Rape
The Assault Of The Body And The Mind
If NO means NO then why don’t we listen and why do we like to do what’s in contrary to our social and moral norms? Is that how we were raised or are we just products of society’s social structure and inequality? A man’s body is respected but a women’s body is treated as property no matter what country you live in. And don’t claim that it’s not the same everywhere because if that was the case then what are women fighting for then? Where is the gender equality and respect here people! If equality was true there wouldn’t be such a system like the one we are living in. The media makes other countries seem worse than what we are living here in the United States but like the woman in Mexico they aren’t the only ones being targets of rape. They are one of the countries with the highest percentages of rape cases but with the least justice. According to Janel Saldana in Rape in Mexico, between the years of 2011 to 2015 there were around 3,813 rape cases reported in Mexico, but only 2 out of 10 offenders faced legal consequences. During Purple Spring on April 24th 2016 women gathered in the streets of el Estado de Mexico to protest against sexist violence, and this included other women protesting for sexist violence in their home countries as well. If we haven’t noticed yet one’s problem is everyone’s problem.
More than 40 Mexican cities protested against machista-patriarchal violence as Meztli Rodriguez acclaims. And by machismo it means men who idealize themselves as the authoritative figure who rules their home and their woman. Nowadays, there are different and more positive definitions to the word machismo. Things such as the home supporter who only works for their family’s well-being and will always be there for them to aide them and be a second hand around the home. All this instead of coming home drunk all the time, hitting their wives, forcing them to have sex, expecting everything (dinner, clean clothes, clean home) to be ready by the time they get home, and be treated as royal kings. These type of machista men wouldn’t even let their wives have a job of their own. Their job was the home and the kids. But, whether Mexican women are married or not, 7 women are said to be murdered each day in Mexico by men with such pre-modern machismo perspectives who think they not only own their wife or significant other but yet every other women in Mexico as well. Meztli Rodriguez claims in her Purple Spring article that sexist acts of violence are not just personal and collective, but also structural and institutional. Society creates a social structure in which there must be those with power and those without it. All this in order for a system to “function.” For example, Sociologist Jonathan Turner believed in levels of Social Reality, one of which is the macro realm (Dr. Rotondi’s SOC 169 power point lecture 2017). In particular, this level states that social institutions are the fundamental structural unit for society. And within an institution there are rules, regulations, and norms that society lives off by. Those norms such as men being dominant over women embed our daily lives and make us believe that men are really more powerful over women when they truely aren’t.
Even if we live in a social structure there shouldn’t be rape, crime, or violence and inequality but guess what, there still is! Are certain women like the ones in Mexico being targets of rape so that it can make those who aren’t more valuable for and within society, or is it just a culture/pleasure thing? Could it mean that it is a form of downgrading Mexico, because remember it does happen across the country as well so are we also downgrading our country too? In Fearless Speech by Michel Foucault the word Parrhesia is defined as free speech and democracy within relations and oneself to others (pg. 77). When you have a democracy you have a system of government where everyone is said to have equal say but if that was true wouldn’t we all be equal and male and females be treated the same? Okay, so I get why we might need some poor and some rich people in society because then if everyone made a ton of money there basically wouldn’t be any value to things, and then there wouldn’t be any economy or an equilibrium society. But, why must there be rape if it does not benefit society in any form or way. According to the old eligarch thesis sometimes what is best for the most isn’t the best for the city. In this case what is best for the Mexican men’s pleasure isn’t the best at all for Mexican women.
I have been to Mexico myself and have experienced a taste of what women have to deal with on a daily basis. I’ve had men whistle or look at me while walking to the store or riding the bus. And it’s disappointing to realize that your people are the way they are towards women and have little to no respect for them. But it did make me feel disgusted as well, and no, not of myself but of the fact that there really are men in this world such as those talked about by the victims of rape in Mexico. Rape is a horrible thing and even though I have not experienced it and hopefully never will, I don’t wish it upon anybody and I hope it doesn’t happen to anyone again. Like the women from the Purple Spring protest there are many more who have yet a voice to be heard and can too help change the female world.
