Warning: Cosmopolitan issued this website to be “difficult
to read” for some of its audience.
Sadly, rape is constantly heard, read, and talked about much
more than it should be. I don’t understand why people rape, and I don’t think
we ever will understand. Whether rape is infused with alcohol or just simply
violence, it is never alright to rape a person. In Bob Herbert’s “Why Aren’t We
Shocked?” article he focuses on the violence of women and includes an example
of how a killer at school shooting only attacked women. The shooter separated
the school from boys and girls and deliberately only killed and molested the
girls. If the killer separated the school by race or religion, the attack would’ve
been a hate crime. Of course, this was not called a hate crime because they
were just girls and in our society violence against females is more or less to
be expected. Herbert also states that these stories about rape of women and
girls are stories of the news and are just as familiar to us as weather
forecasts. I hate to say this, but I have to agree with him. The rape violence
of women is all you hear about on the internet and on the news – reasons why I don’t
watch the news anymore. I almost hear about rape more than the weather
forecasts nowadays.
To quickly summarize this story for those who didn’t want to
read it, in a village in India, a twelve-year-old girl was gang-raped and was
recorded on video. The men threatened the girl by killing her brother if she
told anyone about the video. The girl’s father found out when he saw someone watching
the video and realized the video was being sold in stores. The father tried to
report the problem but the police ignored it by simply saying “Boys will be
boys.” In relation to Herbert’s article about how common rape is, in India rape
is so common that it is considered to show fondness rather than a violent
attack. People say that if a man raped a woman, she should marry him. One teen
said, “If he raped her he probably likes her.” This is just completely insane
to me; it honestly blows my mind that people can actually think of these
statements. Rape should never be right and enjoyable to the victim. The victims
have to live with the consequences of mental issues and blaming themselves for
the rest of their lives and nobody should have to live that way.
When I read this article, I was hit with a huge wave of culture shock. In America rape is viewed as a horrifying crime and yes is talked about on the news as frequently as the weather. However rape crimes are some of the most difficult to convict based off of cases of hearsay. It is a big wake up call about the need for rape culture awareness around the globe to be put into affect. America's next step in fighting rape culture should be to take the mission across the globe. No person should fear being sexually assaulted for any reason. What is the need for police if they fail to act against these crimes? I would love to learn about the laws in India that prevent rape, if any are present. I think this article gives a huge cry to society to address rape culture everywhere and fight against violence. Fear leaves a heavy burden on one's shoulders and the fear of sexual assault should never carry that weight.
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