Reestablishment of Power

Resisting Violence Against Women

By: Shaw and Lee

There are many types of violent acts that range from online harassment to sexual abuse, and are different for males and females. According to Shaw and Lee, “cyber stalking can be defined as threatening behavior or unwanted advances directed at another using the internet and other forms of online and computer communications.” This type of sexual harassment is very common and happens to a lot of people whether or not it is threatening.  Men typically do these types of violence because they are attempting to gain back any power they believe they’ve lost through the improving empowerment of women. In Shaw and Lee’s example of the 30-year-old woman who was brutally beaten, I realized it could happen to anyone. She was a professional woman that didn’t give any signs that she wanted anything sexual to do with this man, but she still got attacked. In this case he told her that he wants his girlfriends to act and dress a certain way. I think this is extremely common because men think that if the woman wants to be seen in public with them, and then they should dress and speak to their standards.

There are there main types of rape: altruistic, compliant, and consensual sex. Altruistic sex is when one person feels guilty for motivating the other for sex or feeling sorry for them as a whole. Compliant sex is when it is worse to deny the sexual advances rather then just doing them. Lastly, consensual sex is where the two partners communicate and come to an agreement on sex and listen to each other’s wants.  Rape is very common at college’s campuses because of the drugs and alcohol that are involved in everyday situations. “About 70 to 80 percent of campus rapes generally involve alcohol or other drugs (with alcohol most pervasive among all drugs).  I believe these statistics because you do see a lot of girls being out of control at parties and not paying attention to who their with or what they’re drinking. At some point of the night they don’t even care who they go home with. I think this is a huge problem, and it’s a good thing that our campus has safe walks and other programs that can help women at risk.

There is one myth in particular that caught my attention because of its popularity and how much I have heard this before. “Men are not totally responsible for their actions. If a woman comes on to a man sexually, it is impossible for him to stop.” Some guys think that if a girl is at all interested in them, they can act like idiots to try and impress them and sweep them off their feet. It is possible to stop because if someone says no, then it means no. A girl can act like their interested in a guy if they haven’t really talked to him or seen him around that much. Once they talk to him more and they realize he wasn’t what they thought he was, that should be the end of it, but some guys just don’t know when to give up.