‘Rape Joke’ by Patricia Lockwood
Women oppression
The poem ‘Rape Joke’ demonstrates how women in a patriarchal society are controlled by male dominance. The poem clearly shows that women are oppressed by the opposing gender and they pass through many hardships in their culture and society. Indeed, Lockwood shows the epidemic oppression of women since they live in a society where men have control in everything. By analyzing the poem deeper, it is clear that women in societies are treated unjustly and they live in a society which is full of insidious forces. For example in the poem, the author states that “…he carried a knife, and would show it to you, and would turn it over and over in his hands…” (Lehman & Hayes, 86). This clearly shows that female live under male dominance and their lives are threatened. Men in this case present sexual violence over women and they even use weapon or physical control in controlling women. In other words, men use force or coercion to oppress women physically and the results leads to psychological trauma in women. The poem ‘The Rape Joke’ allows the reader to get a vivid image of gender inequality and sexual violence in the society and how pain and disparity affects women in their everyday life in modern society.
According to Lako (4), culture is important in the society but in all cultures there is gender inequality. Women are subjected to inequality and they are vulnerable to sexual violence in the society. In culture discourse, gender difference creates a patriarchal society where women become vulnerable of suffering due to male dominance. The appalling thing with patriarchy is that women are denied opportunities to move forward since they are regarded as inferior and their rights are also violated. In private and public spheres, men have absolute priority and the difference in power relationship makes women to become subordinate (Lako, 4).
In human societies, people tend to relate culture with value system and a determinant of socialization. In many societies, culture norms and values create distinction on individuals or in other words culture acts as a social construct and a root cause of inequality. Lako (9) states that women oppression in the society is apparent when culture is characterized by patriarchy. Modern cultures have features such as patriarchy which means that public and private institutions in the society are under male dominance. Patriarchy in the society creates social inequality and women rights are not recognized. Since modern cultures follow the patriarchal ideology, women are subjugated. The point in this article is that people within a society tend to respect own culture of which it becomes difficult to maintain gender inequality (Lako, 10). What happens is that when respecting ones cultures, other cultures are disrespected and the result of disrespect is gender inequality where women become vulnerable of violence.
Women meet violence in their everyday life. Indeed, violence toward women is taken-for-granted or in other words men believe that violence is normal and natural. Violence is contributed by gender power relations and in this case, men have the power to control women in .social and political setting (Bulletin of Latin American Research, 5). The author of this article asserts that male dominance is rooted from the ideology that men tend to create gender identities and follow the ideology that without violence they cannot control behavior. In societies, ‘dominant gender constructions’ influence violence in that when men have the dominance, they belief that they have certain norms and values which should control the family (Bulletin of Latin American Research, 8).
An important point to understand is that violence or women oppression is due to gendered power relation which allows men to have gendered hierarchies in controlling women. The point is that male dominance makes women to become inferior in that power in all spheres is embraced by men. This means that since in all institutions women’s voice is not heard, they are denied legal rights and freedom (Bulletin of Latin American Research, 15). Women subordination means that they always have inferior position and they are not allowed to participate in decision making and other society issue. The situation leads to low self-esteem and becomes victims of violation such as sexual violence. In relating the poem with literature, it is clear that in a patriarchal society, men treat women like sex objects. The latter is socially constructed in that women are viewed as inferior and failure to participate in social setting, men do not value their role in the society but rather treat them as sexual objects (Bulletin of Latin American Research, 18).
The issue of women oppression as explored in the poem is all over the world. The literature helps us understand the lives of women and the various challenges they meet while under male dominance. Kalichman et al (20) assert that HIV-AIDS is the leading cause of death in South Africa and women death rate is high given that 13% are infected compared with men 9%.The reason as to why the number of women is higher than men is that women face sexual violence than men. A report in 2000 showed that the year had over 53,000 cases of rape (Kalichman et al, 20). The appalling thing is that sexual violence increases HIV disease in that the act occurs unexpectedly and failure to use condoms leads to transmission of infections. Various studies from this region show that women who are HIV positive have been involved in sexual assault. The root cause of the sexual assault is the power imbalances which are culturally constructed. This is indication that women are negatively impacted by the gender inequality as they become victims of sexual assaults (Kalichman et al, 25). In this case, sexual assault violets the women’s rights which are right to life, right not to be discriminated, right to equality and more. All forms associated with discrimination violated the fundamental rights of women (Kalichman et al, 20).
Sexual violence is a health problem and women are more vulnerable than men. Studies have also confirmed that women with disability are at a greater risk of sexual violence in U.S. These women are affected mentally, intellectually and physically and this means that disabled women face double oppression (Basile et al, 929). In social setting or in work place, disabled people get little service provision and the management undervalues their social needs. Various study show that women with disability have greater risk than men and this shows that women are forced to unwanted sex. Despite the fact both disabled men and women should have equal rights, women are more discriminated than men. The poem ‘Rape Joke’ helps the reader to understand sexual assault in deeper manner. In this case, the literature allows the reader to understand that all women even those with disability face sexual violence and these acts are socially construed in that disabled people are not valued in the society (Basile et al, 929). The high rate of vulnerability is contributed by the fact that they are disempowered since their norms do not align with that of the society. In sociocultural setting, cultural and gender variation contributes to sexual violence where men develops sexual behaviors toward disabled women. In addition, masculine identity is much value and men are encouraged to demonstrate their dominance power toward women (Basile et al, 932). The important point to note is that violence is influenced by power and domination which are socially constructed. Women who disabled become vulnerable since they are powerless and their communication is poor. These people are discriminated to an extent that they are not trained on how to resist using intuition and do not access other experiential opportunities (Basile et al, 932).
Conclusion
Sexual assault is an act which creates a long lasting distress in women. Sexual assault is a form of sexual violence and women are vulnerable to these acts due to the fact that they are not valued in the society. In others words, sexual violence is socially constructed as men are allowed to have the dominance over women and to control their lives, as well as to treat them as sexual objects. The poem ‘The Rape Joke’ demonstrates how women are oppressed by men since they are inferior in the society. Sexual violence is a problem which is all over the world and this issue affects women both physically and mentally. With respect to the poem, men use weapon to force women in the unwanted sex. In addition, they cause psychological intimidation in order to harm the women. Literature has also showed that women with disability are sexually violated since the authority on the society does not value their roles.
Work cited
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