Blog Post 5: Cultural Study and Class Discussion

In today’s lecture we talked about cultural studies. To my surprise, the article shows that 9 in 10 victims know their offenders. Moreover, it’s among 1000 college female students, there are 35 rape incidents happen each year. And one study show that 88 percent victims have never consumed alcohol before the rape. Only 25 percent victims consumed alcohol or drugs before rape. These statistics suggest a cultural phenomenon that is going on in America, and this phenomenon does not really involve drinking and alcohols. I think the culture of sexuality has a lot to do with moral corruption. Girls believe it’s ok to sleep with the guys they know; and guys also believe it’s ok to rape the girls they know. I think this moral corruption has a lot to do with media. This is because media culture also depicts the culture of sexuality. Nowadays, you can hear sex oriented context in a song, or watch a movie contain scenes of people having sex. And a lot of young people and heavy TV viewers accept the media’s portrayal of man and woman. For example, the novel fifty Shades of Gray has sold millions of copies across America, and it is not only a sex oriented book, but also about BDSM (a practice that involves dominance and submission). This novel has changed normal couple’s life style, a lot of couple who read the book started sexual role playing. To be specific, after reading this book, man would like to play the dominant role who ties a woman up and pretends to torture her. I have watched the 2014 documentary of Fifty Shades of Gray, and found that a lot of couples being interviewed actually admit that BDSM is already part of their lives, and they don’t want to get rid of it. If media can change man and woman’s attitude about sexual violence, they maybe hold more endurance with sexual assault. But this is just a guess, because I know that BDSM role playing is a lot different than actual rape. But as people become more endurable with sexual violence, they also become more endurable with certain sexual behaviors that maybe have something to do with rape. And I think media has brought an unheathy attitude to the society, because it has made people become more open up to having sex than ever.  

I think that social media is a commercial product; it encourages people to consume more of its product (such as sex oriented texts and alcohol). As people consume more, their economy grows up, but their moral standards become corrupted by continued consumption of unhealthy contents. In my opinion, consumers should acknowledge the effect media brought on society and stop relying too much on media contents. The media producers too should limit the contents that have negative effect on society.

In class discussion, we also talked about the bans and affirmative actions. For bans and limits, students suggest to have undercover police in a party, or forbidding students to go to dangerous places (such as wild place or place with no people). I think that if there is going to be undercover police, the number of police will depends on how big the party is. It is unpractical to send so many police to a large party when most of the campus police are dealing with other crimes. I remember the instructor said local police in Pullman believe that they are not in charge of the raped happened on campus. I don’t think that local police should ignore the crimes happened on campus because protecting all citizens is their duty. If the police on campus are busy or takes long time to investigate rape case, local police should also be send to help the investigation. If students are forbidden to go to “fly zones,” they should at least be informed where these places are, in case they accidentally confronted danger. 

Blog Post 4: Sound Methodologies and group discussion

In Tuesday’s lecture, we talked about methodologies regarding sexual assault. During the class discussion, we mainly discussed the cultural assumptions about relationship as well as the direct and indirect implication within these assumptions. We also discussed about how gender difference has contributed to these assumptions. Lastly, we talked about prevention of sexual assault. I think it’s interesting that man and woman hold different perception towards coercion. As the students explained, man tends to think there is an implied “yes” even when the women refused him. Thus even when she said no to him, he keeps pressing and demanding. And I believe that this character of man is not only culturally constructed, but also born with their nature. I not only noticed this demanding nature of man in American society but also in Asian society. But I don’t think people should blame man for having this nature, I think in the case of rape, people should blame man for having less self-control. I think the reason men are more forceful than woman is man always hold more power than woman. In the history of human civilization, men are always the dominator of society (in both Western and Asian societies), thus I wonder if their demanding traits and aggressiveness are inherited through generations of domination.

I also think it’s interesting that man and woman both hold certain gender advantage in the case of rape. Girls are weaker and gives more indirect responses when it comes to “yes or no,” thus they can always accuse the man for misinterpreting their answers or the message being suggested in their answer. Men, on the other hand, uses the “yes means yes” concept to defend themselves, because she didn’t say no so it must be yes, or because she said yes so it’s not rape, they both agreed to make the same choice. This is why students in class said the “yes means yes” notion puts girls in more dangerous situation when interacting with boys, because boys are likely to misunderstand the meaning “yes” implies. If this is true, then I wonder if we should blame the culture for making boys so “insensitive” and “forceful.” Even when boys have sensed the implied “No” beneath the surface answer “yes,” would they choose to give up their demands and put girls’ needs in priority? Maybe we should be aware that the whole “Yes means yes” culture, a culture that is constructed based off masculine desires, is leaving girls no protection. It is the “Yes means yes” culture that results in the ambiguity in cases of rape, and forces girls to question their decency. I think that men should work on accepting feminine values such as “yes means no,” and stop treating girl’s indirect culture as unrealistic or false information.Indirect culture is real even when boys don't see it

In class, students also talked about why people are so uncomfortable talking about rape or sexual assault. Many people in our class said it is due to the culture, because topic of rape is too personal, and it affects everyone once it’s addressed publically. I think it’s interesting how cultural values have complicated the issue of rape. Even when people are rapes and they know they need to stop this issue, and raising public awareness is important step for regulating the issue, they still don’t dare to talk about it, just because their culture has made them this way (into unlikely to talk about this problem). Again, I think American culture is problematic in some way, because it always views sex as moral issue, thus people would avoid talking about sex. The more they don’t talk about it the more they are ignorant about the issue and the longer it takes for them to figure out what actually happened and how to solve it. I can see how messy the issue of rape can be under people’s assumptions. 

Blog Post3：Statistics and laws article and discussions

In today’s class we discussed about some statistics and legal definitions about rape and sexual harassment. I think it’s interesting that, according to the statistics, so little rape cases are reported, especially by women. We discussed about why this phenomenon occurs. And one myth about it is media had permeated women’s subconscious. One classmate said media portray rape as romance; raped women always fall in love with the raper, thus will not blame him for what he did. I wonder how media had shaped women’s perception about rape. I guess that their perceptions are not only shaped by media, but also by sexual orientated culture itself. Culture about sexuality is long rooted in American history. I know that there are movies that portray sexually attractive women since 1960s, such as The Head Mistress (1968), which portrays young blond women as naked, beautiful, and stupid. I know that blond and stupidity are stereotypes of female characters in media, but these stereotypical characteristics do have an effect on modern day girls, even when they are not always true. Today’s class makes me realize that rape is interconnected with multiple social, economic and political issues; it doesn’t just stand alone. And if we want to eliminate rape, we should also eliminate the distorted portrayal of women and men in media. We should not only be media educated but also demand the media itself to change its character to a healthier and more realistic subject. Media should give up its attempt to make more money by portraying young women or young men as sexual objects. So that people in the society will not believe that media portrayed characters are true and thus imitate those characters.

I have looked up the links that connect to statistics about WSU policies regarding the issue of sexual harassment. And I do think that the WSU policies are too general. For example, on the page of policies against sexual harassment, it doesn’t indicate the penalty for staffs, faculties and students. It just says sexual harassment is not allowed on campus and they will investigate it, but didn’t say what happens to students and faculty members if they are found having sexual assault. And this makes me realize that rape happened on campus maybe due to lack of school regulation. If the college could strictly and clearly list every rules and punishment (such as expelling students or firing staffs), college staffs may not dare to commit sexual harassment, because they know there’s a price to pay. Somebody mentioned that Indian tribes have a lot of women being raped. I’m not sure if this is true but if it is true. Then I would connect this example to the consequences brought by lack of regulation. Indian tribes or middle east countries are underdeveloped; and they do not set up rules for each consequences brought by their people’s action. This is why their men are not afraid to sexually harass their women. It is the lack of clear restriction and regulation that lead to bad consequences (students being raped).

The statistic I found shows that rape and sexual assault for nonstudents are actually 1.2 times higher than those for students. This statistic shows that the numbers of victimization of nonstudents and students are kind of similar. It further reflects the lack of regulation on school institution. Some nonstudents live off campus, without any protection, thus should be easier to get into danger than students who live on campus. Yet the rate of victimization for students is almost the same as the rate for nonstudents. I feel like it’s not a coincidence those who are campus students or campus residents are raped. It is because school institution never provides specific education about rape to these students. As we discussed in class, young school kids have lack of maturity; they have never think of the consequences of their action before doing it. If people want to prevent young kids from being raped, they should teach their guardians to pay more attention to their kids’ well-being and activities. Parents and school administrators always believe that their kids are going to be fine in this society because it seems that their community is fine, and everybody looks like a good person. But the guardians should also be responsible when informing kids about the danger in their community because they would never know if their kids are truly mature enough to handle their own lives or even their own bodies.

Blog post2: Chapter 4 and the class discussion

In class we discussed about many stereotypes, typologies and common places relate to sexual assault. We also talked about different assumptions and how these assumptions being generated. And someone in class said people tend to blame the institution instead of the offender in the case of school rape. But the instructor said the institution does hold some responsibility for the blame because it’s school’s responsibility to set up rules to protect students. I think it’s interesting that in the case of rape, there are so many factors or elements to blame, so that you can’t be sure whether the offender holds the entire responsibility for the case. As we talked about in class, some people blame for the media for distorting the story and causing more traumatic experience for the victim; some blame for school or the sorority for not setting rules against sexual harassment; and some blame for the hospital which hides the truth and severity of rape. I think it’s interesting that people would rather blame anything else rather than the offender. I think it has a lot to do with male privilege and the way culture is constructed. Since people in the society view man as more powerful and holds more privilege, so they tend to grand more privilege to man when rape happens. This is why man are well protected, especially by media, and women suffers. But the society is supposed to work together to solve the case and make the situation better, but they are not self-conscious and cannot realize the pain they added to the victims. So I think the reason rape is so pervasive in American society has a lot to do with self-awareness. Because nobody would stand up and say “rape” is wrong, and what they do is just blaming everything except for those who caused the rape. If anyone is truly to blame, they should also blame themselves for contributing to the bad social influence.

In chapter 4, the author talked about conjecture, degree and possibility, which are important devices to help determine the truth behind the case of rape. In my opinion, the most interesting part from the chapter is different perspective contains entirely different (even opposite) commonplaces. For example, socialism and fascism holds opposite perspectives and commonplaces on political spectrum. If so, when apply this fact in a rape case, I think it would be really messy to evaluate all commonplaces from different people. The chapter shows that rhetorical commonplaces provide evidence (p.101). But what if one person’s perception is preferred; will commonplaces based on that perception be considered more convincing than other evidences?

In class students also talked about commonplaces in rape. Such as the reason so little rape are reported is because women are uneducated in rape culture. I think it’s interesting that neither women nor men consider being raped as a big deal. They maybe think of rape as merely sex. And the reason they don’t think sex is a big deal is because of the way American culture is shaped. When everybody else is doing it, you want to do it too. Another factor is the media. Girls learned that having sex is normal from TV shows because TV programs don’t portray sex as sexual harassment or rape, rather they portray it as romantic, sexy, attractive and exciting. Now you notice that young school girls would invite guys to their dorms. I think it’s interesting that guys also don’t think rape as a big deal, as the instructor said in a survey 30% man would rather force themselves on girls, even when they know they will be reported. I think that maybe guys don’t care about their bodies either because they have nothing to lose; they will never get pregnant. Same reason they careless about a girl’s body; because they don’t think the way about rape as girls does. They have nothing to lose and they assume that girls think the same. And guys’ perceptions about their body also are shaped by media. They maybe view themselves as sexual objects just as male characters portrayed in the movie. Such perceptions can be dangerous sometimes such as in the actual case of rape; and I think because of this reason guys require more restriction and education than girls do.  

Response to Chapter 3: "Achieving Stasis by asking the right questions" and class discussion

In my opinion, the way of looking for a stasis or the origin of an argument is not always the best way to investigate a rape case. This is because stasis theory focuses on the very origin of rape case and looks at questions like whether rape is a good thing, what happened in the rape case, what about man and woman’s testimonies, who is telling the true story. And sometimes these questions tie to very nasty and unclear answers. For instance, in the opinion of the victim, certain behavior is viewed as behavior of rape, but in the racist’s story, not so. So the stasis theory must ask questions about whether that behavior is embodied in the behaviors of sexual assault or rape. But it is hard to know if the testimonies are true, both the victim and the raper may provide some inaccurate information. Especially when the victim just went through the traumatic incident of rape, she may not remember clearly how she was raped, or what kind of behaviors the raper has had in a situation when she was threatened or harmed. In addition, the raper may distort the true story in an attempt to protect himself. Thus neither the raper nor the victim’s testimony are credible enough to prove the story to be true. In this case, finding the stance of the rape does not work due to inaccurate or distorted testimonies. Certain behaviors maybe there, maybe not, we are not sure. Another reason stasis theory may not work is even if the behavior is confirmed really exist, we cannot say such behavior does meet the standard behavior of rape. When a woman is forced by a man to commit certain sexual behavior, we don’t know if she can or cannot control the entire situation. If she cannot and is absolutely forced by the raper, then the raper’s behavior is considered as rape. But if she can control the situation, yet still let the guy sexually harass her, it is debatable whether she willingly accepts the situation and whether she also holds responsibility for the occurrence of the rape. Some people may wonder if she could control the situation why wouldn’t she pushed him away or just escape it. But it is possible that such situation happened, and the victim didn’t resist the raper when she had the chance to (due to whatever reason). The court thus cannot only blame the man for the incident of rape. Or maybe she seduced him first, and then regretted after she found out she was pregnant, so that she blamed the guy for having sex with her and made her pregnant (we don’t know). It is because all of these small details and unknown pieces, we can’t just conclude that the guy raped her, and we cannot conclude without evidence. I do agree with the instructor’s assumption that it is possible it’s the man(the raper)’s fault that he forced himself on her. Just like the instructor said in class that “big university athletes get a lot of passes,” but what if the truth is the exact opposite, that it’s not the guy’s fault but the girl’s. Even though in the cases of rape we experience some gender inequality, that people always holds no doubt that it is a guy’s fault for raping a girl because the male raper is stronger and holds more power; he can easily force himself on a girl because girls are usually weak and helpless. But we shouldn’t ignore the possibility that the victim also holds some responsibility for letting the incident(the rape) happen. In this case, I don’t think that stasis theory can uncover all the small details of the rape such as exactly who started the rape because the theory only ask general questions it can reach and ignores other possibilities.

I also think it’s interesting when the instructor asked if “human nature is a crime.” I think this is a perfect example of what I just said --- that stasis theory cannot investigate on ambiguous questions. Just like the theory cannot really help answer this question. Is human nature a crime? I would say, in my perspective, yes, if based on socially constructed laws and standards; and no, if we consider human beings as merely animals, and the concept of “rape” will line up with animal’s mating behavior, without any punishment and just simply due to our nature to mate with another. But others may argue that what distinguish us from wild beast is our emotion and sympathy, and government regulation is what ensures our survival as a unique kind. So I think such an ambiguous question involves ethical or moral problems, and cannot be solved by a single stance (if we find the stasis). Even if we know how the rape case is originated, we cannot really solve the case when this kind of question is discussed, because such question is challenging the concept of rape itself, by which I mean whether or not is right to rape a woman.