Rape Culture in Society - Essay Example

Rape Culture in Society The innocent have always lacked the voice to speak out when the traumatizing rape events and otherforms of violence happen to them. This is a kind of violence that women in specific get exposed to. They have for a very long time in society been portrayed as sex objects meant to satisfy men’s sexual desires. It has become part of society’s norms to hear of such inhuman act. The authority has offered a deaf ear since it lets the perpetrators walk off without being prosecuted. For how long will this misbehavior continue? Who can help change the society’s perception regarding the already established gender stereotypes? The discussion below is proof that society condones rapes and relies on prevalent norms, attitudes and practices as an excuse. Marxist analysis brought out an economic perspective of the world’s first rape instance. According to the analysis, a continuous increase in labor force demand to prepare farms gave birth to tribal fights for material things like cattle, land and slaves (Brownmiller 12). During such struggles, women were raped before enslaving men who could not defend their property. Does it mean human beings, creatures assumed to have a high thinking capacity cannot understand the sexual concept? In real sense, no observations have ever been recorded by zoologists indicating animals in the wild raping each other. It is interesting to note that mating in their case only occur when the females go on heat (Brownmiller 13). In human beings, when men realized they could force women into having sex, they continued with the act and have always argued against it saying it is not a crime if a woman gives in. Rape exists and its eradication is very difficult. This is because women are already trained to be victims of rape from when they are children through the cultural norms. By teaching them to be submissive to men, they become vulnerable to such acts. Actually, men have always believed that all women are willing to be raped (Brownmiller 313). Due to this misconception, society always finds it difficult agreeing if there is rape in the first place since they consider women the cause of it all. Women have been denied a chance to explore their sexual fantasies. For this reason, male become violent due to cultural imbalance. In real sense, women always have an unsatisfactory fantasy life in relation to sex. For this reason, women are always forced to enjoy it in a manner stimulated by men. This kind of gender violence in society is due to unclear differentiation of gender alignment between women and men. Rape as a form of violence is something that occurs among people who know each other. Fathers rape their daughters, grandparents rape their grandkids, and family friends rape children. This makes it difficult to identify criminals in such cases (Kimmel 432). In addition, women have a tendency to keep things by themselves and only express them through emotions and body language. Their failure to report matters to the relevant authorities keeps the game going. The perpetrators enjoy the freedom of committing such crimes since they, in most cases threaten such women especially children of worse things should they leak out any information. By holding back such traumatic events, women tend to be overwhelmed by shame to the extent of committing suicide. According to Saint Augustine, women cannot withstand the pressure of being seen before people after sinning without her consent and thus would prefer punishing herself through death (Brownmiller 328). Men portray women psychologically as attractive and sexually desirable thus making them an easy target. Through the feminine nature of women, it is very easy for men to win rather than catch them this entails the use of feminine but appealing language that gets women drawn towards the trap. And since women portray a common characteristic of vulnerability, it is very easy for men to injure or wound them in pursuit of their sexual fantasies. For example in the 1950s, a common stereotype was that women had to beautiful, vulnerable and ready to satisfy men’s sexual fantasies. On the other hand, men were supposed to be strong, battle heroes and mature who only arrived home late in the evening ready to be treated nicely by their wives. Those who could not fit in the stereotype, especially women were considered “superbitch”. Even though rape is covered in news, the major reason is not always to solve the problem but instead, the news is meant to promote newspaper sales. To cover up the intention, editors carefully select rape cases with which they use stimulating adjectives and other enhanced elements to make the stories captivating. In real sense, the news is just meant to support male sexual fantasies by making women appear on the wrong side in such situations. Due to tabloid journalism, rape cases are among the very few women stories that newspapers include in their first most special pages. Each newspaper has a mastery manner through which it expresses the act of rape. For example, The Washington Post, on the better side reported informative issues regarding rape and offered convincing solutions. The New York Times on the other hand selectively chose rape cases to report especially those that involved middle class people. Actually, their main aim is using such personal fame to increase sales rather than offer solutions (338). For this reason, rape is something real in society but due to poor reporting and public awareness, the society seems to condone it. The media in itself seems to lead the society in the wrong directions by attesting to false witness. The police department, which is meant to offer protection and arrest the offenders, seems so relaxed. For instance, the statistics provided by the New York City police department, it indicates that black women are more vulnerable to rape than the white. However, the reality there are many young white women raped daily. The police cover up just to make it sound like the whites are not raped. This gives a false impression to the public. Since racial discrimination is still an issue in the contemporary American society, people get relaxed with the idea that black people require little help since they are not fully humans. Unknowingly, women always use body language unknowingly to men without really intending. Maybe, their message is that they fear sex but the signal display motivates men to approach them and get them into a relationship without their knowledge. Therefore, such women always fall prey by the way they stare at men. Conclusion The society condones rape because it is heavily inclined towards males’ power who in the long run picture women as the cause. By women being submissive, inferior, weak and fearful and sexually vulnerable, the society finds it difficult to blame men for such inhuman act. It has to be known that men are sexually possessed and thus care little about their victims regardless of age, race and religion. While media platforms are meant to help in stopping such acts, they use such news in stimulating sales by using an attractive language to get people attracted. The police departments as well give false statistics instead of working out in resolving such cases. The stereotypes revolving around women’s’ nature of presentation has highly generated a one sided inclined society in terms of rape. Women are only seen as sex objects meant to satisfy men’s’ sexual desires. This means that regardless of the force employed in fulfilling such desires, women have to remain submissive and give in to such demands. For this reason, the society remains silent when such things happen. Due to fear, women always tend to keep such traumatic events to themselves because the perpetrators are always close and family members in whom they have a lot of trust. The shame brought by such acts force most women to voluntarily opt in committing suicide because they cannot withstand living with the notion that they lost their virginity without their full consent. Works cited Brownmiller Susan. A Personal Statement: Against Our Will. New York: Vintage Publishers. 1975. Print. Kimmel Michael. “The Gendered Society.” The Gender of Violence. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. 421-452. Print. Read More