Ostrowski's Putting An End To Rape Culture
Rape culture in the United States has developed into a prominent issue due to the lack of concern in modern society. It is a culture that has desensitized people to the horrific reality of rape by normalizing sexual violence and promoting the idea that the victims often play a role in their victimization. Just as Ostrowski highlights in her article “Putting an End to Rape Culture,” people are attempting to combat the issue of rape by approaching the victims rather than condemning the perpetrators. Unfortunately, this has become a reality among many college campuses. In order to avoid negativity in the media, university management often downplays the severity of such issues; only roughly 11% of college women even report their attack to the police.
Even when victims do come forward, rape culture has increased the prevalence of blaming the victim. Just as the book states, victims often receive bombardment from family and friends that somehow insinuates that the attack was due in part to their behaviors preceding the incident (Siegel 61). In order to lessen the occurrence of rape on college campuses, along with society in general, we need to focus more on the punishment of perpetrators and less on the victims. Although I do believe that due to the uncontrollability of dangerous assailants women need to lead cautious lifestyles in order to protect themselves, no one is responsible to being raped. Women should be able to live the lifestyle they choose without the risk of being attacked, but that unfortunately isn’t the case in today’s society. As a question for discussion I’d like to ask, how can society bring more attention to the development of educational programs for both women and men to create equal opportunities for both genders to attempt to abolish this issue? By gearing their programs towards women I feel like society is giving up on the possibility of preventing men from raping and just focusing on education women on how to avoid victimization. If we were going by that logic, why would these women even come forward if they were taught to believe that rape is an avoidable situation?
Even when victims do come forward, rape culture has increased the prevalence of blaming the victim. Just as the book states, victims often receive bombardment from family and friends that somehow insinuates that the attack was due in part to their behaviors preceding the incident (Siegel 61). In order to lessen the occurrence of rape on college campuses, along with society in general, we need to focus more on the punishment of perpetrators and less on the victims. Although I do believe that due to the uncontrollability of dangerous assailants women need to lead cautious lifestyles in order to protect themselves, no one is responsible to being raped. Women should be able to live the lifestyle they choose without the risk of being attacked, but that unfortunately isn’t the case in today’s society. As a question for discussion I’d like to ask, how can society bring more attention to the development of educational programs for both women and men to create equal opportunities for both genders to attempt to abolish this issue? By gearing their programs towards women I feel like society is giving up on the possibility of preventing men from raping and just focusing on education women on how to avoid victimization. If we were going by that logic, why would these women even come forward if they were taught to believe that rape is an avoidable situation?