Rape is dehumanizing for the victim, but yet the victim is always a fault. We live in a society where victims are being blamed for “what they were wearing” or “she led him on”. Justice is not being served in any shape, way, or form. Rape culture cannot be simply defined because of the factors that can influence the situation. However, it could be best defined by Emilie Buchwald, author of Transforming a Rape Culture, “a complex set of beliefs that encourage male sexual aggression and supports violenc... ... middle of paper ... ...their ground, in some instances; rape is a way to display their “manhood” of proving that they enjoying women, but that they are strong and capable of overpowering woman.
They put all the blame on the victim rather than the suspect because if she didn’t want that to happen, then she should’ve dressed properly or covered up more. If a man shows more skin, it’s not taken seriously as when a woman shows skin. Moreover, when a man gets raped by a woman, instead of helping out, others judge him because he wasn’t strong enough to defend himself. This stereotyping affects people’s lives, especially women because it’s difficult for women to get jobs. For instance, “Women make up nearly half of the U.S. workforce, but their ubiquity doesn’t protect them from gendered discrimination and sexual harassment, especially in male-dominated work environments” (Adams).
In some countries a woman must prove she is pure in order to find the perpetrator guilty. Rape used to be more of a violation to the man than to the women. It was a violation of the man’s rights if his wife or girlfriend was raped. When a woman is raped her devotion to her family is questioned. Rape is a violent act, an act of possession, not a sexual act.
Nevertheless, women has a desire to speak up and state the obvious. Rape is illegal by law and it is unjustifiable – people know that, but is it only men to blame? Rape is generally presented as something that only (or almost always) happens to women. Why? There are also stories about women who has reported innocent men because the girl by “accident” cheated on her boyfriend and when things got tight needed a scapegoat, and by that abused her advantage of being a girl in this post-feministic world.
The stereotypical feminist is a bra burning, hairy, metrosexual lesbian, who believes men should only be used from breeding until we find a way to do it without them. However, this is simply a use of stereotyping that generalizes all women and makes it difficult for real conversation to occur. Whenever a generalization is presented as a truth then the individuality of all women is jeopardized. This is particularly the case, even today when the issue of rape is mentioned. Often the legal system of the United States make it difficult on the victim and in some cased place the blame on them for an unwanted sexual attack, to the point that the trauma of the trial is worse than the attack itself.
Another reason these women stay in abusive relationships is because being labeled as a battered woman can be just as toxic as the abuse itself. These labels of being a “battered woman” is an example about why sexual assaults go underreported. With all the information about sexual assault, it still so underreported and rampant in our society. From the results of patriarchy, sexism, and gender socialization, the stratification of women will never close. The process of telling women not to get raped is a form of victim blaming.
Women have just as much rights as men but they feel inferior due to societal beliefs. Women often get blamed for being raped. From whether they were drinking to what they were wearing. Although a plethora of people deny the existence of rape culture, it very much exists due to victim blaming, rape jokes, and favoring men. One important reason to why rape culture exists is victim blaming.
The earlier the population, the more they 're trying to understand what life 's all about and pretending they know how things work for social gain. Additionally, I believe internalized sexism affected the point of view of the story being told by her mother, “Don 't humiliate us. You wouldn 't like to be forgotten as if you were never born.” (p.18). However, I don 't think the young woman 's view was tainted, as she expressed concern for her dead aunt. This experience relates to the modern day sexism, and a parallel I see is the many women who are raped/assaulted/abused and report their incidents to the police, but the rapist isn 't arrested, or if he is, he 's put away for an objectively disheartening, short amount of time.
"If you can't prevent rape, you enjoy it,” an Indian police officer. He was forced to apologies and had to resign for commenting this way about rape. It is impossible for a woman to enjoy rape. Women in today’s world have become more active and better contributor to national and international fields, but the fear of sexual assault and being raped limit their freedom. A lot of social workers, human right activists, and feminists are trying hard to ensure women right regarding sexual violence and rape.
In Ivan Bunin’s short story Light Breathing, Olya Meshcherskaya struggles to live with societal views of women and rape. Bunin briefly portrays rape as an evil act. In order to cope with this evil, Olya acts and dresses like the woman that her rapist has forced her to become. However, this further damages her emotionally because she faces societal consequences for acting beyond her years. She understands how society views her and uses this understanding to escape from the crushing pressures that she faces.