Blaming Rape Victims in the United States Essay

One in six American women, and one in thirty-three men are murdered by serial killers. The government has announced an even more horrifying fact: One in nine underage girls were killed as well. Society has rushed to arms to imprison the killers and attempt to recover from this horrible tragedy -- wait. I apologize; this is the wrong crime. These are the statistics for rape according to RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network). The public immediately takes on a different outlook. Rape is much less damaging than murder, right? After all, surely the victims deserved it. They were drinking or dressed wrong. If they didn’t want to be raped they shouldn’t have been walking alone at night. It must have been the victim’s fault. There are countless websites and classes which teach women how not to be raped; they shouldn’t drink, shouldn’t take public transportation, and should return to their homes and lock their doors by nightfall. If the victims had only followed these rules, they would have been safe.

University of Tennessee Knoxville was recently involved in a lawsuit for enabling athletes to sexually assault women by silencing the victims and failing to provide disciplinary actions or even investigation onto the accused. While this is a recent case, this is not the first time this sort of behavior involving a school has been brought into light. One in four women will be sexually assaulted by the end of their undergraduate career (Posluszny). Sexual assault happens throughout society no matter what the gender or age, seeming to be in increasing epidemic over the last few years. While the idea of sexual assault is largely met with public hostility in theory, actions often contradict this. This contradiction lies heavily in a culture that is unwelcoming to the victims and often leads to the perpetrators being tolerated. The existence of rape culture in western society occurs due to the preservation of violent media, patriarchal standards, and the state of the criminal justice system. This culture cannot be improved until we confront each of these problems to their roots.

In the article “Athletic club weekend turns into a nightmare for college freshman” by Carol smith and Lee Van Der Voo, Emily Lorenzen shares her story of being a rape victim. Emily shares her account because she wants to help to prevent rape from happening to anyone else. After interviewing Emily the authors shared a statement expressing that “Emily lorenzen believes that if people hear her story, they will be more comfortable confronting the issue of sexual assault on campus. She wants more conversation, so that men get a clearer definition of rape, face stiffer penalties if they ignore it and administrators learn to reach out to women like her and show compassion. She especially wants bystanders to step up and protect people who are vulnerable.” Rape victims need support to not feel guilty or ashamed, and that is exactly what Emily and her father desire. On this topic, Shipman an influential contributor of the Spokane sexual assault

Sexual assault is not just a crime against an individual, it affects families, the community, and society as a whole. In recent years, our society has shifted to one of rape culture and rape myth. Rape myths are erroneous, stereotypical, and prejudicial beliefs about rape victims and reasons of sexual assault. Rape myths can impact survivors of assault, as well as the behavior and effectiveness of family, friends, medical and social services, and law enforcement (Rape Victim Advocates, 2016). Rape impacts our society by attacking the cohesion and mutual protection that makes a society. When we allow such crimes to go without the most vigorous and vigilant investigation and punishment, we allow for whole segments of society to be diminished, we are sending the message that society is okay with rape (Abbey,

Rape is a crime in which one person forces another person with threats, physical force or deception to have sex or sexual contact. In many cases rape is often through penetration, but victims are submitted to rape under different circumstances, such as oral sex, therefore rape has many muddled definitions. The various definitions of rape is a consequence of different cultural backgrounds and stereotypes. Sexual assaults have an effect on everyone either directly or indirectly, especially when victim blaming. Rape is not biased, for it can occur to any person despite their age, gender, religion, education level, sexual orientation or ethnicity. “According to the Department of Justice the average number of rape cases reported annually is approximately 89,000, but many victims are fearful to report their case to the police, for they do not want to be blamed for their assault.” (The Offender 's) Victim blaming in rape cases is a direct correlation to stereotypes. Some stereotypes that affect victim blaming is sexual orientation, promiscuity, gender roles, and race. “These contributing factors are stemmed from the much larger problem of society 's idea of gender and race stereotypes.” (Gill)

As the website “DoSomething.org” states, “1 in 5 women will be sexually assaulted while at college.” Of these sexual assault victims, “4 out of 5 rape victims subsequently suffer from chronic physical or psychological conditions.” (“11 Facts”). These victims “are 13 times more likely to attempt suicide than are people who have not been victims of a crime” (“11 Facts”). The troubles that face sexual assault victims and the families of those victims pose a huge threat not only to the government regarding costs and reactions of the people of the United States, but an even larger threat to past, present, and future victims of sexual assault. Any further protection for these victims from the government would certainly help the victims, the families of the victims, and the people of

One in four college-aged women has experienced rape or attempted rape, although 95% of attacks go unreported.” According to a survey from the American Association of University Women, the results showed that there are 3% of women in the colleges across the country have been raped or have suffered attempted rape. While only 2% of incapacitated rape survivors report assault. There are several reasons why many women do not report being raped or sexually assaulted. Many female college students buy into myths about rape and sexual assault causing them to believe that it was their fault and that they were somewhat responsible for what happened. Most victims usually blame themselves, so they choose not to come forward, some others are scared that law enforcement won’t believe them, while others are simply embarrassed, or they might be afraid their attacker might retaliate. A friend of my friend, she has been sexually assaulted after deinking, but sadly as a victim of a rape, she was too scared to step forward and she didn’t even report the rape to the law enforcement because she thought it was her fault to drink alcohol. She was also too embarrassed and uncomfortable to talk about the rape and answer any questions. Even she chose to drink alcohol, what happened is not her fault. Because whatever the reason is, no woman should blame herself for being raped or sexually

The Toronto Police Service are tasked with providing impartial legal security and protection to all Torontonians without discrimination based on gender, age, race, ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, and disability. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom under section 15 protects all members of society, including the most vulnerable and marginalized individuals are inherently granted equal protection and benefit of the law (Randall, 2010). The absence of equality and the promotion of stereotypical and social prejudices in police practices however were questioned in the case of Jane Doe v. Toronto (Metropolitan) Commissioners of Police. As the paper explores the consequences of police negligence, the Toronto Police Service exercised

A Victim is described as a person who is killed, harmed or injured due to a crime, accident, or some other action or event. A victim is also described as someone who has been tricked or duped. These definitions perfectly describe a victim of rape. A victim is not only harmed from a rape crime, but is also tricked into thinking that justice will occur. This is not the case. Fifty percent of people feel as if rape is the victims fault and never the rapist fault. Why is society so willing to blame the victim of an unlawful sexual act that violates the victim mentally and physically, instead of dealing with this social issue?

Kamilah Willingham, a victim of rape at Harvard University was questioned about not fighting her attacker who is over 200 pounds with a height of about 6’3 according to the victim. She was also questioned about their friendship, that maybe her attacker confused their friendship with something more than just a friendship. Caroline Heldman, a professor at Occidental College mentioned that victim-blaming has a silencing effect on survivors. Lack of action from university

Also, “Feminist researchers have criticised the above approaches, suggesting that examining victims’ behaviour for its role in the perpetration of a crime may constitute blaming the victim, thereby holding them responsible for their plight.” (Spalek, B 2006). Feminist would also criticize the way in which the positivist approach uses victim perception to address rape victims. They would argue that this leads to victim blaming and lack of trust within the criminal justice system, this could then results in secondary victimisation.

Women, girls, men, and boys are vulnerable victims of sexual assaults every day in our country. While females experience much higher rates of sexual assaults than males. The problem that this country faces is the lack of being able to track rapist, in addition to the victims that chose not to report their assault of being raped to the police. Issues of under reporting comes from the victims with multiple reasons that hinders them from reporting these heinous criminal acts. Thus, the sad realization is that the perpetrator is usually some one that you know, that you would of never of thought that they could and would, and do sexually assault you.

Rape and rape culture is a serious issue within the world we all live in today. What’s worse is men and women’s responses to rape, consequently promote ‘rape culture’ in society. The teachers statement was reflective of this problem and how societies perception and judgement of rape cases is far too tolerant. She is a woman, a wife and a stepmother to young girls, yet her comments only contribute to the “sweep it under the rug” attitude society holds for rape and rape culture. In her statement she indirectly validated the act

For most individuals, the thought of blaming the victim of a tragic experience for their own pain and suffering, seems preposterous. However, ascribing at least some of the blame to the victim is not uncommon (Niemi & Young, 2014). Victim blaming refers to individuals finding reasons to hold the victim of an incident responsible for the crime that took place (Hayes, Lorenz & Bell, 2013). For victims of sexual assault, who may already be experiencing self-blame and distrust of others, being blamed adds insult to injury (Harber, Podolski, & Williams, 2015). According to Harber et. al, victim blaming can also have long-term effects on victims, such as, increased anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. In an effort to increase support and resources for survivors of sexual assault researchers must determine why individuals are prone to blaming the victims rather than the perpetrator of a crime.

College-age adults are known to be high risk for sexual violence and most studies show that one in three women have experiences some type of sexual assault whether it was through physical force or harassment. These statics are known by most women on college campuses to ensure that women know and understand that this could happen to them. The issue is more than ensuring that women are aware of how protect themselves and know how to avoid these situations because it shouldn’t even be happening. When women are taught that they should know how to defend themselves we are saying that this type of behavior is normal and inevitable. We should shift from this dynamic and start teaching both men and women that this behavior is completely unacceptable and that sexually assaulting or harassing someone is NOT normal. This paper will mostly focus on incidents of rape and sexual assault on college campuses and what the outcome and reactions of these incidents were.