Gender Roles In Puerto Rican Rape Culture

1.Based on Serono’s ideas rape culture is something that cannot be solved with “single-tact solutions”. The “men-as-predator/sexual aggressor assumption” (Serano 422) allows women to believe that the man is always a predator, and therefore leads to men being aggressive leading to the cycle of rape culture. Overall to change rape culture we must change this assumption that currently dominates out thinking.

Both of these essays reflect on facing prejudice with a particular audience in mind: Cofer’s intended demographic is white men, while Staples is addressing society as a whole, but particularly white women. Cofer wants men to know that Latina women are not the sexual deviants they are stereotyped as; they are not simply the “whore,

Have you ever reflected on how important your culture is to you? A culture is defined as a group of people from a particular location or within a community that shares beliefs, manners, customs and numerous habitual actions that are passed down to future generations. While cultures may share particular attributes, without a doubt, they are all special and unique. Based on the upbringings and the values a person has acquired over time, they give you the opportunity to explore new ideas and meet a diverse set of people. Growing up with a Hispanic background, has allowed me to know the world that I am accustomed to today. Although I am honored to have the opportunity to experience everything within the Hispanic culture, there are also unpleasant issues that are associated with it. Gender roles, which are defined as behaviors that are more masculine or feminine, are expected to be performed by one gender. Consequently, both men and women are limited in their independence and their individuality.

* Gender Roles in Puerto Rico have become more progressive in recent years, however the topical gender roles are traditional. Boys are boys and girls are girls. Recently a new governor was elected, Gloria Ruiz Kuilan,a reporter from " El Nuevo Dia" characterizes the recent outcry from LGBT community that wished to challenge the typical traditional ideas of the school system. Even still, the overall consensus in schools are that gender roles are more conservative.

The purpose of this paper is for the writer to analyze the effects of sexual abuse among the Latino community. The writer will be analyzing a client from the current field. A diagnosis will be given to the client and treatment plan will be developed.

According to Marshall University’s Women Center, the definition of rape culture is “an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture.” (“Rape Culture.”) This can be found in ideas such as victim-blaming, trivialization of assault, and pressure for individuals to adhere to strict gender roles. This culture is

The essay “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” by Judith Ortiz Cofer is about deprivation that Latin women go through everyday due to stereotypes that society make up. Stereotypes play a big role in the way that individuals are identified by society. Cofer describes her personal experiences of being a Latin woman, and her struggles that she has to face because of the stereotypes. Cofer tells us of some incidences that happened throughout her life. Like going to London for a summer to Oxford University, where a man sees her on a bus, drops to his knees and sings his own version of “Maria” from West Side Story. Even though she was aggravated, she tried to be calm while everyone around her were amused by the young man’s song. She describes how growing up during 1960’s in New Jersey, she suffered from “cultural schizophrenia” which meant she was forced to keep on with her heritage. Being a Latin woman you’re raised strictly and they have high expectations. Mothers encouraged their daughters to act like mature women. Cofer explains another stereotype, such as the “hot tamale”, where woman are viewed as sexual objects. Woman are usually misinterpreted because of the way they are dressed. Some men treat Latin woman without respect. She talks about when she was at a hotel. A man approached her and began to sing the song of “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” in the tune of “La Bamba”. She was offended by the man’s song. People view Latin’s as house maids,

“In The Myth of the Latin Woman: Just Met a Girl Named Maria”, by Judith Ortiz Cofer, the author spoke about several instances of misperceptions. In the first part of her essay, you can see how frustrated the writer was, having to speak about the experiences most Latina women faced being consistently mistaken for the typical “Maria”. In most chauvinists’ views, they see the world through one lens. If they say something is “so”, then that’s it, it’s so. They never really establish a basis for their rhetoric. They accuse, label and blame. Most of the time, their views and opinions are “facts” that are unfounded. They use only covert methods to impart their belief, based on

I can also feel the rigid gender roles and norms in the Mexican American culture. In Movimientos de rebeldia y las culturas que traicionan, Anzaldua mentions that the Mexican culture barely accepts deviant behaviors. Their culture expects women to be commitment to men and if they are not, they are labeled as a selfish. Women are valued as a wife and mother, and “women are made to feel total failures if they don’t marry and have children.” Because of fear of being unaccepted and abandoned by their own culture, “some conform to the values of the culture, push the unacceptable parts into the shadows.” The Mexican women fight for women’s rights in their mother culture first, before they fight against the racism or sexism in white dominant culture.

The relationship between the gender roles reflected in telenovelas and the the role of women in Latin American countries is a matter of parallelism. This is because as Judith Butler, the author of the book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, emphasized that it is “impossible to separate out ‘gender’ from the political and cultural intersections in which it is invariably produced and maintained”. Gender is undeniably socially constructed, and is a product of the values deemed important by that society being constantly reenacted and reinforced. In that sense, telenovelas are also another medium through which beliefs in gender can be relayed to the audience, forming what is called the “imaginable domain of gender” as they either perpetuate or go against ideal hegemony (Beard 2003).

In the 21st century, the U.S culture teaches women to accept violence. Young ladies are told about dress codes to not distract boys from their education. Young ladies are also taught that they are not allowed to show their skin because it's inappropriate and it shows “too much”. Examples of rape culture are sexual jokes, blaming the

Over several years gender roles have been present in our daily lives. Society has preconceived judgments on what role each gender should play and when it is ok to go against societal norms. Although as the years continue to progress and societal norms begin to change, one thing that has remained the same is the gender role stigma. Gender roles have been instilled within us even before we exit our mother’s womb, from the color the newborns room is painted in down to the color clothes they wear. Plenty of research has been conducted on gender roles in Western culture. Some of the components researchers looked for were, what gender roles are, how they affect society and the individual along with the culture and history behind where it began (Cobb, R. A., Walsh, C. E., & Priest, J. B. (2009). While researching gender roles and different cultures I could not help but notice there were little to no research on gender roles within the Caribbean culture. This gap of literature helped me pose the question why is there plenty of research on gender roles in Western culture, but a scarce amount of research on gender roles in the Caribbean culture? Along with, how will we be able to eliminate or shift societal norms of what gender roles should be? It is important to touch on what gender roles are like in the Caribbean culture because then we can compare and contrasts how gender roles are displayed within various cultures and ultimately come up with a solution or suggestions on how to

Latin American culture is usually stereotyped as Hispanic culture simply because of the Spanish association with each other. One major concept that dignifies this culture is honor. The concept of honor is very important in Latin America. Any decision and behavior of each individual becomes based largely on the pleasing of the family. The women become pressured with containing their honor. The women also get pressured into purity; mainly because it shows they have respect for themselves and their family. Expectation involving women revolve around retaining their virginity and purity longer than a male. Theoretically, women have their ‘own’ honor; but in reality their honor depicts on the whole family. Which explains the reasoning behind why losing the honor shames everyone. The biggest action that could take away a woman’s honor would be premarital sex. Containing your virginity until marriage shall bring virtuous honor to one’s

be used to look at sexual and domestic violence, especially when considering colonial relationships, which are “themselves gendered and sexualized” (8). Smith closely examines this specific relationship between the colonists and Native American women. The colonists’ oppression of Native women influences perception of indigenous women’s behavior, beliefs, and views. This oppression acts on racial, gender, and sexual levels and also dictates the treatment of Native women. As Winona LaDuke writes in her foreword to this text, “as a Native woman, you always know that you will be viewed as a woman of color, hence your politics will be race based, you analysis marginalized, and your experience seen as limited” (xvii). Colonial based oppression has taken over the lives of Native people, until it exerts an influence—such as the one mentioned by LaDuke—in all areas of their culture and lives. Racism and oppression have, as Smith argues, become a “part of the social fabric” (8). According to Smith, racism is utilized as a method to eradicate certain enemies of the state; in this case, Native Americans. This erasure can be seen through the seeming “absence” of indigenous people. Smith states that “Native peoples are a permanent ‘present absence’ in the U.S. colonial imagination, an ‘absence’ that reinforces at every turn the conviction that Native people are indeed

Most people would agree that as you grow up you learn by seeing, feeling ,touching , smelling, and hearing . Albert Bandura supports this by a theory he created called the Social Learning Theory (McLeod, 2011). Social Learning Theory is a theory that explains that behavior is learned by your social environment, interactions and observations of others. With this theory I would say it supports opinion in which I would say that rape is not something somebody just decides one day to do. I believe that rape is learned throughout time. There are many social and even media factors that sometimes may come off with the intention that rape is acceptable. In some media factors they may even perceive that being forcibly raped is pleasurable. Movies tend to do it often and sometimes movies don 't realize that what people see on television can sometimes influence people to see these acts as a norm. For instance the fact that a college kid is in a frat and he 's in a party there is a good percentage that he would reenact what television had stereotype frats boys to do. Television would label the frat boys as potential rapist and the human mind would consider that when you take on that role as a frat boy. One of the biggest media factors all the way from television to the internet that for so many years that perceive rape as acceptable is pornography.