Summary Of Far From The Tree By Andrew Solomon

Andrew Solomon’s chapter on rape from his book, Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity, examined women who are raped and decide raise the children who were the product of this heinous violation. Solomon examines how rape has been perceived by different cultures over time and interviews various women who have first hand experience with rape in order to show the reader show the aftermath of this terrible crime committed against them.
Initially, this student imagined rapists as outlaws who crawl out from the shadows to prey upon their victims, however, “80 percent of rapes are committed by someone the victim knows” (Solomon, 2012, p. 481). According to Solomon (2012), “more than half of rape victims in the United States

According to Solomon (2012), dating as far back as the times of Hammurabi’s Code, rape victims were compared to adulterers and were perceived as “damaged goods” because it spoiled a women’s marriageability potential (Solomon, 2012). During the colonial period in America, a woman could not report that she was raped to a local civil officer, instead she needed her husband, father, or employer to make the claim. In other words, women were seen as second class citizens who were denied the right to advocate for themselves without the support of a man. Also, it was believed that women “were prone to brining such charges [of rape] to disguise illicit consensual sex” (Solomon, 2012, p.

During this time, Tutsi women were often victims of rape as a tactic to shame and humiliate the Tutsi ethnic group. Also, it was a way to kill the Tutsi women because “many of the men were HIV-positive and were encouraged by their leaders to infect as many Tutsi women as possible” (Solomon, 2012, p. 527). An even more sinister motive for these rapes is called forced pregnancy, which is when “conquerors impregnate the conquered race, who perforce deliver babies to the victors” (Solomon, 2012, p. 526). After being raped, these women are often shunned by others in their community because they “allowed themselves to be raped rather than killed” (Solomon, 2012, p. 526). This student believes in the importance of developing a support system in order to survive adversity, and cannot comprehend how women could be put through such torture and then be rejected by the society that failed to protect