Rape: Whose Getting Raped?
According to statistic, 1 in 6 women have been or have been close to being raped(“Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics”). What is rape? The Merriam- Webster Dictionary(Merriam-Webster) defines rape as an, “unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against the will usually of a female or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent because of mental illness, mental deficiency, intoxication, unconsciousness, or deception”. Women, specially younger,12–34(“Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics”), are known to be at higher risks of rape. Older women are not as common, but they can be victims. Are men at risk? Men, indeed, are also at risk of being victims of rape; however, it is much less than that of a female. A study was done in 1998, and this study showed that women are more at risk, “an estimated 17.7 million American women had been victims of attempted or completed rape… 2.78 million men in the U.S. had been victims of attempted or completed rape”.(“Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics”). These statistics indicate that women are the main targets. The difference of how many females and males have been victims is a drastic one. Why is it that women are the ones to mainly be victims of rape? Why are the numbers so different? Women, in general, are at higher risks of being victims of rape; however, college students and Native American women are the ones who experience this the most.
Why would college female students be at higher risks of being victims of rape, rather than females that are not students? It is known that college students, in general tend to being to experiment. They begin to go to parties. This is the time where many begin to drink and try drugs. Many become intoxicated and not aware of what is happening around them. There are people who then take advantage of this. Since the intoxicated person cannot say ‘no’ or refuse to have sexual intercourse, they go ahead and have non-consensual sex. This is then defined as ‘rape’. For example, on January 18, 2015, Brock Allen Turner, a frat boy at the Stanford University, raped an intoxicated girl, Emily Doe (Salam). He was found guilty on March 2016. He was charged with three counts of felony and according to The New York Times, he was only given a 6 month sentence at a county jail and 3 years of probation. However, Turner, only did three months in jail and was released September 2, 2016.(Salam). Many people are angry because of this sentence. They are mad at the injustice that was made by the judge. People cannot believe the sentence that was given to Turner, “”Six months for frat boy Brock Allen Turner raping a female student is an insult to women, especially the one-in-four women that have been raped and/or sexually assaulted.’ “(Fantz). People are angry at the fact that this ‘frat boy’ raped a girl and was only given 6 months. He was even let out earlier. Other girls will be in danger now, as well. Rape happens and will continue to happen if the cases are not seen through properly. How is going to jail for three months out of the six months he was suppose to go going to teach Turner that what he did was not right. They basically rewarded him by giving him a short sentence and then by letting him out earlier. His punishment seems too little for the crime he committed. In “Is Violence Male? The Law, Gender, and Violence”, Lucinda Joy Peach states how the law is set out to favor men. She says, “Once formal laws recognized violence against women, the legal system often continues to turn a blind eye. Acts of violence committed against women -ranging from domestic violence to stranger and date rape to childhood sexual abuse -traditionally have been prosecuted in ways which accrue primarily to benefit men”(Peach 59). Peach says that the “legal system often turns a blind eye”. This means that they only see what they want to see. The ‘legal system’ will and is not just all the time. They can manipulate the law to serve men better than what it serves a woman.
According to “Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics”, Native American women are the ones who are at higher risks, “On average, American Indians ages 12 and older experience 5,900 sexual assaults per year…American Indians are twice as likely to experience a rape/sexual assault compared to all races”(“Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics”). American Indian women are the ones who are at higher risks. One of the reasons for this is because many of the cases go uninvestigated. Women report them and the police do not do anything to solve the cases. They go unnoticed. For instance, In Indian Angry Goddesses, the director, Pan Nalin, introduces seven Indian women who go away to a vacation in celebration of two of them getting married. While they are there, they experience harassment by a group of men. These men get angry because the women do not want anything with them. As the movie advances.one of the seven women, Jo, goes on a walk after disputing with them. As the night progresses it is time for them to head back to their house. They go to look for Jo and they cannot seem to find her. They begin to worry and ask around. They eventually find her in the beach, unconscious. They soon found realized she was dead when the paramedic said she was. He also said she was raped by at least five men. The women report it to the police officer at the scene. This man, instead of helping, laughed in the phone and accused Jo of not being decent. He said a decent girl would not walk around in shorts at 9 o’clock at night. Since the authorities did not do anything, the women took matters into their own hands and killed the men that raped and killed their friend. What this comes to demonstrate is that authorities do not take the violation of women seriously. They find ways to make them have the fault. In, “Rape Cases On Indian Lands Go Uninvestigated”, Laura Sullivan tells the case of Leslie Ironroad. She was a Native American who had gone to a party and she was raped in a bathroom by a group of guys. She drank diabetic pills when they were going to attack her. She thought that by doing this, she’d go unconscious and the men would leave her. She woke up the next morning and called her friend. Her friend found her in a hospital and this was their conversation, “ ‘’I said, ‘Leslie, what happened?.’ She said, ‘Rhea, is that you? Turn the lights on, I can’t see.’ But the lights in the room were on. She said, ‘Rhea, I was raped,’ and she was just squeezing my hand,” Archambault recalled “(Sullivan). She was beaten up badly that she was left without sight. She had been raped and a week later she died. Her friend, Rhea, reported the case and the police dropped it. Rhea says, “A week later, Ironroad was dead — and so was the investigation. None of the authorities who could have investigated what happened to Leslie Ironroad did — not the Bureau of Indian Affairs, nor the FBI, nor anybody else”(Sullivan). The case went unnoticed. The men that did this were not caught. What does this mean? This mean that Leslie’s death was not put to justice. She was killed and they men that raped her were not punished. They had no consequences. Other women’s lives are at risks, too.
Women, in general, despite, of age and race, are all at risk of being victims of rape. Those in college campuses and those who are Native American women are at higher risks, but all women are. The answers as to why these specific groups of women can be uncertain. There can be a lot of factors. One of the factors being that college students like to over drink and men take advantage of that. Another reason can be because authorities do not take action into going through with the process of investigating a case. The criminals see this and realize that their behavior is not getting punished. There are no consequences for them; therefore, they continue to victimize more women.
Work Cited
Fantz, Ashley. “Outrage over six-Month sentence in Stanford rape case.” CNN, Cable News Network, 7 June 2016, www.cnn.com/2016/06/06/us/sexual-assault-brock-turner-stanford/index.html.
Salam, Maya. “Brock Turner Is Appealing His Sexual Assault Conviction.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 2 Dec. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/12/02/us/brock-turner-appeal.html
Sullivan, Laura. “Rape Cases On Indian Lands Go Uninvestigated.” NPR, NPR, 25 July 2007, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12203114
“Rape.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rape.
Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics | RAINN, www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence.
Peach J. Lucinda. “Is Violence Male? The Law,Gender, and Violence”. Frontline Feminisms.
