Offensive Feminism Summary

A critical analysis of rape culture in Jill Filipovic’s Offensive Feminism and Jessica Valenti’s Purely Rape article What is rape culture? This issue is prevalent in contemporary society, especially on university campuses. Filipovic blames this prevalence on “religious conservatives” (13); they want men to remain the most dominant sex while women remain submissive to these men, hence maintaining the status-quo. Valenti, on the other hand, casts her blame on the sexual purity myth, which is the “lie” that a woman’s value and importance depend on her sexuality (Valenti 299). If she is a virgin, she is the preferred woman (any woman not in that category has no morals). These two articles provide reasons that position societal institutions as
Based on the movie, Woman thou art loosed (2004), Michelle, a black girl, (Kimberly Elise) had been raped by her mother’s boyfriend. He easily denied it and blamed Michelle for being “so fast” (being sexually active at a young age). Does this hyper-sexualization of Michelle also occur in real-life scenarios? A real-life example would be Elizabeth Lauten (a Republican Party staffer) calling President Obama’s children classless, for dressing as if they were at a bar. Black girls and other girls of color are forced to mature (sexually) as opposed to white girls. When these girls experience sexual assault, they are often called ‘fast girls,’ their race is used to justify the rape since women of color are overtly sexual beings. Through this hyper-sexualization, it becomes obvious what kinds of bodies are raped as punishment and those that are raped due to their insignificant status in society. The norm is women who are raped are often blamed for their rape, minority bodies, though, may not raise any questions, such as the missing and murdered aboriginal women. Being a woman in a patriarchal society is difficult, so one can imagine how dangerous it is for minority women who are non-white, differently-abled, fat, immigrants and so