It is evident that society has created an indestructible gender binary when it is even reproduced in the ideology of crime, which is represented as ‘fear of crime’. As Ferraro explains, the fear of crime emerges from the perceived risk of being a victim of crime and the constrained behaviour – the reaction to the perceived risk (1996). These two concepts are reproduced in the media, leading females to believe they are always at risk of being victims. Occasionally, some productions work to reveal the truth to the public, to alleviate dominant gender ideologies that allow female fear to endure. One such song is Lady Gaga’s Til it Happens to You. This song and video challenges dominant gender ideology because even though women are sexually dominated by men, the song encourages victims to stand up and come together to fight domination. This song also reproduces fear of crime, but in a more realistic way than do other representations of crime in media because of how the video represents the setting, victims, and rapists. Overall, the video works to challenge perceived expectations of rape.
Dominant gender ideology refers to the attitudes regarding the domination of women by males in society, and how the roles, rights, and responsibilities of the genders are in line with the expectation of
…show more content…
But also like the dominant gender ideology, fear of crime is reproduced only in the ways society forces it to be reproduced. Fear of crime if exaggerated for women for all crimes except rape because this is the only crime women are more victimized for (Ferraro 1996). Therefore, even though the fear of rape is reproduced in the video, in that it illustrates to women why they should fear rape, the fear is a very real
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.
Taylor Swift, a pop icon and polarizing figure, is often known for her empowering music, feminist attitude, and meaningful lyrics. Many of her fans praise the feminist messages some of her songs deliver, however others say she comes from a position of privilege and only advocates for white women. Still, a common perception of Swift is that she has evolved from an innocent country singer into a more controversial and sometimes provocative pop singer. What is ignored though, is that despite this perception, themes depicted in “old” Taylor’s music still displayed highly problematic concepts about gender, just in less obvious ways. Particularly in her music video for “You Belong With Me,” the audience if presented with a fulfilling love story involving a nerdy girl getting the popular. On its surface, this concept may seem normal, but the narrative of this video unintentionally conveys significant gender issues in today’s society. Thus, through her 2008 music video for “You Belong With Me,” Taylor Swift ironically presents herself as the ideal nerdy girl next door who gets the guy when she suddenly turns beautiful while demonizing a cheerleader, revealing problematic notions of how women are supposed to look and behave in society, as well as reinforcing negative female stereotypes.
The media plays a massive role in the construction of crime, this includes the reporting of crime, the sensationalisation of stories, over-representation of different social groups and age of offenders. Construction of crime is also through stereotyping both ethnicity and gender. It is sometimes argued that the media is an ideological tool that is used to distort reality from its viewers. Female killers are often considered as ‘oxymoronic’, as they are seen as contradictory. Females are generally seen as caring beings but once they commit violent crimes, they are judged based individual circumstances and it is not taken into consideration that they could just as violent as male offenders in their own right. In this essay, I will be focusing on the gender stereotypes in media, specifically focusing on female killers.
Many argue that the victim encourages the behavior, that they are somewhat lesser of a victim. On the other hand, some excuse away the female’s actions by using their past as a reason to offend. Before addressing the double standard society needs to understand why females are viewed as less dangerous, the negative impacts that are placed on their victims, and why male victims are often viewed as responsible for the rape. Danger Level Number of Offenders The most common and most obvious reason why female offenders are considered less dangerous that male offenders are the number of women who actually commit these crimes are far less than their counterparts.
“Rape is as American as apple pie,” says blogger Jessica Valenti. She and other feminists describe our society as a “rape culture” where violence against women is almost invisible. According to feminists, films, magazines, fashion, books, music, and humor cooperate in conveying the message that women are there to be used, abused and exploited.(Kitchens, 2015)
Allen’s music video introduces half-naked women committing sexual acts in a provocative scene to establish the role of women in pop culture as dehumanizing. The scene starts with Allen joining the female dancers, clothed enough to barely cover their genitals, beginning their dance routine. As Allen sings, the dancers are seen performing the twerk, and the video zooms on the dancer’s genitals as the dancers lick their hands and slap their genitals. Allen’s incendiary scene highlights women as needing to be overly sexualized in music videos and performing suggestive behaviors to be included in pop culture. This scene dehumanizes women in music videos because women are expected to behave and dress in a specific manner or not be included in the
This article aimed to discover the predictors of fear of rape. The sample size was 224 women
Dominance over the relationship, a traditional male dominated relationship is whereby a man is in charge, in our time this may cause problems in the relationship, as women are no longer will to be subservient, might lead to separation and differing of opinions.
In society and cinema people tend to shy away from the hard topics, and the researcher thinks this show is intriguing because it say no, rape is a problem that needs to be addressed. Society not ignoring the issues with rape, or ignoring the voices of the rape victims can help “push women to be more open with their emotions” (Asher, 2017). The show truly represents how a victim is usually close to the perpetraor. They can be a friend or family, and they come out as completely normal. In the show her perpetrator was a friend and one of the popular people. The show does not shy away from the ugly truth because that is the only way people are going to be able to understand a rape survivor's mind (Asher,
Initially when I was emailing you about what I was going to formally analyze, we had discussed me writing about Chris Brown’s embodiment of double standards that allows famous men to be violent, specifically in regards to his attack of Rihanna in 2009. Although a serious issue that warrants attention and discussion, it appears Brown’s affinity for violence has taken yet another turn for the worse in the form of date rape. Although domestic violence is still a relevant topic in regards to Brown I found in his visual art he tends to celebrate rape culture more so than domestic violence. Because many of Brown’s recent music videos embody and make light of date rape I thought I would have more to write about for this particular assignment because
In 2010, a fourteen year old girl was raped multiple times over a nine month period by her forty-nine year old teacher. After taking the case to court, the victim was promptly labeled as much as a provoker of her rape as her teacher was. The girl´s rapist was sentenced to only thirty days in jail and her dead body was discovered in her room nearly three years later after she committed suicide. An estimate of one in six US women have experienced rape in some way, shape or form (3). People, predominantly women, spend their lives in fear. Refusing to walk home alone at night, being cautious about entering elevators with others and even being too scared to say no when asked on a date by someone are all impacts by this epidemic. Even worse, when
Every day millions of telephone calls are made all over the world. In the 1980’s, a teenager would ask their parents for a telephone in their bedroom. Today, more of the American population has telephones than do not. It is a concept that we take for granted and probably always will. In prisons, you get one telephone call. Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” music video starring herself and Beyonc֢é Knowles takes an extreme take on prison life, sexuality, and the importance of that one telephone call. It debuted in 2010 as one of the most controversial music videos of all time and is compared to movies because of the way it was directed and it’s length [9:32 minutes].
The fear of crime on a college campus is highlighted based upon sex differences. According to Pritchard, Jordan, and Wilcox (2015), college women, fear of stranger sexual assault may be influential to both cognitive perceptions of safety and emotional fear of crime. When compared to men, higher levels of fear among women are best predicted by the fear of being sexually assaulted. However, men have been found to express higher levels of fear of criminal assault when they perceive the risk of victimization to be more likely. Wongtongkam, Ward, Day, and Winefield, (2015) suggested that the belief that one must be violent to be masculine is to blame for the fighting between students of different vocational schools. Those who felt challenged often
(Weisstuch). The underlying message is that women live exclusively for the sexual gratification of men based on male power, privilege and preference. These images serve as a grim reminder that women are being exploited as sexual objects through rap videos. Therefore, the objectification of women through the means of rap music is a major influence in the exploitation of women.
Fear, in this topic, can be defined as an anticipation of victimization, rather than fear of an actual victimization. This type of fear relates to how vulnerable a person feels. In his article, Fear of crime: A review of the literature, Hale suggests that the mass media frequently create