Gender-specific violence is something that impacts women all over the world on a daily basis. Gender-specific violence against women is violence that is directed towards women due to their sex or violence that indirectly affects them. It can be the product of environment, religion, culture, music, and other situational factors. In this essay, the impacts of gender-specific violence against women, the misogynistic images of women and their contribution to general violence, and the examples of sexual violence and its insensitivity in our own community.
Gender-specific violence impacts more women than one ould think. Around one in three women experience physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime. While most people would think that this number is for the United States alone, it is actually worldwide. In the U. S. seventy percent of women experience some kind of violence whether physical, sexual, emotional, or psychological by an intimate partner. When speaking of violence against women due to their sex, people of the Islamic faith are often thought of.
This is a common misconception though as several different religions, nations, and races have over 133 million women who have gone through enital mutilation, one in ten women enduring sexual harassment through the web or phone communication, and more than 700 million women being married before the age of 15. In the documentary NO! Unveiling The Silence: The Rape Documentary, Aishah Shahidah Simmons examines sexual violence in African American communities, how rape is used as a form of homophobia, and goes through the history of African Americans from enslavement to modern day.
The documentary starts off talking about date rape and the negotiation of sexual consent. It then goes into how slavery was used as a form of sexual economy. Many people only think of the literal physical work that was forced on the ancestors of African Americans. Women from Africa and of African descent were ripped from their homeland, dragged across the ocean, and forced to work land as slaves. As if this wasn’t enough, slave owners forced their slave women to have sex with them and the women were often times forced to carry their children.
The documentary also talks about how after slavery Black women went from being raped by White men to being raped more often by Black men. Simmons bring up the fact that there is an unspoken rule that silence is almost mandatory when a Black man rapes a Black woman. It’s almost as if speaking of a Black man in a negative light betrays the whole race. This implies that being Black is supposed to outweigh also being a woman. If women don’t keep these race secrets it lets others outside of the race see the imperfections within it.
In Rape- Prone Versus Rape-Free Campus Cultures, Peggy Reeves Sanday discusses how rape-free campuses are formed by a strong respect and appreciation for women, sexual equality, and accountability for actions committed. These campuses show a decline of the gender-based rape because of their view of omen as equals both in sexuality and in the right to report violence. This idea was also talked about in Gender Talk. In Gender Talk, by Beverly Guy-Sheftall and Johnnetta B. Cole, discuss the concept of race secrets and homophobia in the Black community.
The book itself discusses the struggle women face when fighting for equality and against sexism, violence, and racism. In the chapter of Gender Talk, Race Secrets and the Body Politic, Guy-Sheftall and Cole discuss the cruelties preformed on women by James Marion Sims. He was the ‘founder of gynecology and used slave women to test out both his practices nd tools. Guy-Sheftall and Cole also talk about all of the lynching of female slaves that are rarely discussed (Cole, Guy- Sheftall 129). This absence of discussion of the violence against women is an example of how the plights of women are often overlooked.
Another issue that women face within the Black community is homophobia. Guy-Sheftall and Cole talk about how in the Black community being homosexual can lead to becoming ostracized (Cole, Guy-Sheftall 175). Homosexual women frequently are required to closet their sexuality as it denies men the right to sexualize them. More than just Black omen are affected by the misogyny that promotes gender- specific violence. In Prison as a Border: A Conversation on Gender, Globalization, and Punishment, Angela Davis and Gina Dent talk about the similarities between prison across the world and how the women in them are treated.
All over the world in women’s prisons a large number of the women are immigrants, non- citizens, African, Asian or Latin American (Davis, Dent 329). Also, there is this misconception that women’s prisons should have less resources than men’s prisons. There are imbalanced ratios of male prison guards to female prison guards, less guns in rison arsenals, and a higher rate of sexual violence between prison guards and prisoners (Davis, Dent 330). This shows that sexual violence against women is tolerated more than sexual violence against men. This is most likely due to women being hyper-sexualized.
In Beyond Beats And Rhymes, a documentary about homophobia, violence, sexism, and masculinity within hip-hop, Bryon Hurt discusses how in today’s hip-hop and rap music videos, there has been a strong presence of hyper-sexualized women. Women are more often than not in revealing clothing, with their faces covered or not shown at. Sexual aggression owards women has been a very predominant theme in new school hip-hop and rap music. Sexual aggression is violent behavior that, regardless of the wants or desires of the participant, is used for sexual gratification.
The problem of sexual aggression due to hip-hop music is one that is often culturally debated. In several music videos women had money thrown at them or there is an insinuation that they are there for the man’s money, thus gold-diggers. , Women of all races are seen in sexually objectifying sex scenes. This shows a lack of respect for women and the fairly angry tone and the blunt eferences to the sexual, emotional, and physical abuse to women has become a common theme in hip-hop music.
General violence against women, the impact of misogynistic images and lyrics in rap music, and the impact of socialized thinking on the contemporary youth culture are all important things to think about when discussing hip-hop’s influence on the Black community. Recently, a young man at Morehouse posted a sexual consent form that he created on social media. The ‘consent’ form stated that the woman, who was referred to as a hoe, was to “perform any and all sexual behavior” on the male student.
It was also specified that if the woman told “misleading truths” about the events that occurred that night she would be “indicted and prosecuted”. The letter is a perfect example of the state of the ignorance toward sexual violence in the Atlanta University Center. This letter sparked a controversy, which led to a mandatory Convocation in Sisters Chapel. The Convocation was supposed to be on gender-based violence and the issues surrounding sexual violence in our community. Instances like this occur on college campuses all over the world. Gender- specific violence occurs to women in every nation, of every age nd race, and religion.
Women are forced to endure being hyper-sexualized, raped, beaten, psychologically abused, and bear other gender-specific violence just because of their sex. It is not only a product of our modern day but society’s refusal to fully prosecute or give accountability to those who participate in gender-specific violence. The misogynistic images that are placed on women contribute to violence against them. We cannot reverse the way in which women are viewed and help prevent the crimes done to them until we see fault in the culture of violence that has taken over our world.
