraid of people finding out what happen to them; as a result, victims, mostly don’t report their assault for fear being ostracized. Everyone wants to know “Why most victims do not report it?”; but, the real question is “Why would the victims report it?” Sexual assault victims are frequently questioned by authorities, in a way that completely put the blame on the victims themselves, as if the authorities are implying that the victims were solely responsible. Unites States justice system has done little to help the victims; as a result, rapists are never convicted of crime they committed or if they are convicted, they only spend a few years behind bars and after they serve their sentence, they are set free to roam the streets to possibly assault another person. Victims are severely traumatized as a result of their sexual assault; moreover, they suffer from different forms of mental illness such as depression, anxiety disorder, and post trauma disorder. Victims keep having flashback of their assault and feelings of isolation and shame is rapidly devouring them, mentally, emotionally and physically. Even time cannot heal the victim’s wounds and they are forced to live with it for the rest of
Schneider L, Mori L, Lambert P, Wong A. The Role of Gender and Ethnicity in Perceptions of Rape and Its Aftereffects. Sex Roles [serial on the Internet]. (2009, Mar), [cited March 16, 2014]; 60(5/6): 410-421. Available from: SocINDEX with Full Text.
Rape is a virus that infects every nation, culture and society. It is constantly referred to as “the unfinished murder”, because of the deep state of despair the rapist leaves the victim in. There is no common identifiable trend that determines who will be a rape victim. Women are not assaulted because of their attitudes or actions, they are attacked simply because they are present. With rapists, just as with their victims, there is no identifiable trend. The old myth that only “sick, dirty, old, perverted men” commit rapes is a lie that society tells itself in order to sleep better at night. The startling truth is that most rapists work under a veil of normalcy. In order for the percentage of rapes to decrease, we have to change our ideas about rape and let go of the old myths of the past. And until this happens, rape will continue to plague our world at large.
90 percent of the victims of sexual assault are women and 10 percent are men, and nearly 99 percent of offenders in single-victim assaults are men (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2010). According to https://www.justice.gov/ovw/sexual-assault, Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape. () Sexual Assault can happen to anyone, not just women it can happen to men and kids as well. Sexual Assault these days are a big trouble and it is not being addressed in good order, and it is
One of the most horrible things that has erupted from the subjugation of women is rape culture. Rape culture is the downplaying of the crime of rape to appease the violator, the accusation that the victim made a choice that led to their rape, or even jokes that suggest rape. According to Jessica Valenti’s, “In Rape Tragedies, the Shame Is Ours,” in today's world many people give in to rape culture by participating in these acts that somehow change our mindsets into believing that, “it is more shameful to be raped than to be a rapist”. Once ...
In the past century, America has made great leaps in terms of equality. With the efforts made by the civil rights and suffrage movements, all people gained the right to vote. We are even moving forward with marriage equality, and currently fifteen states recognize same-sex marriage. But regardless of all of our progressive institutional movements forward, we continue to socially oppress women. Men’s violence against women has grown to be an internationally recognized epidemic, and will continue to grow unless measures be made to stop it. Domestic violence continues to be prevalent in the lives of many families, and is the primary cause of homelessness in half of cases for women in children. Many women have been forced to alter their behaviors out of fear of being sexually or physically assaulted. One out of every three women is sexually or physically abused in their lifetimes. The first thing that comes to mind is, there are a lot of people abusing women out there. Many people with opposing ideas may claim that men can be victims of violence perpetrated by women, but in instances not used for self-defense, it is rarely part of a systematic pattern of power and control through force or threat of force. In fact, 99% of rape is perpetrated by men, but when confronting men about the issue of violence against women, it is often combated with denial. Jackson Katz writes in his book, The Macho Paradox, “We take comfort in the idea of the aforementioned child-rapist murderer as a horrible aberration. A monster. We’re nothing like him.”(Katz 30). The sad truth is that most women who are raped are raped by men they know, or even men they love. Many men have a hard time believing that saying that most violence is perpetuated by men does not...
In this source it elaborates on how men are being rape just as much as women are. Even though it seems more common for only women to be rape both genders are affected. This source supports my claim that rape needs to be taken more seriously. I used this source to support my claims.
The statistics clearly show a group of people who’re affected by the heinous acts of sexual assault. Everyone knows that sexual assault isn’t a topic that’s on the top of the list to talk about; people usually even try to go as far as to hide it or to cover it up. Though, it’s clear for certain; covering something up doesn’t make it alright – It won’t make it go away and the problem is still there. For that exact fact, it is the very reason that sexual assault is something that needs to be brought to the
Rape is an issue that usually occurs to females and is more likely executed by males than females. Nonetheless, a female’s position in rape can and does go further than being the victim. Considering that women can be the perpetrator in this sexual assault, who are their victims? Rape can occur to anyone by anyone. In the same way a female can be a victim of rape, so can a male. According to RAINN, an anti-sexual assault organization, “About 3% of American men have experienced attempted or completed rape as of 1998, an estimated 4.5 million as of 2010” (Who Are the Victims?). However, men are not necessarily the victims of solely female-on-male rape. In fact, the majority of males who are raped are the victims of male-on-male rape and
In the male typologies there are separate categories for child molesters and rapists, which is largely due to fact that they offend in very different ways. However, for the female typologies there is no such distinction, because all except one of the typologies have victims who are on average less than 15 years old (Vandiver & Kercher, 2004).The Aggressive Homosexual Offender is the only typology with an adult offender, however the victims are female (Vandiver & Kercher, 2004).The lack of a typology for female offenders with male adult victims could be due to certain factors playing a part in society. In particular, in today’s rape culture there is the belief that women cannot physically rape men. One reason why this belief is held is because society views women as physically weaker than men and are unable to overpower men. The male sex drive discourse also adds to this belief if men can never refuse sex than they essentially can never be raped. This belief has various problems for both men and women. The lack of a typology that includes adult male victims minimizes and ignores real men that were victimized by women. Not including men in the victim analysis sends the message that they are not ‘real’ victims. In contrast to that, since these victims are not seen as ‘real’ victims, the female offenders are not seen as ‘real’ offenders. By
“What is rape culture” is the question that has been repeatedly asked since its emergence in the 1970s. From our lecture, we have learned that the thing about Rape Culture is that it doesn’t have just one definition, but the simplest way to define it may be to say that rape culture is the society that accepts and even promotes sexual violence in one form or another. This includes, TV shows that make rape look sexy; you know the kind: guy pushes girl down, throws open her blouse, exposing her breasts, and even though she is saying no, everyone watching is saying yes. Rape culture is when a college student goes to their Dean and tells them they have been raped, and the first question the Dean ask is “what were you wearing?” Rape culture is saying “that exam just raped me” instead of “that exam was hard”. Rape culture is the most popular, catchy songs these days have lyrics like “I know you want it”. Rape culture is the party girl image, the “she was asking for it”, the “boys will be boys”, the slut shaming, the victim blaming, and the most concerning, rape culture is denying the fact that sexual assault is a problem in today’s society. One in six women and one in thirty-three men will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. In the United States alone, that
Susan Griffin’s Rape: The All-American Crime touches on many issues within American society. She begins by recounting how she was taught to be afraid of strange men from such a young age that she had not yet learned what it was she was so afraid of, and then goes into her experience with harassment, an experience shared by every woman at some point in her life. Griffin recounts the belief that all rapists are insane and the proof that they are just normal men and dispels the myth that rape is normal activity that is prohibited by society. However, she goes on to clarify that our culture views rape: “as an illegal, but still understandable, form of behavior” (Griffin 514). It seems that the wrongness of rape is determined by the situation in
According to rain.org 44 percent of rape victims are under the age of 18 and 80 percent are under the age of 30 years old. Every 2 minutes an American is a victim of rape and about 240,000 of them are reported each year. Only 60 percent of assaults are not reported to the police renders that 97 percent of the perpetrators never spend a day in jail. The less the people report the crime the less they are likely to catch the perpetrator. Sadly 23 of the victims know the person whole is assaulting them. Almost 40 percent of the rapist know their victim. This is a very uns...
Sexual violence is a national issue that permeates every aspect society. Sexual assault and rape is an ongoing problem, evident by the troubling statistic that roughly 20 million out of 112 million women (18.0%) in the United States have been raped during their lifetime (Kilpatrick, Resnick, Ruggiero, Conoscenti, McCauley, 2007). Despite the continuous push for gender equality, the current culture of society perpetuates victim-blaming tendencies towards innate cognitive processes and media influences.
Sexual assault is an offense that plagues many U.S. citizens. Although some studies show that rape is on the decline, other studies report that the phenomena actually occuring is that less rape victims are reporting the crime. In fact, approximately 68% of sexual assaults go unreported to the police according to the U.S. Department of Justice in a National Crime Victimization Survey from 2008-2012. It is common knowledge that rape victims are usually severely traumatized after the event, which leaves them susceptible to various emotions such as shame, anxiety, numbness, fear, denial, and guilt. Because of this, many rape victims decide to repress their experience and let it go unheard. However, not only does this prevent them from healing emotionally,
1 in 5 women will experience sexual assault as an adult (cite). To me, that statistic is mindboggling. I’m not sure people are really aware of the fact that in our society women are raped every single day or maybe they are aware but it doesn’t truly affect their lives until it happens to them or someone they know. Rape is a serious crime. I’m not sure there is a worse crime than rape. Rape is when one person violates the personal space of another. More times than not the attacker is male and the victim is female. With rape not only are you at risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases but also your piece of mind is taken away. Women can experience symptoms of PTSD after being raped. Rape is crime where the act in itself is awful, but also dealing with it after is very painful as well. If our society were more knowledgeable about rape maybe it wouldn’t happen as much. Knowing the difference between the different characteristics of a serial rapist versus a single victim rapist could potentially help women or men identify their attacker, if they know what to look for. This may be more of a struggle for if the attacker is a stranger or a one-time offender, but if women are able to give details about their attack, this could help the criminal justice system find these criminals after the fact. In this paper, I will explain and critique three different studies that were conducted comparing and contrasting serial rapists and single-victim rapists.