Sexual Violence Sociology

Despite having hundreds of sexual assault cases each year, most colleges take little action to resolve these cases. In fact, only 20% of female sexual assault survivors report cases, the rest believing that it was too personal to share, or that if they did, the police wouldn’t listen to them. If they did report, often times it was to the local police rather than the campus police in fear that they would be shamed or turned away by the universities.

Sexual assault always has and always will be a serious problem in society. Despite the fact that, according to sources like the RAINN organization, the amount of reported sexual assault cases in the United States has dropped by more than half since 1993, sexual assault itself remains a problem in the United States. Just very recently, eight women have now come forward and accused longtime news anchor Charlie Rose of sexual misconduct in the workplace. This latest incident is one of many that have been reported within the recent months against those of a high socioeconomic standing in society, entertainers and politicians who abused their positions of power in order to harass and harm their female colleagues. These victims waited until now to report these incidents due to the fear that they will not be believed and that justice will not be delivered against those in such powerful positions. They only now come forward due to the unity they have found in each other against these abusers. To understand the uncertainty these women faced in their decision, this issue must be looked upon sociologically, using each of the three sociological perspectives of functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism to overview the various factors like race, gender, and social class that played a part in delaying their decision and explain why and how the justice system has failed in this way.

Despite federal laws issued to combat sexual violence, each year 4,000 college women report to school officials that they've been sexually assaulted. What happens after they file those reports has stirred debate on campuses across the country, leaving parents and students fearful that colleges may not be the ivory towers of security and integrity that appear on their recruitment pamphlets.

This essay aims to answer the question “can psychology satisfactorily explain sexual violence?” However, as this is such a broad area of research, it will be focussing on domestic sexual violence, including intimate partner violence (IPV) and child sexual abuse within the family.

Sexual assault is something that can affect people emotionally, physically, psychosocially, psychologically, and even spiritually. As often as it occurs in society, the effects that sexual assault can have on an individual are all relatively similar. Sexual assault is any sort of sexually-based action in which one or more participants have not given consent. Often times, people refer to sexual assault as simply rape, however there are other dimensions to sexual assault which can include unwanted kissing, groping, or touching of any form. Emotionally, victims are conflicted about whether it is their own fault or if it the fault of the attacker. In many instances, the victim will blame themselves for what has happened to them. Physically, there is nearly always damage in the affected areas (vagina, anus, penis, breasts, etcetera) that can lead to painful tissue damage. There is also the risk of pregnancy or STD’s that the victim must be aware of. Psychosocially, the victim becomes distant with everyone they were once close to. Their level of trust declines dramatically, causing relationships with spouses, family, and close friends to crumble. Since the victims tend to push their loved ones away, often without giving any sort of reason, they can sometimes face isolation and a lack of support from those whom would usually offer council. The psychological effects are tremendous as well. Victims of sexual assault will often have severe anxiety, post-traumatic stress

In the article, high sexual prime of the hundreds youth on campus together with alcohol and other drugs are blamed for these heinous acts and it has thus become an “accepted” cultural norm. Sexual assault, which the article defines as a forceful compellation of someone to engage in unwanted sexual activities with another, and it can range from kissing to penetration, is on the rampant increase and hence raising nationwide concerns. These concerns and opinions, however, divide the nation along political, gender, civic, and cultural lines. Meanwhile no exact factors have been linked to the rising cases of sexual assault on campus even though alcohol, male college sexuality and age have proven to be a factor. On this, divisive positions also emerge but no one seems to answer the question why it is so frequent and rampant in nearly all college campuses.

Today, for college students, there are many causes and risks that lead to sexual victimization. These include; the usage of alcohol and drugs, prior victimization, lack of cases being reported, and the factors go on. According to RAINN, Statistics show that “about two out of three sexual assaults are committed by an attacker that the victims

Sexual assault has been huge problem on college campus. College female students have been targets of sexual assault acts, According to Robin Gray “Between 20% and 25% of women will experience a completed and/or attempted rape during their college career.” Sexual assault is when is a crime to knowingly cause another person to engage in an unwanted sexual act by force or threat. There are laws that protect women in all types of setting from being victims of sexual assault. The government had made some changes to the laws of sexual assault over the past decade to protect the girls and women so justice can be served. The president Obama has been enforcing a law for the young women in colleges.

For one, the reason why students receive responses like the ones stated above is because when schools are presented with sexual assault cases, the administrators tell the students not to report their crimes or even talk about it because it will ruin the school’s brand and reputation. One of the most important aspects to any college or university is their brand and how that brand will help schools make money and get their investors, a.k.a. students and alumni, to pay for that brand. The fear is if a school where to start reporting the sexual assaults on their campus, they would become known as the “sexual assault school” and people would be discouraged to sending their children there or donating to the school, ruining the brand. This is why so many survivors struggle to reach administrators in the first place, because their number one priority is to make their school appear as a safe institution to the outside, rather than a safe place on the inside.

Many college campuses are failing to report cases of sexual assault and rape to police. Campuses don’t report these cases because they do not want their reputations ruined.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious, preventable public health problem that affects millions of Americans and is described as a type of harm caused by a current or former partner or spouse and may consists of physical, sexual, or psychological abuse; it does not discriminate, can occur among heterosexual or same-sex couples, and does not require sexual intimacy. The CDC administered a survey in 2010 called the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) to examine the frequency of intimate partner violence (IPV), sexual violence (SV), and stalking among women and men in the United States (administered annually to track

Sexual assault has been a huge issue for many years on college campuses and universities nation wide. As society has evolved, thoughts on sexual assault have also evolved, becoming more focused on the details of victim treatment than ever before. The topic of sexual assault is debatable and sparks many opinions on weather sexual assault on college campuses is becoming more frequent, or if there is just heightened awareness. Sexual assault can happen to anybody no matter the gender, race, religion, or age. Recently there have been many studies conducted on sexual violence on college campuses and universities producing ample amounts of statistics. One may argue that sexual assault rates are the same, but there are simply more studies and attention on sexual assault in the past 20 years. Gender roles have played a huge part in sexual assault on college campuses. Women and men have different expectations when it comes to roles in the relationship, men are often expected to make the first move. One may ask what causes a perpetrator to sexually harass somebody and think it is acceptable. There are various reasons as to why perpetrators do what they do, and may vary from person to person. Although sexual violence is a large problem for many colleges and universities, there is a surprising shortage of federal laws/rules and regulations regarding sexual assault. Colleges are able to develop their own personal policies and procedures for how they will prevent and deal with sexual

Domestic violence, also more known as Intimate Partner Violence, affects individuals in all social classes and racial/ethnic groups is a statement that has been said and taught over again for many years. Yes that statement above holds logic and truth, but there is also an inverse relationship to it. One of the most consistent findings from research is a strong inverse relationship between social class and intimate partner violence (Renzetti, 2009). In other words, as social class status goes up, cases of domestic violence goes down, and vice versa for lower social classes. Analyses of large, national surveys, for example, show that women living in households with the lowest annual incomes were five times more likely to have experienced

Sexual assault and rape are on-going issues plaguing college campuses all across the nation. In part, I believe this is due to a lack of education on what sexual assault actually is. All too often, victims are leaving these situations feeling confused about something that they will forever deem "a weird night". It often isn't until much later that they realize what happened to them was a violation of their body and of their rights.

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.