Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson novel Target accounts the life of a sixteen year old boy name Grady West . Grady was your average high school sixteen year old who hung out with a group of friends, very outgoing, and likable. But, everything changed on a tragic uneventful November night. While walking home Grady was attack, beaten, and raped. From that very moment Grady’s life changed. He would no longer became the Grady he once was to his friends, family, and even to himself. Grady tried to escape his friends, old school, and what happened that night. But, every so often the memories reoccur. A year later, he now attended Thomas Jefferson High where no one would know who he was and what had happened to him. His journey at his new school is tested. He meets an African American student name Jess, who becomes his friend instantly and tries to help him breakout his shell. He is haunted by the events of his rape daily. Along the way he meets and befriends other classmates like Pearl and Fred. As time progress Grady finds the way to mention his rape to his new friends as well as the friends he had before. Through it all they help him get better.
Throughout the novel Grady questioned that night. He wonders what made him the target to those two men to rape him. He would ask himself if the men notice the word “target” on his back and if that was the reason why they had chosen him. He felt as though if his whole life was he a target and why it had happened to him . There have been many actions where he would find himself being a target to others.. One incident was when he was very young and his neighbor Mr. Howell had sexually assaulted him. He asks himself if that was beginning of what was to come. Or when a boy name Trevor had lik...
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The novel mentions the many double standards involving men and women who are victims of sexual assaults. Grady was stripped of masculinity when he was raped. The two men called him all sort of names such as “sissy”, “a girl”, “queer “, and other names. Grady wonder why people felt that because he was a male he should had been able to fight those men because men are known as fighters, its embedded in their DNA and that’s why men have testosterone. In Grady’s mind in the same position that he was in if it was a girl then they were not expected to fight back. In the case of rape the novel mention that “men were not supposed to rape men. “ “They did that to women.” Many aren’t familiar with the thought that men can be rape or sexually assaulted too and the reasoning behind that is, in cases involving victimization men are less likely to report it.
This past semester I read the book Slam by Walter Dean Myers. The setting is in a run down part of town in a big city that was un-ginven. The story line is that Slam the main character is going to a new school that is a white school where he once went to a predominately was black and so is he. He is a senior going into a new school because of his grades; he also came from a school where he was one of the best basketball players. His friend was the best player for his old school. He also has a girl that he likes and the start going out. His dad does not work well not all the time his grandma is dying. The main characters are Slam, Goldy.
Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is a story written in the first person about a young girl named Melinda Sordino. The title of the book, Speak, is ironically based on the fact that Melinda chooses not to speak. The book is written in the form of a monologue in the mind of Melinda, a teenage introvert. This story depicts the story of a very miserable freshman year of high school. Although there are several people in her high school, Melinda secludes herself from them all. There are several people in her school that used to be her friend in middle school, but not anymore. Not after what she did over the summer. What she did was call the cops on an end of summer party on of her friends was throwing. Although all her classmates think there was no reason to call, only Melinda knows the real reason. Even if they cared to know the real reason, there is no way she could tell them. A personal rape story is not something that flows freely off the tongue. Throughout the story Melinda describes the pain she is going through every day as a result of her rape. The rape of a teenage girl often leads to depression. Melinda is convinced that nobody understands her, nor would they even if they knew what happened that summer. Once a happy girl, Melinda is now depressed and withdrawn from the world. She hardly ever speaks, nor does she do well in school. She bites her lips and her nails until they bleed. Her parents seem to think she is just going through a faze, but little do they know, their daughter has undergone a life changing trauma that will affect her life forever.
In the same way the book is similar to the movie, literary devices play an important role in enhancing the novel and films conflict of Man Vs. Man of the character Melinda because she feared her rapist Andy Evan who was a senior in her high school and was in constant struggle to avoid him. For example, "IT sees me,IT smiles and winks. Good thing my lips are stitched together or I'd throw up" pg. (22.2). The antagonist Andy Evans kept teasing the protagonist Melinda to relive her initial experience everytime she would see him. Melinda calls the police during a party in the summer before her freshman year in high school, which causes the party to stop and the people from the party finds out she called the police. She begins her freshman year as an outcast because they blamed her for getting them in trouble. Since she didn't want to tell anyone about that night all her friends isolated from Melinda. Throughout the film and movie it shows several of her traumatic flashbacks of her being raped. For example she mentions in the book, "I have to slice open her belly. She doesn't say a word. She is already dead. A scream starts in my gut – I can ...
The plot of the book, Speak is that Melinda Sordino, a freshman at Merryweather High went to an end of the summer party with some of her friends. Things take a turn for the worst when a senior named Andy Evans sexually assaults her at the party without her friends knowing about it. Melinda is frightened, afraid, and does not know what to do so she calls 911 busting the party, and causing her friends and everyone at that school to hate her, even if they don’t know her.
Susan Brownmiller’s excerpt Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape written in 1975 explores rape. It argues that from the beginning of time men had an advantage over women because their genitalia can serve as a weapon, which, in turn, generates constant fear. “Rape provides a sufficient threat to keep all women in a constant state of intimidation, forever conscious of the knowledge that the biological tool must be held in awe for it may turn to weapon with sudden swiftness borne of harmful intent”(Brownmiller, 312). Females are subjected to the harsh reality of rape at a young age through fairytales such as Little Red Riding Hood. Stories like these emphasize how weak women are and how heroic, brave and strong men are. Susan Brownmiller believes that the way to destroy the idea that “you can’t thread a moving needle,” and “no women can be raped against her will” by spreading awareness about rape and how it is a moral wrongdoing and punishable under the
Discriminating gender roles throughout the movie leaves one to believe if they are supposed to act a certain way. This film gives women and men roles that don’t exist anymore, during the 60s women were known to care for the family and take care of the house, basically working at home. However, a male was supposed to fight for his family, doing all the hard work so his wife didn’t have too. In today’s world, everyone does what makes them happy. You can’t tell a woman to stay at home, that makes them feel useless. Furthermore, males still play the roles of hard workers, they are powerful compared to a woman. However, in today’s world a male knows it isn’t right to boss a woman around, where in the 60s, it happened, today women have rights to do what they want not what they are
Society influences the socioeconomic inequalities between people, which usually results in differing social and cultural norms surrounding violence. These norms might include male dominance over women, while certain cultural norms might support violence and claim it to be a reasonable method to resolve conflicts in neighborhoods. We see this shown in the film because they talk about how violence is a two step process. The first part is the thought that, ‘I have a grievance with someone’, and the second part is that the grievance justifies violence (James et al.,
Domestic violence has been plaguing our society for years. There are many abusive relationships, and the only question to ask is: why? The main answer is control. The controlling characteristic that males attribute to their masculinity is the cause to these abusive relationships. When males don’t have control they feel their masculinity is threatened and they need to do something about it. This doesn’t occur in just their relationships, but rather every facet of life. Men are constantly in a struggle for power and control whether it is at work, home, during sports, or in a relationship, this remains true. So the only way for them to get this power is for them to be “men”; tough, strong, masculine, ones that demand and take power. Where is this thirst for control coming from? Is it the natural structure of a man or is it a social construct? The answer is that it’s the social construction of a patriarchy that results in this thirst for control due to fear. The fear is being emasculated, whether it is by gayness, or femininity. Men use the fear created from domestic violence to gain control, but yet women do have some control in a relationship it is this vague boundary of how much control that leads to domestic violence.
Throughout literature and truth there is always a steady progression of sexism and gender roles. A tradition of fathers passing it down to sons and them passing down to their sons and so on and so forth, however, the trend does not stop there, with women being taught to be docile and meek, while men provide, there is a mentality that is taught along with it. In The Color of Water, McBride's mother describes being raped by her father, the provider and protector of the household. She recalled, “Anytime he had a chance he’s try to get close to me or crawl into my bed with me and molest me… But it affected me in a lot of ways, what he did to me. I had very low self-esteem as a child, which i kept with me for many, many, years.” (McBride 43). Because
“Women and men do not receive an equal education because outside of the classroom women are perceived not as sovereign beings but as prey” (Rich 446). Women already have this preconceived notion that they not only have to compete with men in school but the pressure that society puts on them to compete with other women every day. The body shaming epidemic going on now tells women that if they don’t have the right measurement then you are not considered attractive, it is another example of how women are viewed as a whole instead of as individuals. Adrienne Rich also discusses the obstacle that women face every day, but no one wants to talk about, rape. “How much of my working energy is drained by the subliminal knowledge that as a woman, I test my physical right to exist each time I go out alone?” What Rich is expressing is that women always have the unnecessary burden, of not only being considered the weaker sex in society but also physically being reminded that as women doing something as mundane as walking to your car you have to be conscious of the possibility of being raped. This is affecting women outside of the classroom setting, if women were represented more in mainstream curriculum there would not be such a conception about gender
Burt explains that “the hypothesized net effect of rape myths is to deny or reduce perceived injury or to blame the victims for their own victimization” (Burt, 217). When men get raped they don't see it as getting raped. Yet, when it comes to women they are more easily blamed because of “poor choices” like walking down an alleyway late at night, wearing sexy clothes or for drinking too much, giving a man a “justifiable” reason for his actions. McMahon also describes how “common rape myths include the belief that the way a woman dresses or acts indicates that “she wanted it” and that rape occurs because men cannot control their sexual impulses” (McMahon, 357). Chapleau, Oswald and Russel also explicate how “benevolent sexism is associated with victim blaming to protect one’s belief in a just world” (602). Benevolent sexism is the reverent attitudes that reward women who are traditionally feminine and is similar to hostile sexism in the idea that hostile sexism is when women are objectified or degraded often presented as anger, resentment or fear, while benevolent sexism is just as harmful, but put into a positive disguise, in a casual nonchalant manner that doesn’t make it so
From the very beginning of the movie, we witness a man (Rick) and a women (Jean) walking down the street. When threatened by two men, Jean immediately turns to her husband for protection regardless of the fact that he is no better equipped to deal with the threat. This scene highlights traditional gender roles found in society. Men are typically casted as protectors who are superior to women whereas women are weak and in need of protection. Another example of male’s superiority is when Officer Ryan pulls over Cameron and Christine and utilizes his position as a man with authority to sexually assault
Plot Summary: This is a story about a kid named Crash. When he was four he met this boy named James but that was all that was told about him so I didn’t put his name in the character list because he wasn’t all that important. He and Crash got into a lot of trouble at their house I mean a lot so one day when they were 12 and 13 Crash’s mother kicked him and his friend James out to go to the arcade. There they met this girl Winnie that crash liked I mean loved dearly but, she never really realized him until that day when they went to the arcade.
This typology involves either a passive woman who abuses due to an abusive male partner or a male-female couple who both equally abuse (Vandiver & Kercher). There are many issues involved with these typologies. The first issue is that the male becomes primarily responsible for the abuse instead of the female. In the situation of a passive woman whose abusive partner forces her to abuse, the victims of the abuse are most often their own children. In situations of domestic abuse, most women worry about the safety of their children or others before their personal safety. This makes it difficult to believe that a woman, even under severe abuse, would harm her children. In the case of a team who takes part in the abuse equally, when coupled with the idea that women are not physically capable of violence, the male gets burdened with the responsibility for the crime. The titles of the typologies themselves place the largest emphasis on the male and hence unconsciously place the responsibility of the crime on the male partner. Comparatively the male typologies use a more gender neutral term, “gang rape,” which makes all participating offenders responsible for the crime regardless of their level of participation. The criminal justice system overlooks these female offenders because of the idea that they
...use because domestic violence is not about sexual orientation, it is about power. Male victims of domestic violence are overshadowed by the presumption that male can only be the abusers, and because of this stereotypes, male victims are forced into hiding for fear of embarrassment.