In class we talked about how language changes our perceptions about
rape. Our culture shapes people’s assumption and influence how they perceive
the victimization. People’s thinking and use of syllogism tend to make them
ignore how women were suffered during sexual assault and focus on victim
blames. For instance, syllogisms focus on reasoning, if the reasons fit into what
happened, it must be true, like if I say “the victim is to blame because she
shouldn’t got herself drink; if she didn’t want it to happen, she should avoid
drinking.” The use of syllogism in this line makes the argument seem truthful,
yet this argument merely reflects one aspect of the incident. The argument “victim
is to blame because she is drunk” is just one assumption of what really
happened. It largely ignores the aspects of perpetrator’s indiscretion. Syllogism
and American language is culturally constructed and involves cultural notion of
gender. When people think about who shouldn’t drink in the situation of rape,
they tend to say women instead of men because men are culturally portrayed as
drinkers, this is why the female victims are often blamed for drinking and the
male perpetrators are not. One student in class mentioned that when a guy
sexually assault a woman on the bus, police tend to use excuses for the guy
such as “he is just drink, or he doesn’t know what he is doing, nothing really
happened.” American language can express cultural ideas that convince people
what is true and what is not. But drinking cannot be excuses for the guy’s
behavior and the consequences he has caused.
In class, someone said culture has constrained people’s identity and
force them into something they are not. I think this idea is interesting
because it shows how people are turned into cultural beings. If American
culture is only defined by one set of rules, everyone has to fit into those
rules and this limits diversity and change. Like in class someone gave an
example of class division by culture; white working man always gets better job
than woman and black people. This example can show that minorities like woman
and colored groups cannot fit into culturally defined standards for better jobs
because they are not man because they are not viewed as eligible as man to be
in better positions. If the rape culture always ignores the feminist minority,
it’s hard for people to see how women were suffered under sexual assault.
I think it’s also interesting that the instructor said American
culture never talk about rape. This is because people have to talk about sex in
order to talk about rape, yet no man in the society would ask if they could
have sex with a female partner. American culture encourages people to be
indirect when it comes to sex. This is why men do not ask if they can have sex
with a woman, rather they assume they can have sex with a woman by looking at
her dress and makeups, and how luring she is. Not all culture encourages man to
assume if they could have sex with a woman. Likewise, not all culture teaches
woman to lure a man into bed by dressing in an open way. Media plays a big role
in shaping a country’s culture. In American TV shows, viewers can see women
dress in miniskirt, and playing with their hair to get a man’s attention. In
addition, American TV shows also shows naked man and woman having sex. In
Chinese TV show however, very few scenes with actors or actress taking off
their cloth. Chinese TV shows and Japanese TV shows also shows women dress in a
way less exposed or attractive than women from American TV show. If man and
woman learn about their culture from social media, it’s not hard to explain why
Chinese men are less sexually activate towards their female partner than American
men, because Chinese social media rarely portray man as naked or as sexually
activate. Chinese TV shows also rarely contain roles like playboys throughout
the past. Thus, in order to change the Kairos of rape, maybe American TV should
eliminate some extremely sex oriented or rape oriented depictions.
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