Societal Response to Rape: A Critical Examination

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The public does not know how to adequately and appropriately respond to rape because usually when these incidents occur, typically perpetrated by men victimizing women, society tends to blame the survivor, while excusing and justifying the attacker. This almost always occurs when the perpetrator is a white, upper class male, seen in the most recent case with the rapist from Harvard who was only sentenced to six months in jail for raping an unconscious woman. Rapists of color are typically given longer sentences than white rapists, while sometimes, many of these rapists do not serve any time in jail nor are charged for their crime. Rape can happen by women to men, women to other women, and by men towards other men, but because of the unbalanced power dynamics that leave women hierarchically inferior to men, they are most often the victims to these social superiors.

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