Analysis Of Offensive Feminism: The Myth Of Rape Culture

It is mind-blowing how little a woman has ownership over her own body. It is even more remarkable how, even in 2016, women still cannot freely enjoy being sexually active, like men, without shade being thrown at them. Jill Filipovic touches on these issues in her essay, Offensive Feminism: The Conservative Gender Norms that Perpetuates Rape Culture, and How Feminists Fight Back. Ms. Filipovic gives insight into how these perceptions help the rape culture in America stay alive. In this reflection paper, I plan on evaluating how there is a “war over the most basic of values: the humans rights to bodily autonomy and self-determination, the role of women in society, and the construction of the family (Filipovic 14).” Believe it or not, women enjoy

However, there are conservative groups, such as Focus on the Family, that disclaim that a woman’s body is her own. With that being said, I would like to mention the purity ball that was briefly cited in Filipovic’s essay and then further recapped in Jessica Valenti’s Purely Rape: The Myth of Sexual Purity and How It Reinforces Rape Culture. I found this practice interesting because it encourages young girls to vow to their fathers that they will remain a virgin until he hands her over to her future husband. This reiterates how a girl does not have autonomy of her own body; rather, it is a secret garden that must be protected and later passed on from father to husband. Somehow this is supposed to benefit girls by teaching them that “sexuality defines how ‘good’ women are, and that women’s moral compasses are inextricable from their bodies...(Valenti 299).” What it comes down to is this: Women cannot be sexual but must possess some sex appeal. When the statistics show that “ninety-seven percent of Americans will have sex before marriage (Filipovic 17),” does this mean that the majority of women should walk around with the word “dirty” stamped on their forehead? This becomes a problem when women are gang-rapped or young girls are molested and they do not speak up about their experience. Would you want to when you know society is going to permanently label you for something you had no control