Why Is Rape Me Wrong

“They are all innocent until proven guilty. But not me. I am a liar until I am proven honest.” Louise O’Neill. Rape has become a widely recognized issue in recent decades, however, an estimated 63 percent of assaults are never reported to the police. Differences in 1930’s issues compared to present day include: false rape accusations centered around racial prejudice, but now skirt the main issue of rape itself; victims still face many obstacles but now feel more supported; development of rape kits helped solve many suits but make survivors wearisome; and today’s trials are not based on accusations, but are based on evidence.

     There are two sides to a rape, the rapist and the victim. The victim is most of the time a woman but men are raped as well. It is a common myth that there is a type of woman that is more likely to be raped. This is indeed a myth, most of the time rape is a crime of opportunity, the victim is not chosen because of her looks or behavior, but because she is there (Benedict 2). The average rape victim is 18-39 years old and female, the average rapist is 25 years old and male. The effect of rape on a woman is an enormous one. The woman will come away from a rape with both physical and psychological damage. Eventually the physical wounds will heal, the psychological wounds will take quite some time before or if they ever heal (Grady 4). A sexual assault robs the woman of a sense of control; a feeling of loss of freedom is common among rape victims. To put her life in order she must regain this sense of control. Almost all rape victims suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder (Benedict 2). The first symptom is the reliving or re-experiencing of the

“Rape is unique. No other violent crime is so fraught with controversy, so enmeshed in dispute and in the politics of gender and sexuality… And within the domain of rape, the most highly charged area of debate concerns the issue of false allegations. For centuries, it has been asserted and assumed that women “cry rape,” that a large proportion of rape allegations are maliciously concocted for purposes of revenge or other motives.”

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: The Horrifying Effects of Abuse “To those who abuse: the sin yours, the crime is yours, and the shame is yours. To those who protect the perpetrators: blaming the victims only masks the evil within, making you as guilty as those who abuse. Stand up for the innocent or go down with the rest…” These are the words of an individual who sees too clearly the injustice which comes with domestic violence toward women. The United States government estimates one in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. Domestic abuse remains a significant social problem in many towns, cities and neighborhoods and though the victims involved may often remain silent, its emotional, psychological and physical effects still linger on.

Approximately 240,000 brutal rapes occur in our prison systems each year (Lozoff). Most of the victims are young, nonviolent male inmates, many of them teenaged first offenders. They are traumatized beyond imagination. Most of these inmates are nonviolent criminals who cannot or will not defend themselves. Unfortunately, this results in many of those nonviolent offenders turning violent by the time they leave prison.

Rape is one of the most widespread and ubiquitous violent crimes facing America, making laws regarding rape and the judicial processing of rape increasingly important. The judicial process itself deters both rape reports and rape convictions. Not only does the judicial processing or rape cases itself deter reports and convictions, but it also has a negative impact on the moral and mental well being of the victims who decide to pursue their cases.

The American justice system has created laws that are meant to help individuals in protecting rights and freedom, but in many violent cases, victims are not helped, and society as a whole is not benefited by these laws. On sexual assaults, there are statutes of limitations that give a time restriction on how long a victim has to come forward about the crime. Statutes of limitations are non-beneficial to any victims that have experienced a sexual assault in any of the 34 states that have statutes (Smith). Statutes of limitations do not give victims the time they deserve to heal, but worse, leave offenders free because of a time limit and has created a society that justifies rape. On the other hand, after many years after the crime, it may be

The Centers for Disease control reports that one out of every five women will be sexually assaulted or raped during their lifetime with most victims being girls or younger women. According to RAINN, the Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network (https://www.rainn.org) which calls itself “the nation 's largest anti-sexual assault organization,” nine out of ten rape victims are women and there are more than 237,000 victims of sexual assault in the U.S. every year, with a reporting rate of only 40 percent. Eighty percent of victims are under 30. Two-thirds of all the reported assaults are by someone known to the victim and only 3 percent of rapists get any jail time. The effects of rape are long lasting and have public health and social welfare consequences. According to RAINN, victims of sexual assault have higher rates of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and drug and alcohol abuse than the general population. Rape is a personal issue because of the trauma it induces in its

I found this book to be very informative though Shannon’s interviewing tactics were questionable, for example having the women discuss their personal rape experiences in a group setting, rather than one on one, or paying the women to share their stories as she writes, “I scrounge around my bag and

In the first place, the topic of rape and the attacks some suspects achieve become an uncomfortable yet hurtful subject for not only the victims but the human beings that it could very well happen to. Women in general are very vulnerable human beings, and when something insane happens in their life it may take a long period of time to speak up about the incident and when they are not given the attention they deserve when they finally speak up about the traumatizing story it

Jean Kilbourne’s Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt divulges the multifaceted social watering hole we call the media. Topics in this short essay include the cultural abuse, sexual objectification of women, and the role men play in this stacked deck. There are multiple instances in which the media shames women for being sexual beings or for simply standing up against injustice. A large portion of our society believes it is solely up to the woman to protect herself from the poor choices of men, but it is important to note that a woman cannot rape herself.

Rapists are rarely imprisoned for an adequate amount of time—if any—which is why once convicted, the sentencing that they receive should remain unchanged until it is fulfilled. Too many judges will allow the convict’s sentence to be shortened or changed to house arrest. Which means that survivors of rape have to deal with the fear of being raped again or even killed when their assailant is released from prison earlier than expected. Rape is a very traumatic experience and can happen to anyone. The effects after a traumatizing experience, such as rape, can last a lifetime and lead to the decay of a victim’s life. These outcomes can cause physical and mental damage for the survivor. To make matters worse, victims are essentially punished by the justice system for their own rapes when a rapist is not sufficiently prosecute and there are not any laws to protect the survivors. They are forced to live in fear of being raped again and sometimes are even ridiculed or shunned by peers and family for being raped, Therefore elucidating the impression that the rape was the fault of the victim. Many people who do not sympathize or empathize with the trauma of rape may claim that the survivor wanted to be raped. This is never true, even despite the circumstances. Nobody asks to be raped, not a woman, not a man, not a

Freda Adler once said, “Rape is the only crime in which the victim becomes the accused.” Women should not have to go thru so much pain and agony, and our voices should be heard and expressed throughout the countries. After watching India’s Daughter, a young college student that just wanted to live her dream to become something great, her life span was short lived due to 6 men raping her, by pulling her intestines out, and thrown off a moving bus.

Summary of Ali Owens “Tell Me There’s No Rape Culture” In “Tell Me There’s No Rape Culture”, published in the Huffington Post in October of 2016, Ali Owens explains the inconsistent theories on how a woman can prevent getting raped to showcase the fact that the underlying problem is that women

They receive less resources even when they have higher chances of being a victim of these horrible crimes. It outrages me that they receive less resources that other women do such as ill trained police staff, minimal forensic testing, and lower conviction rates. When this message is sent to them it discourages them from reporting their assaults, which is unacceptable. Resources, programs, and justice should be readily available to all survivors of sexual and domestic violence. These problems need to be addressed and changed in order for change to be made, which will only happen if communities stop ignoring the