Blog Post 10: Mythology group discussion, stats of age, gender and target group

Today we talked about mythology and age difference among victims of rape. The class reading shows rape with victims between the age of 12 and 18 is less likely to be charged than forcible incidents. The class member said the younger the victims and the rapist, the less likely the incident is to be charged or convicted because police would think they are young and inexperienced and let them get away; it’s considered less severe than rape between adults. On the other hand, children don’t report if incidents happened. Children are taught what sex is and how to commit sexual activities, and their parents are ok with it. In my view, it’s not safe for children or young adults to commit sexual intercourse even when they know what it is; because these kids are inexperienced with risks such as sex disease and rape. A 12 year old young girl is less likely to immediately report a forceful incident between her and her boyfriend than woman above that age. If parents are going to tell children about anything about sex, they should also teach them about how to prevent rape or sex disease; above all parents should teach their children how to interact with friends of different gender in order to prevent violence brought by miscommunication. Children or teenagers should know that they can report a rape even though they are kids; they need to be aware about risks of rape at early age, so that they don’t want to get involved in too much risky sexual activity.

Another interesting concept from our discussion is men are never raped. This concept shows how people’s idea about gender can alter their perception about rape. A man who is forced to commit sexual act by a woman is also called rape. Yet every few Americans believe this is authentic. Man is always stronger and more dominant than woman thus man cannot be raped. Other issue are brought up or correlated with this concept. Like for example, female rapists are more easily to get away with rape if reported because police is going to think that the guy raped her, instead of the guy being raped. This explains why there are so little reports about woman on man; it is always man on woman.

Moreover, the in class discussion addressed the nature of rape. The instructor suggested that rape is about violence and control instead of sex. But legal system sees rape as a sex crime, sex crime always blame man for being the perpetrator because the society perceives man as sexual animal. But like I said in the previous blog, man is also human being who receives social education and learns how to control themselves. Not all man wanted sex as much as the rapist did, but society keeps tell men that they are sexual beings. They perceive themselves as “the rapist” and lack of self-control. This is how social construction shape gender roles. Women are victims because they are weak and in control, they can never be “the rapist” because they don’t fit into the gender role of a male rapist. As long as people perceive rapists as man, they will allow woman who committed sex crimes to get away.

Lastly, the article shows that white people are more likely to be perpetrated than other race. I think race or racism also contributes to the issue of sexual assault. I read an article before; it says the reason white people are discriminating against black because society practically perceives white people as the good person, but black people as the criminal. Media too constantly portrays black people as the criminal or bad guy. I think because white people are perceived by the society as the good guy, it increases their victimization and or their probability to get raped. Oppositely, because black are perceived more dangerous, offender are less likely to go after a black victim than a white victim.

Blog Post 9: Stats and Facts group discussion

In today’s class, we talked about facts about false accusation, and underreported cases, as well as the reasons why so many cases of rape are underreported. Underreporting and false estimation can cause inaccurate statistics and facts. People can’t be sure how many rapes actually have happened locally or nationally. Thus people cannot know the scale of rapes; therefore they cannot investigate all the underreported cases. Again, the instructor mentioned how people can change the Kairos in order to solve the issue of rape. Students suggested that it’s important to change men and women’s attitude. Men, as the dominator of the society, tend to care about their own benefits, thus they can careless about women’s needs. Women tend to be dependent on men; they never take charge of the society, thus they tend to become weak and obedient. Both men and women should change their gender roles in order to alter the rape culture.

As I said in class, not only men, but also women need to change their cultural norms. Even though women are not responsible for rape, they are responsible for not being in charge. For instance, very few women work in American government; this is because women are less ambitious and confident as men, either they don’t think they can handle jobs in government, or not willing to. They tend to choose jobs that are suitable for women, such as teaching and nursing. Another girl in class said this feminine culture has led women being subordinate to men. Men have become the dominator in engineering, business, and federal government. And this partly is because women believe they shouldn’t interfere with these career fields. What if women want to be in charge, would they still give ambiguous or indecisive answer to men so that men get the chance to take advantage of them? I think the cultural construction is rooted deeply into people’s mind; women believe they should do what a woman should do and not cross that idea of being a woman. It is the culture which tells all the women to wear dress, put on makeup and look pretty; but none of these cultural norms for women are useful for self-protection. Women are helpless because they think they are less powerful than men, they are both spiritually and physically weak thus there is no way they can escape from a man. But to me, if society taught women how to protect themselves, they might have changes to escape from rape. It is the social structure and the society that suppressed women into obedient and dependent beings who don’t know how to say ‘No.’

I read the article Elizabeth posted. It was about the aftermath of rape and PTSD. The article shows that most of the victims feel dirty, humiliated, shocked, numb and emotional after knowing the sexual assault. Victims’ physical bodies also suffer soreness, dysfunctional eating and sleeping and genital problems. If victims are physically beaten they will have more pain and bruises. In my opinion, the fact that some victims are brutally beaten up can show how vulnerable women are in the situation of rape. A woman maybe can flee from one man, but if there are two or three men, she may not escape. So it is also important to be with more female friends when in a bar or at night, because if you’re alone guys will think it’s easy to get you, but when you’re with friends you may be safe at the time. I actually don’t get why men would still force themselves on women when they see how painful these female victims have become. Men should at least have some pity for the victims, and understand the seriousness of sexual assault. It is serious when a woman is raped and beaten up and has nowhere to seek for help. If society is going to change the power dynamic between men and women, it should start by develop the sympathy in men and teach men don’t just put their sexual desire at first and think about women’s feelings.

Blog Post 8: Popular Press Group and ARCS Chapter 5

In today’s lecture, we talked about the article “A response to rape by the swimming athlete from Stanford.” We were analyzing what happened in this case. To me this case is again about blaming the sex culture and drinking culture for what the rapist did. This actually reminds me of an article I saw on Facebook, which is about a man defending man’s modesty and dominant nature. Check out this link, http://hannahschaefer.com/2015/02/08/not-a-dick-a-mans-perspective-on-modesty/

He said not all man is stereotypically lack of self-control because men are human too and not all guys treating woman as sexual objects. He also said neither men nor women deserve to be objectified into sexual beings. I think it’s interesting he said this and I can tie what he said to the issue of sexual assault and sex culture. I think the reason so many people blame sex culture for sexual assault is because they are used to having sex culture around, they would rather blame their culture (which is a common thing) than making the rape incident personal on individual (the rapist). People are also more endurable with the sex culture; they make fun of it all the time like having sex jokes, this is why they are used to the fact sex culture affecting the issue of rape, it doesn’t make them feel threatened, rather it happens so often because it’s part of their culture. The guy in this article too believes that there is nothing wrong with man’s behavior because he is deeply rooted with in male dominated culture. He is justifying man’s modesty and saying not all man have treated woman inhumanly, but the truth is rape happens all the time even when a man not intentionally treating a woman as sexual object.

  In class, students said in the case of rape, the longer it take for not reporting, the less evidence left. So if the victims could immediately report the case they may have a chance to collect all the evidence they need and catch the rapist and put him in conviction. But personally I think it’s hard for female victims to report as soon as the rape is happened because, as students said in class, not everybody is open up with the topic of rape; victims could be shameful or self-blaming. They know the press, the media or the police are going to be harsh on them about the case, thus they took longer to think through and report the case, which left less evidence for investigation. As students suggested, people could establish a victim support group which has police members but they are well trained to deal with victims of sexual assault and provide a warm and welcoming situation, rather than a cold police office. I think this idea is not really possible because training and establishing the group both needs money and support of the police. I know that police treat rape as less important than murder because it’s not life threatening. As long as the local police are care less about rape cases they will not put in time and effort to train people to be like ATVP to help the victim out, because police’s job is mainly investigation not consoling. The instructor also said in class, if the police are well trained, they are able to catch the rapist beforehand, it minimize the victimization. But it seems unrealistic to expect police to catch the guy before he commit sexual assault, because nobody would know if the guy has never done any sexual assault before. To solve the issue of sexual assault, people need to keep up their awareness with the news and their community, and pay attention to their environment if cases like rape really happens. 

Blog Post 7: Kairos of Rape

In class we discussed about Kairos for rape. Kairos is defined as the best opportunity of time. We talked about what creates the best opportunity of time for rape to happen; this includes miscommunication, alcohol, power dynamic of gender roles, hypermasculinity, and lack of awareness to the situation. We discussed how we can change these elements in order to create a better Kairos that will avoid rape culture. Students suggest that we can do more research on areas outside the college, have more knowledge about the history of rape, and change cultural connotation and social expectation.

What I think most interesting about Kairos in chapter 2 is that Kairos explains different intentions or motivations behind different people. For example, victims of rape claims that they are raped because they felt being force to commit unwilling sexual intercourse with a guy. But the rapist believes he is not guilty of rape because the interaction between him and the victims is consensual. Sex is one of the motivation behind rape; rapists want sexual pleasure, this is why they careless about feminine thoughts and force themselves on the victims. Sexual pleasure can be tied with lack of education and rigid power dynamics. Because women are stereotypically considered weaker and less powerful than man, man believes that they are able to suppress them. Rape culture is also perceived not a big deal by teenagers who have no awareness about their actions or knowledge about sex and abortion.

Somehow, cultural norm or social norm has helped building up man’s sexual desires and their motive to commit sexual assault. In class the professor said man and woman are raised differently by their parents; woman are given dolls and pretty dresses, but man are given toy guns and more masculine toys. In other words, woman maybe taught by society to be subordinate and girl-like. Similar idea applies to man; men are taught to be aggressive and forceful. So social construction has provided a disadvantage for women because of the way woman and man are taught to be. The instructor suggested that one way to change this motivation of sexual pleasure is to change the cultural construction. If men were not taught to be masculine, aggressive and self-centered, instead they are taught to be understanding and considerate, they may establish the self-control which can help prevent rape incidents occurring in the future. Also, if women are taught to be more masculine instead of feminine, they maybe can learn to defend themselves and strive to be dominant in the situation of rape. But to me, to alter the way societies are is very difficult because when every man behaves the same way (and every woman behaves the same way), it’s going to take a lot of effort and a long time. School institutions may need to change the way they teach boys and girls in order to change their personalities, and parents may disagree with this change because they expect their children to fill into gender roles. It is only everybody in the society agrees to change, the masculinity and femininity will change, but to me it’s highly unlikely.

In chapter2, the author also talked about the web of factors, which means all the factors that contributed to rape together being interrelated. If alcohol, the right timing, miscommunication, gender roles and all the factors together build up a rape incident, then it is possible to take each factor out and de-construct this rape incident, in other words, to avoid the rape incident. If woman knows that alcohol is bad at late night while rape happens, they don’t drink because it keeps their awareness up. If they know that hanging out with a guy may lead to miscommunication, they shall be cautious about what they say because they know their behavior may suggest wrong message to guys. This is how we protect ourselves.

Paper #1: Stasis Analysis on athlete criminal and sexual assault

Anjie Zhao

Engl 460

Paper 1

Feb 9 2015

Stasis Theory Analysis: Sexual Assault and athlete criminals

Rape is a serious issue in American society. It not only reflects gender inequality but also ties with discriminations. It also relates to the issue of the classism and power dynamics. In my class blog, I mentioned the issue in which famous football players getting away from conviction of rape. In this essay, I want to further investigate this type of case by using Stasis Theory. I will analyze four parts of Stasis Theory (including facts, definition, quality and policy) in sexual assault involving big athletes since 20^th century. I want to know if cases like getting away from conviction are common with famous or powerful people in the past. I also want to unveil the factors that contribute to the eventual escape of the rapist.

Let’s trace back to an actual case happened in 2000. Kathy Redmond, the founder of National Coalition Against Violent Athlete (a victim support group), claimed that she was twice raped in 1991 by the same football player Christian Peter when she and Peter were both students at University of Nebraska. But Peter’s team denies that Peter has done this; the team member said Peter used to be an alcohol abuser but he went to psychological counseling and has been a good player since then. According to Stasis Theory, the first step to discover the truth behind this case is to identify the facts. I evaluated some facts and assumptions related to the case. We obtained our sources from the victim herself as well as Peter’s team members. This case begins by Kathy Redmond suing the University of Nebraska. We know that victim Kathy Redmond claimed that she was raped twice and has filed a lawsuit against her university, but we don’t have any evidence to prove that she is really raped. If Redmond said is true that she is really raped, it may explain her action to build a victim support group after her efforts against Peter failed, she wants to build a victim group that helps victims like her, because as she said victims “are going against a lot of money and against a lot of power, this is why a lot of victims don’t report,” (Gibeaut, 2000). But the University compensated Redmond 50,000 dollars, we should reconsider the reason Redmond sued the University instead of going directly to the rapist; does she want financial compensation which she can’t get from the powerful athlete team? Would it be possible that she lied about her rape just for money? We don’t like victim blame but we can’t ignore the tiniest details that may help us uncover the truth. We don’t know the relationship between Kathy Redmond and Christian Peter; if they were a couple in college, it explains the motive of Peter if he forced himself on her.

   There is another possibility, Peter and Redmond maybe strangers. We know that Peter’s team claimed that Peter didn’t do it, but Peter has once committed alcohol abuse; if the team helps undercover Peter’s sex crime, and lied about Peter’s quiting of alcohol abuse, Peter’s alcohol addiction may have lead to his abusive behavior on innocent woman. So even if they weren’t a couple, Peter may have force himself on Redmond because he is drunk and holds the need to express his masculine power. If we investigate on the place Redmond claimed that she was raped, we might get further information on the relationship between the claimed victim and the rapist. If we hear about what the rapist would say and look at the inconsistency among these confessions, we can also get more information on who is telling the truth and which part of the story is particularly true.

Moving on towards definition of this case (or issue), the main problem about this case lies on power dynamic. Because some football athletes are powerful and rich, it’s hard for middle class to go against them and declare them guilty. If you compare this case with many other 20^th century case related to powerful athletes, you would find that the reason these athletes can escape conviction is because the National Football League (NFL) Crime Policy shielded them from reputational damage (Gibeaut, 2000). Green Bay Packers’ Mark Chmura was charged and arrested for sexual assaulting his baby sitter, but he still has the right to sign with another team after his charge (2000). Likewise, the Diamondback baseball pitcher Bobby Chouinard was released by Arizona after police reported that he had held a gun to his wife (2000). Colorado Rockies’s ace Pedro Astacio pleaded guilty and deported after he was charged domestic violence for beating his pregnant wife, but the Rockies insist him to be on their opener and his deportation was withdrew (2000). These cases of football or baseball team protecting the criminal athletes can show how powerful the NFL’s violent crimes policy; NFL grants commissioners power to cover up the minor illegal conducts of sports players. The basketball management union shows the same authority over disciplines. According to general counsel of NBA Rick Buchanan, none of the serious criminal cases involving NBA players ended with conviction or league sanction (2000). Misdemeanors are even less likely to end with punishment. “Absent some clear demonstration that what the player has done is a blight on the league, there probably won’t be any action taken,” said Billy Hunter, the executive director of NBA Player’s Association (2000). Sports players getting away from sexual violence is a political trend rather than an accidental phenomenon. In my view, this political trend is built upon the capitalist system. Capitalism is a system that capitalist or upper class holds all the power and determines the rules while the lower class suffers and listens to the rules. If victims of sexual assault are from middle class, and the accused was from a class higher; it is hard for the victim to overcome the rules that are determined by a criminal from upper class because in this case the one who commits crimes creates the rules. The rich athletes and his teams hold the power to change how we define sexual assault. This is because they are rich enough to access the media and public domains, while the victims are from middle class, they don’t hold the power over media, the laws, or protection. I think another big factor that driven famous athletes to commit more crime is the public and increased commercialization. People need to see these athletes playing and they are spending more money just to watch them play. The sports team might think their audience would not be pleased if their admired sports player got caught in a lawsuit and never able to play again. In other words, public support granted privilege to famous athletes and to keep them on the stage and never fall down, while devaluing the victim’s personal interests to seek justice.

The seriousness of Redmond’s case should not be evaluated separately. It reflects a social phenomenon that happens everywhere from the past to the present. According to USA TODAY research in 2003, of 168 sexual assault, 164 athletes are involved but only 22 cases went to trial, and among the 22 which under trial, only six causes end up in conviction (Weir, 2003). Another 46 cases presents a 23% conviction rate for athletes; due to plea agreement and plead guilty, more than two thirds of the cases were never charged (2003). These statistics shows so few athletes went to trial or being convicted for crime of sexual violence. According to research, 20% of the solved athlete-related charges were dropped; and 36% law enforcement authorities never filed an official charge. These cases put such a disadvantage for female victims. Linda Fairstein, former head of the sex crimes unit in the Manhattan district attorney's office in New York, said there are huge pressure on the victim and force them not to press charge, such as public would blame the victims for ruining the athlete’s career. Fairstein also suggests that victims don’t want to go through trial because they don’t want to be documented as the “accuser.” In my opinion, this issue that athletes were never charged is very serious but only in particular states; it does not cover the entire country in 2003. This is because in 2003 only 16% of sexual assault were reported; this statistic only covers a small number of the victimization (2003). Moreover, states laws and legislative system are different in each state; this may results in each states having different level of rape incident happening. For example, Nancy O'Malley, from the sexual assault committee of the California District Attorneys Association, suggests that some areas have conviction rate of 80% to 85%; and areas like Oakland and Berkeley has about 90% conviction rate for those who underwent trial (2003). If the conviction rates for some area are so high, these results are inconsistent with USA TODAY’s 168 sex cases research (in which only 6 cases gets convicted). This inconsistency among conviction rates can show that still many areas’ condition of sex crimes are unknown; it is possible the areas which has high conviction rate have underreported sex cases. But areas with high conviction rates and less victimization may have better legislative regulation than areas with lower conviction rate and higher victimizations.

In my view, big athlete getting away from sex cases is generally a bad thing because this issue is pervasive in the sports and the commercial world; the more pervasive this issue in the market, the more likely sports people think it’s ok for athletes to get away with sexual assault, just because they are big and famous. It provides less constrain on athlete’s criminality, and makes the society more favorable towards the powerful people, and man who holds authority. It gives women fewer power to defend themselves and enables man to do what they want; this effect ensures that the male-dominated society remain the same and maintains social inequality. This issue is going to get worse if people don’t do anything; if victims don’t report the cases, more victims will suffer.

In my opinion, Redmond’s case is less damaging than sex cases that don’t have conviction or compensation. Redmond was at least compensated by her university. I believe in some cases, such as big athlete beating his pregnant wife, the situation is worse and more wrong because it threatens the life of both the mother and the child. This is violent assault, and is different from Redmond’s case because Redmond’s case is sexual natured. Although we consider sexual assault as a form of sexual violence, it results in less critical injury than using violence. Redmond’s trauma is both psychological and physical but they are not immediate life threatening. However, Redmond’s case could be potentially life threatening because it is possible her mental trauma will bring out more suffering than an immediate injury, and this may lead to unexpected consequences such as suicide.

About how we decide which action should be taken, court and lawyers must be involved in order to help giving the right judgment. In the 2003 research conducted by USA TODAY, those who involved in the research are newspapers, wire service databases, district attorneys, defense lawyers, and court clerks (Weir, 2003). This research investigates professional and college athletes from NCAA Division I football and men’s basketball. Just USA TODAY research, the athlete being accused, prosecutors, defendant, lawyers are important to Redmond’s case because if the case gone to trial, these people will provide sources and evidence that changes the determination of the judge and the jury. For example, in the USA TODAY research, an NBA athlete named Bryant was accused sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman; his lawyer seeks evidence that the woman was taking anti-psychotic meds and had suicidal attempt; in other words his lawyer is trying to prove the accuser mentally insane. In addition, Bryant’s lawyer challenged the nomocracy of Colorado’s rape shield law, and limits defense lawyers resources about the defendant’s sexual history. Because of the pressure and distractive evidences brought by athlete’s attorney, it’s difficult for the defendant to win the case. According to USA TODAY’s research, if an athlete is well respected or loved by local citizens, his supporters are willing to be on the jury because they don’t want him to be in prison (2003). Big athletes also have better financial supports and have the potential to higher better attorneys than most of the defendants (2003). Another advantage big athlete have is his popularity; his famous background ties to million dollar business and commercials (2003). In comparison with the famous athlete, the ordinary defendants are unknown to public, not to mention they don’t want to be in front of public eyes, thus they acquires less public supports than the athletes do. If we apply these problems and disadvantage brought by celebrity to Redmond’s case, if Redmond also lacks the power to hire a more experienced attorney or the power to control the media, she is less likely to win than the athlete she fights against.

In conclusion, in this essay I talked about an old 20^th century case of sexual assault and used multiple examples from other sex cases to help me investigate its nature and difficulties to solve this case. Redmond’s case uncovers a big issue related to athlete in general; it also shows a solid male-dominated political system in 2000. The fact that this case never been convicted is related to multiple social factors including the lack of competitiveness in the court room, lack of support by the public and legal team. In order to resolve this issue and many other sexual assaults related to big athletes, some actions must be taken. Sharing rights with victims of lower rank is a long process because it takes time for people to grow richer and become equally powerful as the higher rank. Legal system should enhance its laws and make it cover up high class. A solid sport league policy may restrain athlete’s behavior. The court room should keep revising its rules too in order to ensure justice in cases of sexual assault.

Citation

Gibeaut, J. (2000). When Pros Turn Cons. (cover story). ABA Journal, 86 (7), 38. Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=7f40bc4b-1566-45a3-b1fe-2cb4b829c53c%40sessionmgr4002&vid=4&hid=4204

Weir, T., & Brady, E. (2003). In sexual assault cases, athletes usually walk. USA Today. Retrieved from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/2003-12-21-athletes-sexual-assault_x.htm

Blog Post10：Mythology group discussion, age and target stats and difference

Today we talked about mythology and age difference among victims of rape. The class reading shows rape with victims between the age of 12 and 18 is less likely to be charged than forcible incidents. The class member said the younger the victims and the rapist, the less likely the incident is to be charged or convicted because police would think they are young and inexperienced and let them get away; it’s considered less severe than rape between adults. On the other hand, children don’t report if incidents happened. Children are taught what sex is and how to commit sexual activities, and their parents are ok with it. In my view, it’s not safe for children or young adults to commit sexual intercourse even when they know what it is; because these kids are inexperienced with risks such as sex disease and rape. A 12 year old young girl is less likely to immediately report a forceful incident between her and her boyfriend than woman above that age. If parents are going to tell children about anything about sex, they should also teach them about how to prevent rape or sex disease; above all parents should teach their children how to interact with friends of different gender in order to prevent violence brought by miscommunication. Children or teenagers should know that they can report a rape even though they are kids; they need to be aware about risks of rape at early age, so that they don’t want to get involved in too much risky sexual activity.

Another interesting concept from our discussion is men are never raped. This concept shows how people’s idea about gender can alter their perception about rape. A man who is forced to commit sexual act by a woman is also called rape. Yet every few Americans believe this is authentic. Man is always stronger and more dominant than woman thus man cannot be raped. Other issue are brought up or correlated with this concept. Like for example, female rapists are more easily to get away with rape if reported because police is going to think that the guy raped her, instead of the guy being raped. This explains why there are so little reports about woman on man; it is always man on woman.

Moreover, the in class discussion addressed the nature of rape. The instructor suggested that rape is about violence and control instead of sex. But legal system sees rape as a sex crime, sex crime always blame man for being the perpetrator because the society perceives man as sexual animal. But like I said in the previous blog, man is also human being who receives social education and learns how to control themselves. Not all man wanted sex as much as the rapist did, but society keeps tell men that they are sexual beings. They perceive themselves as “the rapist” and lack of self-control. This is how social construction shape gender roles. Women are victims because they are weak and in control, they can never be “the rapist” because they don’t fit into the gender role of a male rapist. As long as people perceive rapists as man, they will allow woman who committed sex crimes to get away.

Lastly, the article shows that white people are more likely to be perpetrated than other race. I think race or racism also contributes to the issue of sexual assault. I read an article before; it says the reason white people are discriminating against black because society practically perceives white people as the good person, but black people as the criminal. Media too constantly portrays black people as the criminal or bad guy. I think because white people are perceived by the society as the good guy, it increases their victimization and or their probability to get raped. Oppositely, because black are perceived more dangerous, offender are less likely to go after a black victim than a white victim.

Blog Post 6: Feminist response and victim blaming

On Tuesday, we talked about feminist response and the existing problem with the justice system. One student posted an article about how victims of rape respond to justice system. She said many victims are afraid of being prosecuted by police for what they said about the truth, even though they are telling the truth. About this, the instructor said this is one reason why people don’t see justice system as an ally if they report the case. In my opinion, one way to increase the number of reports is to rebuild the justice system and earn back people’s trust. This maybe a difficult step to take. The justice system is dominated by powerful men; since this society is a male dominated society, man can hardly care about women’s request to reconstruct the justice system. If people want to completely change the justice system, they need to change the entire culture (the male dominated culture). This could also be difficult. It takes time to change the society’s interest from man’s needs towards woman’s needs. This is why I agree on what the instructor said, that it’s hard for people to convert the situation of rape. The instructor said he was paying attention since the 70s and the numbers of rape being reported really hasn’t changed much since the 70s. This unchanging trend maybe contributed by the fact that justice system doesn’t trust victims confession. What I would suggest in order to upgrade the justice system is to make a set of laws that regulate justice system’s administration and order. This way the justice system won’t be able to go beyond that law if it wants to give misjudgment based on masculine interest.

One thing that interests me about the discussion is when the instructor talked about the chain reaction or the circulate reaction brought by the dysfunctional justice system. He said the less rape being reported, the less rapists being caught, the more likely those who escape conviction will commit rape again. This circulating effect maintains the rape culture and this is why rape incidents kept going on and never gets solved. The unsolved cases are put aside and laid up. I think one way to break this chain reaction is to start from the police system and reinforce the education for police investigation. Each police need to have the responsibility to carefully investigate the cases and not ignore those which seem small. But as I said, I think to completely change the police system is difficult and takes a long time. America is still under capitalism. The capitalist economy system also has influence on gender inequality; upper class holds more power than the weak and the poor. Thus the male polices who have the back of the justice system, have more power over female victims. To me the phenomenon of rape is also a social and political result; to change such phenomenon we need to change the capitalist system first, but the society needs capitalist economy to survive and develop, thus I don’t think our society will abandon such economy any sooner. It will be long term change if we are to change the capitalist system, and it will take even longer to alter the issue of rape.

In class, we also talked about blaming victim. If justice system told the victim it’s their fault, the victim is going to hesitate and think that maybe it’s their own fault. This is because victims have come through some emotional trauma, and they can hardly defend themselves. I think it’s important that the justice system stop letting all the woman take the blame for what the rapists did. Man also have to take the responsibility for their action.