Why Rape isn’t the Victim’s Fault Rape Culture is an environment in which rape is prevalent and which sexual violence is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture. Rape culture is perpetuated through the use of misogynistic language, the objectification of male and female bodies, and the glamorization of sexual violence. Is rape due to the own actions and appearance of a person? If you’re like me then, no, it’s not their fault. The victim doesn’t want to be harassed by anyone whether it be man or woman. Any decent human being would agree, picture a child playing innocently with their toys only to be kidnapped and raped by a random person. How could it be THEIR fault? It can’t be, they’ve done nothing wrong. The same goes for …show more content…
In addition to, rapists often receive the upper hand and they get away with nothing more than a slap on the wrist. The world serves in their favor such as giving rapists the option to visitation rights to their child. As another rapist walks free, the blame is put onto the victim. However, rape is never the victim’s fault. To begin with, the apparel of a person who was raped doesn’t justify any actions made by the assaulter. The idea that clothing could have weight in a conversation about sexual assault may sound familiar to you. Statements like "She was asking for it" in relation to someone's clothing and their rape have been swirling around for years, along with rape survivors being asked things like "Well, what were you wearing?" The belief that men and women alike shouldn’t wear revealing clothing so they won’t entice others to sexually assault them is completely baffling. Their clothing doesn’t scream …show more content…
They are “ordinary” and “normal” individuals who sexually assault victims to assert power and control over them and inflict violence, humiliation and degradation. Anytime someone is forced to have sex against their will, they have been sexually assaulted, regardless of whether or not they fought back or said "no". There are many reasons why a victim might not physically fight their attacker including shock, fear, threats or the size and strength of the attacker. For example, a rapist who has sparked outrage throughout the nation. His name is Brock Turner he, like most rapists, raped an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. Furthermore, his sentence was reduced to a short six months while others believed it should be stretched into six years. The judge refused, due to believing that his swimming skills will be affected. Another reason is Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky explained, “Turner's age and lack of criminal history made him feel that imposing a six-month jail sentence with probation was appropriate. Turner also has to register as a sex offender.” With this in mind, rapists receive the upper hand. They do the unthinkable simply because they cannot control their urges. As I mentioned before, victims cannot defend themselves for a number of reasons. And even after the act has been done the victims still never receive the justice they
Rape is a virus that infects every nation, culture and society. It is constantly referred to as “the unfinished murder”, because of the deep state of despair the rapist leaves the victim in. There is no common identifiable trend that determines who will be a rape victim. Women are not assaulted because of their attitudes or actions, they are attacked simply because they are present. With rapists, just as with their victims, there is no identifiable trend. The old myth that only “sick, dirty, old, perverted men” commit rapes is a lie that society tells itself in order to sleep better at night. The startling truth is that most rapists work under a veil of normalcy. In order for the percentage of rapes to decrease, we have to change our ideas about rape and let go of the old myths of the past. And until this happens, rape will continue to plague our world at large.
One of the most horrible things that has erupted from the subjugation of women is rape culture. Rape culture is the downplaying of the crime of rape to appease the violator, the accusation that the victim made a choice that led to their rape, or even jokes that suggest rape. According to Jessica Valenti’s, “In Rape Tragedies, the Shame Is Ours,” in today's world many people give in to rape culture by participating in these acts that somehow change our mindsets into believing that, “it is more shameful to be raped than to be a rapist”. Once ...
Understanding the drive for molestation of an individual is hard to grasp. “Sick” is the word that parents and other individuals would describe it as. An article written to provide information on victims of sexual assault stated, “Approximately 1.8 million adolescents in the United States have been the victims of sexual assault” (NSOPW). The take on the issue is a very touchy subject to talk about. According to Murray, “Most victims happen to be women or young girls and their rapists are usually close family, friends, or distant acquaintances” (211). Most cases go unknown for various reasons. Predominantly, the victims are too afraid to speak up in fear of the molester finding out or they feel a sense of embarrassment by their families reaction
Legal systems and the world, for example will blame the rape victim (innocent) and in turn them into the problem.
Deviant behavior is defined as a behavior or action that is against the social norms of society. Rape is a deviant behavior that is a type of sexual assaults that usually involving sexual intercourse. This happens when one person or more initiates sexual acts against another person without that person's consent. The act can be sometimes carried out by physical force, coercion, or a person not being able to give valid consent. Someone who is unconscious, incapacitated, or below the legal age of consent would fall under that category. The term rape is sometimes used interchangeably with the term sexual assault. According to R.A.I.N (Rape, Abuse and Incet National Network, 2009) 44% of rape victims are under age 18 and 80% are under age 30. It is sad to report that every 2 minutes another American is assaulted which leaves an average of 237,868 victims, age 12 or older of sexual assault each year (R.A.I.N 2009). So who is to blame for this growing problem? It would be surprising to hear that many times people blame the victims. This is a growing concern for us all because it has led to a tremendous amount of unreported incidents which leads to the perpetrator roaming the streets waiting to strike again. Rape can lead to have severe traumatization and victim can suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder along with causing psychological harm and has been shown to cause physical injury, or have additional effects on the victim, such as acquiring of a sexually transmitted infection or becoming pregnant. Sadly following a rape, a victim may face violence or threats thereafter from the rapist.
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.
Rape culture, a term created by feminists in the 1970’s has some serious connotations behind it. Essentially this phrase explicitly states that within our society due to sexism women are blamed for their sexual abuse. This belief, that a woman is to blame for the harm caused to her is not only believed socially but enforces politically. Men are one of the most dominant groups in society. Thus, in this particular case men are the bourgeois and women and the proletarians. These men in power are able to control what civilians read, hear and see everyday meaning they are able to push a cultural hegemony, cultural hegemony is the domination of society by a ruling class that purposely influences the thoughts and beliefs of society for their benefit.
Sexual violence can happen to anyone. In fact, one out of every six women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime. Although, it is women who are targeted most often, it is important to understand that rape can occur to any person, regardless of various factors such as age, race, sex, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. What many people do not ponder is that most of the time when a woman is raped, she is actually blamed for the assault. As Aosved mentions in her article titled, ‘Co-occurrence of Rape Myth Acceptance, Sexism, Racism, Homophobia, Ageism, Classism, and Religious Intolerance’, she states
The question is unthinkable given the conditions: “Did you ever have a sexually transmitted disease?” This is one of the first questions to which a rape victim must respond. In what way does her sexual history play any role in her case against a defendant? We have “double jeopardy” to protect people from unfair prosecution, but rape victims are repeatedly put on trial over and over for crimes perpetrated against them. Prosecutors are allowed to judge rape victims in a critical light, aggressively emphasizing many factors related to her personal life, her appearance, or her action just prior to the rape that she endured. These factors are brought out to influence a jury’s perception of the victim creating doubt about whether the crime may not in fact have been the victim’s fault. Did she deserve it? Was she asking for it? There are cases in which rape victims are treated differently due to the lack of understanding and prejudice which can be brought to bear against victims. Prejudice is the act of forming an unreasonable judgment against another. These prejudgments can affect a victim’s emotional status, actually leading some victims to end up asking themselves if the transgression was their fault. Three cases will reveal the complexity of what is at stake.
Rape and sexual violence is a very serious problem that affects millions of people each year. Rape is someone taking advantage of another person sexually. Sexual assault can be verbal, physical, visual, or anything that forces a person to join in unwanted sexual contact or attention. ("Sexual Assault.") Rape is one of the most underreported crimes. In 2002, only thirty-nine percent of rapes and sexual assaults were reported to law officials. ("Sexual Violence: Fact Sheet.") Victims sometimes do not report that they have raped because of shame or feeling that it was their fault. It is never the victim's fault. "Victim blaming" is holding the victim of a crime to be in a whole or in partly responsible for what had happened to them. Most victims believe this. ("Myths and Facts about Sexual Violence.")
As research shows (cite all above research), cognitive processes within our brains lead to the tendency of victim blaming. Starting with rape myths and rape scripts, it is easy to see how our society and culture breeds victim-blaming attitudes. Historically, the United States, like many other industrialized countries, developed from a patriarchal society characterized by men holding the power and women expected to be submissive. With such an atmosphere, crimes against women
Society should never blame the victim. No one ever asks to be raped. If they do they aren’t quite right in the head. We live in a free country if you want to walk down the street naked you should be able to without having to worry about being raped. True enough you would be arrested for indecent exposure but that would be the extent of it. When a rape/ murder case goes on trial the victim is usually treated like they’re the one on trial and not the defendant. Unless the victim came up to you and said that they wanted to be raped which I highly doubt you shouldn’t do it. The victim’s past or current lifestyle shouldn’t matter. Most people tend to forget that. If they tell you no you should just leave it alone. No means no in no way does it mean yes. (Holmes, Resnick and Kilpatrick) (Campbell and Wasco)
With this type of reaction, victims feel as if they are paralyzed during the sexual assault and are unable to think, act, or respond in ways that they would if they weren’t experiencing such significant trauma.” They don’t know what to do, and so they do nothing. Looking back, it seems painfully obvious to them what they should have done. However, even when someone fights back, that sometimes doesn’t do anything. Sexual assault is not about sexuality.
the situation is, and victim blaming is one of those. Victim blaming is where someone does a really terrible thing like rape, and they try and blame it on the victim to make it look like it was the victim’s fault. There is no law to protect the people that this happens to. It is a serious matter and needs to have attention brought to it.
Assigning blame has become an increasingly difficult and complex concept to understand, especially in our legal court system. I associate blame with being held responsible for the consequences of one’s intentional actions. In regards to sexual assault cases, I think the blame should not be placed on the victims, but rather on the perpetrators. Victim blaming justifies the perpetrator’s actions, discourages sexual assault reportings, and can have psychological effects on the victim.