[7] In his book, “Missoula,” John Krakauer analyses the issue of rape in the college town of Missoula. Krakauer begins his work by quoting the article False Allegations of Sexual Assault: 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.
Katherena Vermette’s novel The Break, is centered around a sexual assault. Through the perspective of eight narrators the story unfolds over the day leading up to the attack, memories triggered by the assault, and the recovery of all those involved. The novel’s two strongest themes are a juxtaposition of gender disparity and the strength and resilience of the women and girls involved. Gendered performance is common throughout the book, for both men and women, although the focus is on the female characters.
Anne McClintock wrote her essay “Gonad the Barbarian and the Venus Flytrap: Portraying the female and male orgasm” to examine pornography and how it has changed throughout history and its effects on how women perform as sexual beings. McClintock focuses on the various roles of pornography such as its emphasis on voyeurism, pleasure, and the male ego. She wants her readers to know that women are still not represented in pornography to satisfy their own desires, but they are there to cater to men and their subconscious. I will analyze how McClintock argues that due to the history of sexism towards women, the roles that men and women have in pornography are inherently different because of the societal belief that women are only seen as objects of sexual desire and are solely there to satisfy the male audience.
In the short story “The Story of an Hour”, By Kate Choplin was about a main character named Louise Mallard, who had a tremendous change in her life. The open window and the independence Louise Mallard is experiencing is a forbidden pleasure that represents her way of new life and opportunity. The life of Louise Mallard was always been in control by his husband and she never gets any freedom until the news she receive about the death of his husband Brentley Mallard. Mrs. Mallard reaction to the death of her husband was “She wept at once,” this describe how she felt when they told her about his husband was “killed” (Para 2, Line 6), she felt as she was hopeless and not herself anymore and that she will always be the wife material of Brentley Mallard.
Novelist, Roxane Gay, in her essay “The careless Language of Sexual Violence”, voices her concerns about rape culture and how it is perpetuated in today’s society. She uses anaphora, imagery, and rhetorical questions in order to demonstrate how society “carelessly” (131) normalizes rape. In her essay, Gay uses rhetorical questions and anaphora to further stress her concerns and talk about how writers are gratuitous when talking about rape. She opens her essay using anaphora comparing “crimes” to “atrocities.
explores the theme of feminism by giving forth to female vulnerability and patriarchal control. The objectification and sexualization of Connie highlight the oppressive nature of a patriarchal society, reinforcing the notion that women exist primarily for the male gaze and
“Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurtson exemplifies the amount of disrespect and domestic abuse a woman can handle. It also demonstrated how some males view women in a distasteful and unsatisfied way. Gender and sexuality can initiate most of the specific tactics of domestic violence that can dehumanize an individual, especially women. Zora Neale Hurtson’s character, Delia Jones, demonstrates how women can transition from being inferior to becoming superior in a domestic relationship. The story opened with Delia washing clothes for white people on Sunday, and Sykes verbally abused her for dishonoring God because she was washing clothes that belong to white people on the Sabbath day.
Serano observes the virgin/whore double bind placed on them by societal influences, and then raises that a similar double bind is placed on men: “having experienced this dilemma myself firsthand, I have come to refer to it (for reasons that will be clear in a moment) as the assholes/nice guys double bind. ‘Assholes’ are men who fulfill the men-as-sexual-aggressors stereotype; ‘nice guys’ are the ones who refuse or eschew it,” (Serano 312). In establishing a male double bind to mirror the phenomena effecting women, Serano grants the audience greater insight to her reasoning behind how stereotypes enforce rape culture. However, the false dichotomy Serano creates with the asshole/nice guys double bind fails to support her greater thesis of men being stereotyped as predators, as while the virgin and whore stereotype both cleanly fits into her claims that women in rape culture are thought to only be either sexual objects or prey, only the asshole portion of her double bind for male fits into the sexual aggressor/predator stereotype. As one of the sides of the asshole/nice guy double bind does not reflect the predator stereotype in the same manner both portions of the virgin/whore double bind do for prey, it undermines the reasoning behind
From a sociological standpoint, today’s media’s sexualization of females is spreading like wildfire, and making this type of perception into a norm—the idea that women should feel the need to act “sexy” in order to attract
In John Updike’s short story “A&P”, the idea of feminism and gender segregation is prevalent in their patriarchal society. Our narrator, Sammy, is clearly a young man who objectifies three girls that walk into his store wearing swimsuits - as exemplified by his derogatory thoughts. However, at the end of the story, he performs a sort of objectification towards feminism by quitting his job in response to his boss’s reaction to the girls. From the moment the girls walk in, Sammy refers to their appearance based on their bodies. He describes one of the girls as having “a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it where the sun never seems to hit” (Paragraph 1) and comparing another’s breasts to “ the two smoothest scoops of vanilla [he] had ever known were there” (Paragraph 21).
Introduction The documentary, Miss Representation was written, directed and produced by Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Miss Representation highlights how the media and our culture objectify and belittle women and girls in society. The documentary begins with Newsom’s childhood story and the life and future, she wants for her daughter. The media is used as the main source of information.
Moreover, this restriction on expressing sexuality encourages passive behavior amongst women. In addition, linking a woman’s ethics to her body reinforces the double standard related to sexuality between men and women. Ultimately, being sexual is “stigmatized in women, but encouraged in men” (Heldman, Part 2). This double standard, combined with the expectations of passivity, reinforces the concept of rape culture. Women are expected to refrain from sex in order to embody purity and thus, are defined by what they do not do.
Margaret Atwood has seamlessly woven a tapestry of feminist elements - mainly regarding gender oppression - within her works. With that, using two of Atwood’s texts, The Handmaid’s Tale and The Year of The Flood, as the foundation for our literary research, we will be focusing on the commodification of the female flesh in both similar dystopian contexts. Commodification refers to the action or process of treating an object, or a person, as a raw material or product that can be bought and sold, or even treated as an object of which sovereignty can be held over by one. In both works, women are victimized and treated as sexual beings whose bodies and physical expressions can be freely used by the men who have power over them against their will. The two texts illustrate how society brings about the oppression of women and this exacerbates the commodification of women.
“Although concerning sexual practices between adults and children have existed throughout history and across cultures, whether such behavior was conceived of and defined as ‘abuse’ has been dependent on the societal values of the particular period” (Denov, 2004). In today’s society, sex offending has become an increasingly, concerning phenomenon that individuals must become more aware of. Although generally regarded as a male phenomenon, over time, female perpetrators have become equally important as male perpetrators. Due to the lack of public awareness, female sexual predators go unreported. As a result, society must become more aware of female sexual perpetrators, as many incidents of females assaulting both young men and women have gone unreported for some time.
In 1984 and society today, there is a casual disregard to sexual assault, ultimately leading to the dehumanization of women. Women are dehumanized in today’s world and 1984 because society dismisses sexual assault. Winston describes his physical attraction to Julia, saying, “I wanted to rape you and then murder you afterwards” Winston says this comment directly to Julia, Julia laughed, and shortly later dismissed the comment. (Orwell, 121).
