Rape Culture: When Society Normalizes Sexual Violence

Mainly pertaining to women, “the way she dressed, she was asking for it” or we have all heard it before, “boys will be boys”. Today men and women just assume sexual assault is inevitable. Rape culture also pertains to the jokes made on wide range of media such as music and tv shows/movies, anything that normalizes violence against women. A lot of people think that’s just the way things are, but from my perception we were taught it from a very young age. If a boy would pull our hair or snap our bra strap, they are just young boy they don’t understand. Making it be that girl just must deal with harassment and they can’t say anything about it.

Between August and November is what experts would consider the “red zone” which is believed to be the most dangerous time on campus for sexual assault. It was reported to the RAINN, which is the Rape, Abuse and incest national network, that around 50% of all sexual violence happened within the first 6 weeks of school. Most often these first few weeks filled with alcoholic drinks. Freshman students are most vulnerable to do the less experience with drinking. Plenty of school’s nationwide have are acting with trying to prevent such events by implementing sexual assault training. There may be a lot of action taken on campus, but around 23.1 percent of women and 5.4 percent of men have experience sexual assault during their college career (RAINN, 2015). By making the red zone a term known, it produces rape culture because it is encouraging the idea of the dangerous time and tells you what not to do so you aren’t sexual assaulted.

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Schools around the world are dealing with sexual violence. Ohio university’s students are taking actions. Greek sorites have started to make statement with their banners, unlike normal slander being put up, they put “No does not mean convince me,” “Our bodies, our rules,” and “Stand with survivors.” (Murphy, 2018). The schools have had an over whelming amount of sexual assaults happen, over a dozen have been reported in just four weeks into the school year. A lot of people would like to think that this is more than normal but is a national average for colleges. At Ohio university two girls took it into their control to create a group chat for girls that are intoxicated and alone called Safe walk home, more than 500 girls joined the group. The group provides a safe way for women to get home, action like that in opinion should happen college wide.

New Federal law requires schools to educate new students and staff about rape, dating violence and sexual violence. Most colleges require incoming freshman to complete an online course that offers information on rape, healthy dating and alcohol abuse. A study that was published in 2015 by the New England journal medicine, showed an extraordinary success with a different program called “assess, acknowledge, and, if necessary, rebuff unwanted sexual advances.” Which reduced female students’ chances of being sexual assaulted by 50 percent. (Newman, 2017) Like most programs though this taught people that it was females’ fault for being sexually assaulted. The down fall to every set program for women is that it has victim blaming and teaches young adults that they are at fault for such harmful doing. Plenty of colleges are still trying to find a specific protocol for so they don’t have victim blaming.

The statement that boys will be boys, is very controversial in today’s ages, the statement tells us that boys aren’t to blame for their harmful action and that it is females at fault who had produced that type of action from them. If women come together though it is seen that we can help each other from such a harsh environment and to become our own saviors. Colleges should try to work together to stop victim blaming and find a better way to get information out about sexual violence. In conclusion, rape culture can be found at every school, we just must find ways into prevent sexual violence from occurring without victim blaming.

Writers And Artists Who Influenced The Harlem Renaissance

Langston Hughes was born to James Hughes and Carrie Langston on February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. His parents split up soon after his birth and was mainly raised by his grandmother Mary. His grandmother died in his early teens when he returned to being raised by his mother. Hughes graduated high school in 1920 and traveled to Mexico for the following year to see his father who had moved there when his parents split up. In 1921 Hughes returned to the United States and enrolled in Columbia university. He studied there for a short period of time, and in that time he became more interested and involved in Harlem’s cultural movement, the Harlem Renaissance. In 1922 Hughes dropped out of Columbia university and worked various jobs around New York City until he got a job as a steward on a ship that took him to Africa and Spain. He also lived in Paris for a brief time where he developed and eventually started to publish his works in poetry. On May 22, 1967 Hughes died of prostate cancer. His home in Harlem reached New York City Landmark status in 1981. His works continue to be published and translated into new languages to this day.

The poem “Harlem” is likely the most famous of any of Langston Hughes works. Written in 1951 Hughes discusses one of the most common themes in his poems, how the “American dream” falls short for African Americans. The reason he titled it “Harlem” is because of the neighborhood in New York that became the center of the Harlem Renaissance. African Americans saw this place as a safe house or refuge from the discrimination they faced in their daily lives. It is, after all, safe to say that Langston Hughes created a great deal of pride for African Americans who read this poem, and created a sense of hope that they would see their children grow up in American society where the American Dream was a reality for African Americans.

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In his poem, the first line asks a bold question, “what happens to a dream deferred.” After this is asked, there are a few lines blank to symbolize and create a sense of silence. He then uses very somewhat dark examples to what happened to this dream. He uses vivid imagery in these examples like: drying up, stinking, exploding, and crusting over. Imagery plays a huge role in this part of the poem because you can see, and feel, and smell, and even taste all of these aspects and makes you wonder what kind of dream this really is.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up a raisin in the sun?

Fester like a sore then run?

It stink like rotten meat?

Crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Aaron Douglas was born in Topeka, Kansas on May 26, 1899 and often lived in Detroit, Michigan. Douglas studied art at the University of Minnesota and University of Nebraska at Lincoln. He earned his bachelors degree from The University of Nebraska at Lincoln in 1922 and then moved to Kansas City to teach art as a high school teacher . In 1925 he packed up and moved to Harlem where he immediately started illustrating for a magazine called The Crisis and Opportunity. Douglas also illustrated books, most famously The New Negro by Aidan Locke. In Douglas’ eyes, art was a matter of depicting life in a way that spoke to the black masses. His impactful images were mainly influenced by African Art, cubism, and modernism. He later became a professor in 1939 after the complete depletion of the Harlem Renaissance at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee where he devoted himself to inspiring and spreading his knowledge to a new generation of black artists. He worked there for 27 years. Douglas died on February 2, 1979.

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