“Don’t be a creep” posters are still peppered across the Point Grey campus, serving as tattered reminders of the series of sexual assaults that occurred at UBC last year. In August, the university published the final recommendations from the Safety Working Group that was established to address and respond to those events. Moving forward, UBC will invest $750,000 to improve campus lighting, by installing new fixtures and refining landscaping to minimize shadowed areas. An additional $250,000 will be spent on the other recommendations of the group: educational programs to combat the systemic and cultural causes of sexualized violence, improvement of the blue phone system, and the development of a mobile application that will share updates about campus safety and connect users more easily to campus programs like Safewalk. The Safewalk program itself is also to undergo some improvements, but it is unclear from the press release whether that funding is included in the above or will come from elsewhere. I was quoted in the Ubyssey saying that the working group’s decision to include longer-term, educational efforts …show more content…
The root of gendered violence, as it occurs in Western society, is rape culture – “a complex set of beliefs that encourage male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent.” Rape culture is the idea that a woman who wore a short skirt at the time of her assault was ‘asking for it’. Rape culture is when I walk down the Buchanan hallways and hear rape jokes or cavalier comments such as “I totally raped my midterm”. Rape culture is the guy who took advantage of me when I was drinking and said afterwards, “I was just trying to get as much as I could, that’s what guys
Oftentimes, the things individuals take for granted as preexisting facts are merely the products of social construction, which exert tremendous impacts on belief and action. Men and women are socially constructed categories inscribed by norms of masculinity and femininity that enables rape to occur. Catharine MacKinnon claims that rape is defined in a male perspective, which lacks the account of female experience. On the other hand, Sharon Marcus argues that rape is a constructed language that scripts the female body. As bell hooks points out, black men celebrate “rape culture” as a mean of expressing patriarchal dominance and endorsing female subordination. In order to redefine rape and to develop effective rape prevention, it is crucial to deconstruct the predetermined assumptions about men and women. Rape is socially constructed, through the ways how individuals possess misogynistic ideologies and endorse patriarchal power, turning the erotic fantasy of male dominance into “reality”.
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.,
In today’s society, there is evidence that gender roles hold high standards in forming an identity, whether that gender is male or female. These standards put pressure on either gender to uphold them and commit to specific behaviors/actions that validate their very being. For men, this includes being considered masculine, or portraying the sense that they are authoritative over others, in which this includes displaying attitudes that contribute to female subordination. According to Pascoe (2016) in his article “Good Guys Don’t Rape” men are given the opportunity to challenge rape yet reinforce rape attitudes at the same time that are contained within rape culture and masculinity considered “norms.” Pascoe, illustrates that rape can be seen
...ough group and individual models of deviant behaviour. The patriarchal pedagogy and structures that set the stage for permitting sexual assault to occur historically, still continue today, although in more subtle ways. Women are still seen as the property of men, and are protected as such. Men and women are still taught to occupy very different roles in today's world. Men are usually in power positions, especially of an economic nature, and women are seen as passive. Marxist-feminist and differential identification are two theories that can be used to effectively explicate the cycle of sexualized violence in Canadian society today. In order to deal with the occurrence of sexual assault in our society, we must examine its causes more deeply. We must understand the sociology of sexualized violence in order to effectively explicate its groups and individual dynamics.
The documentary Tough Guise reveals that the cause of violence traces back to cultural codes on masculinity and societal expectations rooted from such codes. Prior to watching the documentary, it was difficult to understand how culture played a part in men’s violence—it was thought to be more of a natural phenomenon linked to men’s biological traits. The documentary, however, disproves this: men’s violence in America is “made” by the society, not “given”, and thus cultural implications should be explored to understand where the violence really comes from.
In the past century, America has made great leaps in terms of equality. With the efforts made by the civil rights and suffrage movements, all people gained the right to vote. We are even moving forward with marriage equality, and currently fifteen states recognize same-sex marriage. But regardless of all of our progressive institutional movements forward, we continue to socially oppress women. Men’s violence against women has grown to be an internationally recognized epidemic, and will continue to grow unless measures be made to stop it. Domestic violence continues to be prevalent in the lives of many families, and is the primary cause of homelessness in half of cases for women in children. Many women have been forced to alter their behaviors out of fear of being sexually or physically assaulted. One out of every three women is sexually or physically abused in their lifetimes. The first thing that comes to mind is, there are a lot of people abusing women out there. Many people with opposing ideas may claim that men can be victims of violence perpetrated by women, but in instances not used for self-defense, it is rarely part of a systematic pattern of power and control through force or threat of force. In fact, 99% of rape is perpetrated by men, but when confronting men about the issue of violence against women, it is often combated with denial. Jackson Katz writes in his book, The Macho Paradox, “We take comfort in the idea of the aforementioned child-rapist murderer as a horrible aberration. A monster. We’re nothing like him.”(Katz 30). The sad truth is that most women who are raped are raped by men they know, or even men they love. Many men have a hard time believing that saying that most violence is perpetuated by men does not...
Sidewalks are different shapes and sizes, people tend to make their own decisions to which way they would want to go. Going through the motions on a sidewalk is similar as going through the motions of life. There are many turns that could get you to your final destination and turns that can also get you into places you would not feel so comfortable being. Staying on the right path and trying to get to where you need to go isn’t so hard but when you have other sidewalks with nice grass and big beautiful street lights that can be a very big distraction to the eye and that could cause problems in your life. Nice sidewalks sometimes don't always tend to continue a nice path so they can be very believing at first but when you make it to the end
For many years, there has been debate if running barefoot is truly a good practice for runners. Some world-class runners, like Abebe Bikila, Bruce Tulloh, and Zola Budd, have won on marathons, earning gold medals, while running without shoes on.
... that occurs by men upon women is neither stopped nor prevented because our society has yet to decide whether it is within gender roles for a man to act this way or whether this violence must be changed. In society today, violence is accepted by some people, as a way to maintain control, which is why men still believe that sexism is the right way to act like the ideal man.
Since 1970, there has been an increasing and alarming rise 138 percent of violent crimes committed by women. Still, while the equivalent percentage compared to male violence is small 15 percent to 85 percent the fact that the numbers have elevated so drastically points to something changing in society.
It is not a topic that is brought up often, especially at schools or at gatherings, yet it is crucial that everyone be educated, or at least informed on a topic that affects women every day. “Given that sexual violence continues to occur at high rates in the United States, it is vital that we understand attitudes and cultural norms that serve to minimize or foster tolerance of sexual violence” (Aosved, 481). Growing rates of sexual violence goes to prove that it is not taken seriously by many, especially when myths excuse the actions of the perpetrator and instead guilt victims into thinking they are responsible for the horrible act. Burt (1980), in her article titled, “Cultural myths and support for rape” attempts to make sense of the importance of stereotypes and myths, defined as prejudicial, stereotypes, or false beliefs about rape, rape victims and rapists- in creating a climate hostile to rape victims (Burt, 217). Examples of rape myths are such sayings as “only bad girls get raped”; “women ask for it”; “women cry rape” (Burt, 217). This only goes to prove that rape myths against women always blame and make it seem like it is the women’s fault she was raped and that she deserved it for “acting” a certain way. McMahon (2007), in her article titled, “Understanding community-specific rape myths” explains how Lonsway and Fitzgerald (1994) later described rape myths as “attitudes and beliefs that are generally
National data gives us an indication of the severity of this issue. When 1 in 5-woman report being victims of severe physical violence (NISVS, 2010), we must ask ourselves if enough is being done to prevent this from occurring. From a historical point, there has always almost been a distinction from men on woman violence. Based on the disparity of cases reported, male inflicted violence on females is much higher and prevalent. When the perpetrators of DV, and IPV are predominately males, we can no longer dismissed this issue as a cultural, or
The Feminist theory is based around gender inequalities and the concept of an imbalance of power between men and women and within men themselves. This theory argues that male sexual offenders are like normal men, however they have been conditioned within society and culture that when their masculinity is questioned, this creates a reaction where males sexually assault females to boost their male status within society. The feminist theory highlights how women’s experiences are often based around the struggle of male domination or patriarchy (Moore, 2008, p. 5) in relation to sexual offences. This article links closely with the Feminist Theory as
A college students health and safety is one of the most important parts of their college life without it would they have the college experience? It is unpredictable as to when you are liable to be in any danger and knowing your surroundings is the key to being safe. Especially starting out as freshman it is best to respectfully decline having any information or photos published for any reason on campus for it isn't uncommon for upperclassmen and fraternities to use this information to “target” naive freshman. When entering college it essential for students to be aware of their surroundings and where the emergency phones are. The UCA Police Department is located on campus at 6 W J Sowder St, or directly between
Whether we realize it or not, whether we acknowledge it or not, there is a lack of respect for women in the world. This lack of respect leads to rape and sexual assault and the perpetuation of rape culture in our society. “Rape culture is a term that was coined by feminists in the United States in the 1970’s. It was designed to show the ways in which society blamed victims of sexual assault and normalized male sexual violence.” (WAVAW.ca).