Violence & the Victimization of Women
The readings for class on February 27th discuss the perpetuation of institutionalized violence in order to maintain social control. Although all three articles portray different viewpoints, they all isolate violence against women thoroughly and explicitly. But, even as a woman, I had a very difficult time identifying with these articles.
The first article concerning fraternities and rape culture was incredibly biased. As another student stated, the article only “present[ed] anecdotal evidence� which the author then related to an entire population much larger than the individual campus used for this case study. However, I did find this article somewhat interesting in that it analyzed the portrayal and views of women from a variety of perspectives. Perhaps the most interesting part of the article in my opinion was found in that particular section where a female student states that women often promote negative portrayal of themselves. I found this SO intriguing as I was watching a rerun of Oprah last week and they had a woman on who stated that men are NOT the only people calling women “sluts� and “whores,� often women call each other these names, belittling every female. (This can also be seen in Mean Girls in the “Therapy scene� :) ) Although the majority of individuals do not intentionally belittle themselves, it seems very difficult to fight the negative portrayal of individuals- portrayals that become institutionalized in our society.
The second article concerning man’s role in violence was difficult for me to grasp. I feel that it is necessary to discuss violence against both men and women but these articles seem to really victimize women. Granted, women are violated much more often than men. While reading this article, I couldn’t help but think that articles like this, that portray men as violent, cruel and chauvinistic only perpetuate violence in our society. It seems to me that by portraying an individual or group of individuals in a certain way that does not apply to all of the individuals will only create misunderstanding and rage.
This ties in to the third article as well, where women seemed to be incredibly victimized. I felt that this article, in addition to the first article, was very biased almost to the point of extreme feminism. It was an interesting article, nonetheless, and provided some very interesting statistics regarding violence against women. However, I couldn’t help but to wonder to what extent the researchers portrayed the data to simply prove their point, rather than accurately illustrate the results.
Although these articles came from three very different viewpoints, they all address the issue of social control through the use of violence. All three articles also strongly victimized women which detracted from the integrity of the articles in that the authors allowed their own personal biases into their writing. As a woman, I appreciated the realization that action must be taken to end violence against women, but I could not get past the fact that portraying all men in such a cruel, violent manner does not seem like it will help the situation. With violence institutionalized in our society, I think the best way to deal with violence against women is to come to an understanding of equality among genders rather than specifically targeting one gender over another.
Discussion questions:
1. Do you believe the victimization of women is necessary in the fight to end violence against said women?
2. Do you feel the role of institutionalized violence would be any different if women were the primary economic/property/political leaders of our society? Would men be victimized like women are?
3. For the ladies, do you feel that these articles related to you? As a woman, I felt very put off by these articles and found it very difficult to emerse myself in what they were saying due to the incredible biases presented within the articles.
Comments
I'm justgona come out and say this: "there is no equality between men and Women" can people please try to not see the world in this term. It is not about whit and black, life is gray alt of gray. I do not understand way people allways think in term of who is going to win. you know minus or plus. since the beging of tim emen tend to show theiy emotion through ainger not only toward women, towrd them selves to we will never know how it all began did God inted it to be this way or Adam a Eve decided: you know what you are the weaker one and I'm the strong one". It is deporable to see that wemen movement do not have other WORDING for what majority of femell suffer from but I beleive initialy they wanted to draw every one attention to the fact that many women were being raped the men. Sexual violence against wemen is likly to occure more than the opposite, just because as it turnout when in a secluder area a men will take a girl despite her saying no. She just can't protect her self the sam way a men could. There inequality maybe we should ask God to be differently build for figth then for repoduction that will solve many issues.But seriously,our society have inforce these idea of masculinity and it is geting harder and harder for men to define them selves since women are into every thing now day, so they are frustrated, when I got here ( in Americ athat is) I heard of a case wher a wife had acused her husband of raping her. Well for me that was crazy then in 2000, it still is creazy today. Whomany time did we spleep with guys we did not wanted to sleep with,but we did no thing about it? we should try as society not to agravet issues or situation. I do not think victimization of women will solve violence against men, but it will help adress the issue and as soon that is doen people should chose new word( if there is any) to adress issues, or look at different agle then focussing on the women vulnerability. And Sisters we are strong then this saying that we are victimesdoes not make us ones,we are who we choose to be and we can diffine our selves according to what we want.Some of us need little help to do so and if that mean geting sympaty from the musculin government by using word lik violence( whichit realy is) that be so then.
Questions:
1. Why are people so tuchy about this issue? men feel their masculinity is being accused, women feel that their are being victimised?. Denial will not solve any issue, it just like a Black person refusing Afirmative Action in America...
2. Is there a less violent society outhere?(against women that is)? i would like to move there....
Posted by: Nathalie Buhendwa | February 27, 2007 4:09 PM
As a comment, I want to address question three, and express how much I agree with the author of this reading response. I also feel that women tend to victimize themselves towards an extreme, and then blame men for the consequences they endure as a result of acting perhaps promiscuously. When reading the article about rape culture, I felt as though the inadequate treatment of women by men was somewhat exaggerated.
I think that women need to be more responsible in situations such as mentioned in the article, and women need to be more aware of their surroundings. I have many female friends who attend fraternity parties, only to return feeling like they have been taken advantage of. Unfortunately for them, I do not have much sympathy because it is my belief that they made a choice to be irresponsible, and thus vulnerable.
As for my direct answer to the question, as a woman, I was not very capable of identifying with the women mentioned in the rape culture article. I feel that the article was far-fetched, and maybe I am giving men the benefit of the doubt, but I think the article was unfairly biased against them in this case.
Posted by: Ashley S. | March 5, 2007 2:05 PM
First of all, strictly discussing violence of men portrayed onto women, I do think we need to recognize that women are the victims, but as several people pointed out in class, the focus should be more on the men commiting the crimes to prevent the violent acts from happening in the first place. Rather than just placing these said men in prison for their crimes, they should go through therapy to force them to express their feelings and reveal why they treat women as they do. Just placing them in prison maintains and even encourges furher violence between the men and/or women there. Secondly, it is hard to say whether women as dominant over men would change anything. This question makes a good point in that it is the expected characteristics of gender roles that make one "dominant" over another. If women were considered aggressive and not "allowed" to express their emotions and as a result of that, more violent in their expression of emotion, they might be considered more dominant, but males would still be physically stronger biologically, so that might play into the enforcement of dominance. Thirdly, I agree in not really relating to the articles because I have never experienced anything like what was said, nor know anyone that has experienced these things. It really upsets me when people, particularly males, say that a woman was asking to be raped because of what she was wearing or coming onto him, especially while drunk. That is never correct. Talking to some males about whether or not to do certain sexual things, I get the impression they don't know what a woman is thinking at a specific moment, or they just don't listen.
Posted by: Angela | March 5, 2007 5:15 PM