American Rape Culture

We live in a world where sexual assault can be dismissed with jokes or excuses. Where women are portrayed as objects, where the victim is to be blamed for, where male aggression is a normality, where today’s hits are all about having sex with many females, and which later on leads to incentive to report a rape, especially as in the majority of cases, the rapist goes unpunished. Rape culture is what describes the objectification of women, and is perpetuated through the use of misogynistic language, the sexualization of children, the notion or belief that a man cannot control his sex drive; it is a complex belief in which males get encouraged to sexual violence.

Music is a praised universal language everyone loves using, but unfortunately, it is not always the best influence of society. According to the article, “Rape Culture is Everywhere our kids can see it – watch your favorite music video to prove it.” Derrick Clifton states that, “in the music industry, mostly run by men, the message is primarily music that positions men as owners of women, objectifying them to the point of being seen as less than human.” music perpetuates rape culture in a way that men sing about women as objects, and that they are in control of this world. An example of a song would be “Celebrity” featuring Akon and Eminem, in which the rapper Eminem raps, “yeah, see me up all in your bitch means I’ma rape her, all I got for these hoes is dick duck tape and a stapler so bitch you better look for table scraps to scrape her” in regards to this Eminem feels this way because he is saying that he has more power and especially since he is famous. He is disrespecting female by cursing at them and by saying that he will rape them and the way he is going to torture them. This is just so horrifying for females it makes them feel insecure about the music, of men, of walking alone at night, of not knowing what a man has in mind and so much more.

I recently was talking to my dad about how females get raped and how they end up getting blamed for it and he told me “it’s their fault because they go looking for it by the way they dress” I strongly disagreed with him it’s not the victim’s fault based on how they dress or anything, what provokes a rapist is them themselves. We have been raised in a culture where sexual violence is frequent and rape excused and normalized by society and the media. An example of victim-blaming would be when Kavanagh was accused of raping Christine Blasey our president Trump twitted, “The radical left lawyers want the FBI to get involved NOW. Why didn’t someone call the FBI 36 years ago?” instead of questioning the victim why don’t they question Kavanagh? As said by Vicki Burns, we need “a nation where women who have been sexually assaulted can come forward and know they’ll be believed regardless of circumstance, a society where men who perpetrate sexual assault will come forward to disclose and admit their actions.” Victims are commonly asked about the situation based on what the victim was wearing or doing such as drinking just to blame the victim and make them feel like it’s all their fault. Females are still held responsible and hold each other responsible when sex goes wrong – when they become pregnant or are the victims of a rape and sexual assault or cause a scandal. Authorities and other critical people, say if a girl was raped or sexually assaulted, she is the guilty one because of how she was dressed or how ‘sexy’she looked. Girls provoke them to rape them. Which definitely is a non-sense. The world needs to be fair to each and everyone they need to give everyone the same chances and abilities to speak up and not be accused of it.

Male aggression has become normalized in today’s society. Now people say, boys will be boys” or that, “This is men stuff”. According to the article, “The Danger of “Boys will be boys”, Elizabeth J. Meyer states that “aggressive behaviors that a small number of children exhibit by linking it with “”natural”” or “”biological”” impulses, without examining other reasons for the aggression”. This being said, people think it’s all because of genes and natural things “boys do”. People start teaching boys at a young and how guys should act because that’s the social norm for society. They start teaching them about weapons and as they grow older the boys will grow up and think it’s normal to hit and fight soon they might even go overboard and worsen over time.

Male aggression could soon turn into committing domestic violence. I believe that children who grow up in families where there is violence may suffer behavioral and emotional disturbances. These can also be associated with perpetrating or experiencing violence later in their life. As said by “The world health organization”, “Men are more likely to perpetrate violence if they have low education, a history of child maltreatment, exposure to domestic violence”. The most common violence committed by a male is towards females. Females suffer big time with domestic violence because they are obviously seen as the weaker sex so some men think it’s ok for them to hit or abuse women it is not. Under no circumstances, females should be put down.

Domestic violence comes along with sexual violence. America has become the Nation where it emphasizes American rape culture. Where when sexual abuse occurs, it is not put into so much of a consideration. The predator most of the times gets away with his felonies. We have a president that does not take this seriously as because he was accused of sexual assault, of hurting women in the same way Harvey Weinstein has, but Donald Trump has not been excluded from the government. As said by, Rachel Disibio, “the message that is being sent out to men, boys, women, and girls is that it is OK for a man to sexually assault women, in fact, you may even end up president if you do. This is reinforcing sexual assault, in a deadly way.” with this being said that is why many cases of sexual assaults are not spoken about. Most women keep it to themselves because they know the men will get away with such a charge.

In the reading ( Two ways women can get hurt”: Advertisement and Violence, p.420), it explains how women are not only seen as wives, mothers, or ladies but a sexual object for men too. “ (Sex in advertising) the main goal, as in pornography, is usually power over another, either by physical dominance or preferred status of men or what is seen as the explosive power of female beauty and female sexuality.” Society has potentially influence companies/stores to advertise their product in order to be successfully sold. The easiest target of a group of people is young women and young men. In the men’s advertisement usually, you see the man having power over the girl. For example, in (two ways a woman can get hurt), there is a picture where a man is aggressively pushing a woman against the wall, pulling her hair, the woman is still wrapping her arm around him like if she liked it and she is ok with it. This is society telling men that women like to be aggressively held and encouraging the men to buy the ‘Kikit’ clothing at the same time. Advertisements encourage girls to buy sexy, appealing clothes because they will surely be looking beautiful. Yet when something bad as a rape occurs to them, it was definitely not a guy’s fault. Men no matter how sexy they can be looking, they cannot be raped. Maybe robbed because of how well dressed they are but not raped. They do not dress ‘provocative’ like girls.

The majority of rapist go unpunished due to not having enough “proof”. A new law came in, in 2016 where a rapist was supposed to stay in jail for about 6 months, but the community made a vote and according to the article, “Judge who gave Stanford sex attacker Brock Turner 6 month jail sentence is recalled from the bench” Claire Cohen states that, “An early count – with two-thirds of the county’s precincts reporting – indicated that 59 percent of voters in Santa Clara were in favor.” therefore they won the votes and now rapist are supposed to stay in for 3 years in prison, I would say for life but that is not the case. This former student from standard was accused of raping an unconscious woman and the judge only sentenced him for six months. This is so unfair because the incarcerated people cost the nation millions of dollars so they rather keep in prison murders, and drug dealers than a rapist or some rapist by themselves out of prison. Rape is such a painful and very devastating situation to go through, victims get raped daily and don’t just get scared for six months nor 3 years they get scared for life.

A friend of mine works at a 7/11 and they give food to the homeless, he had told me the saddest story which was that a homeless friend came in one day and asked for food and for his friend as well, my friend asked him “why didn’t he come get it ?” and the homeless responded “ he can’t…….” so then my friend asked “why not is he okay?” the homeless said, “ he is hurt and unable to come another homeless raped him” and not to mention that injured homeless was an elderly man, and the rapist was a middle adulthood big tall tough guy. My friend eventually called the police right away, but to be honest, who knows what had happened next since they were just homeless they would not get so much attention from the cops. Rape culture is not just about a female getting raped it’s about various genders that unfortunately have to go through it as well.

This American rape culture also emphasizes that only pretty girls get raped. “Ugly” girls could not possibly get raped. Men like rapping and assaulting pretty, sexy, and provocative girls. Most men state that “she looks too good not to be raped”. There is still an enormous gap between how a male domination treats women and girls and the dignity they deserve. American rape culture is real and it is not fake made up stuff sometimes we just do not want to accept reality and we decide to ignore things like that but we just can’t put this ugly reality to the side. People are constantly raped, constantly sexually assaulted, constantly abused, constantly blamed on. The truth is ugly. But by denying the obvious we continue to allow rapists to go unpunished and leave survivors silenced is worse.

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