Rape

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorCollege, Undergraduate April 2001

download word file, 2 pages 0.0

Downloaded 1170 times

Rape, unlawful sexual intercourse, achieved through force and without consent. There are many different types of rape. Forcible rape, unlawful sexual intercourse with a female by force and against her will, or without her legal consent. Date rape, unlawful sexual intercourse that occurs in the context of the dating relationship. Marital rape, forcible sex between two people who are legally married. Gang rape is when a group of men attack a defenseless or inebriated victim and force sexual intercourse against her will.

A social problem requires subjective concerns-a significant number of people being upset by those conditions. These subjective concerns are now so great that U.S women age 35 and under fear rape more than any other crime, and women of all ages restrict their activities because of the possibility of being rape.

According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report in 1998 93,103 women were raped in the U.S

out of 270,296,000.

As seen on the 2nd chart I handed out in 1999 North Carolina had 2,100 rapes reported but only 1,255 of them were actually charged according to the Sate Bureau of Investigation Report. 60 of them were between the ages of 1-10, 1,199 of them were within the ages of 11-24, 711 were between the ages 25-44, the 124 left were over the age of 45. In the past 10 years in North Carolina rape has gone down by -6.7% According to the report most of them women in North Carolina were raped by people they didn't know 1,276 to be exact.

The trauma of rape does not end with the physical attack. The woman typically finds her self-concept shattered, her emotions wounded, her whole life disrupted . About half of rape victims deal with their trauma in an expressive style, venting their fears, anger, rage, and anxiety by crying and sobbing, or by restlessness and tenseness. The other half reacts in a controlled style, carefully masking their feelings behind calm and composure.

Many victims suffer from self-blame-feeling guilty for having been alone in that place at that time, for not having screamed or fought back. Many become afraid of the dark, of being alone, of walking on the street, and of doing such ordinary activities as shopping or driving. The victim's personal relationships may be deteriorated.

From very early ages, men and women are conditioned to accept different roles. Women are raised to be passive and men are raised to be aggressive. We are conditioned to accept certain attitudes, values and behaviors. Our conditioning is continuously and relentlessly encouraged and reinforced by the popular media, cultural attitudes and the educational system. The media is a major contributor to gender-based attitudes and values. The media provides women with a complete list of behaviors that precipitate rape. Social training about what is proper, as well as what is powerful and macho, teaches women to be victims and men to be aggressors.