women and violence

I think that violence aginst women in prevalant in society becasue of ideas about masculinity and femminity and becasue we live in a patriarchial society that has historically seen men as superior to women. Men are taught from a young age about their gender roles as males which includes a concept of masculinity involving agression, violence and compitition. Women are also taught gender roles from a very young age that can help them learn to be less compititive, and agressive. Based on this type of socialization, it makes sense that women fall victim to male violence. We also learned that there are many complicated reasons why women stay in violent situations, or don't report them. Women, especially impoverished women may feel that they have no other place to go if they leave a violent domestic situation. A fact that I never thought about before is that women, especially middle class women may be ashamed to admit that they are in an abusive situation. Women may also feel that it is importnat for their children to have a father, and will stay with the father of their children even if he abuses her, although the number one reason for leaving abusive relationships is when they realize that is is harming the children, or when the children are being abused aswell. There is also fear of reprocussions from the abusor, or even fear that he will kill the woman if she leaves him. I also learned that most incidences of rape go unreported. This could be due to a variety of factors such as embarassement, and the tendency to blame the victim in our society. I learned from this module that in cases of rape, the victim's past sexual history often comes into question. People will often think that if the victim hadn't dressed a certain way, or been in a particular setting than they wouldn't have been raped. This shows an unfair bias in our society. No one would question the way a man was dressed if he was attacked. I think it is a very dangerous practice of us to blame women for dressing a certain way or being in certain situations when they are raped. Not only does this discourage women from reporting rape, but it also gives men the idea that it is ok to rape women if they are dressed provocatively, or if they are alone at a bar. I think it's alright to warm women not to do things like walk home alone at night, or not to go to leave parties with men they don't know, but not to blame them for being attacked if they do so. I also think the blaming of women for being victims of not only rape, but also other sexual violence including sexual harassment is also related to the double bind faced by women. We have pressure on one side from society to be "sexy" and to conform to fashion trends that are provocative and then on the other side, when women do fallow these trends, they are considered to be slutty and men feel like it is ok to sexually harass or otherwise violate slutty women. It is never alright to harass or perform any violent act towards a woman. This needs to be made clear to men, who also get mixed messages from society about how to treat provoactively dressed women differently from women who may appear to be more conservative. These messages about how to view women often come from the media and from porn.