In “No
Name Woman,” written by Maxine Hong Kingston, the mother shares a secret with
her daughter that she is not to tell anyone. The mother explains to her
daughter that she had an aunt who committed suicide after being raped and
becoming pregnant while she was married to another man. Although, like Charlie
said, this story is not necessarily reliable, and the mother could have simply
made it up to scare her daughter out of having sex, I still found myself
interested in the way society has changed in their opinions on rape over time.
In this situation, it was easy to put the blame on the woman because no one
knows who raped her, so it looks as if she committed adultery. The village
threw rocks at the house, killed numerous animals, destroyed crops and clothes,
and rubbed animal blood around the house (2745). The village saw this as her
fault, and they punished her, even though she did not do anything wrong.
In today’s society, if someone is
raped, it is a completely different story. People sympathize with the victim
and express their hate for the suspect. I have seen on Facebook numerous times that
the suspect should have the same thing done to them as they did to the victim. This
shows that although women do not necessarily think that they are seen as equal
as men today, they have many more rights than they did during the period that
this woman was raped. I just found the
evolution of rape to be interesting, especially the differences in how society
deals with it.
Jessica, You have made some strong points in your post. I think that the aunt and her infant were essentially scapegoated by the community. Moreover, I think that we humans have a tendency to project our own shortcomings on other people rather than own up to them in ourselves. I know that I have been guilty of doing that from time to time.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Charles. It seems that the No Name Woman and her baby were just easy scapegoats. The community was in poverty and food was scarce, so it is easier to blame the No Name Woman, who is seemly wasting their supplies on selfishness than to have no excuse at all of why they are so stricken with bad luck.
ReplyDeleteI would have to disagree with the idea that attitudes toward rape have completely evolved in contemporary society. While I acknowledge that some great strides have been made in how we perceive sexual violence as a culture, even our American attitude as a collective is still very insensitive (and often inhumane) towards victims of rape -- particularly in legislation, media, universities and schools. I advise anyone to simply Google the terms "slut-shaming" and "victim-blaming" to get a better idea of what I'm about to write below.
ReplyDeleteThe phenomenon of "victim-blaming" or "slut-shaming" is even institutionalized in our dress codes and our laws. Ladies: Remember not being allowed to wear spaghetti straps or short pants/skirts to school, because otherwise the boys would be distracted? I recall the exact phrases from my school rule books reading that certain clothes were a "disruption to the classroom." (The message here was, if you distract the boys with your clothes/body, you're asking for unwarranted sexual attention, and whatever sexual advance ensues is not their fault. it's yours, lady.)
And as for legislation? Stringent anti-abortion laws --and even restricted access to birth control-- (especially in the conservative American south) that disallow rape victims to receive abortions send the message to women that you deserve to carry the child of your assailant.
As for universities/college campuses, consider every scandal appearing in the news about frat-parties-gone-wrong --the recent UVA case appearing in Rolling Stone Magazine, and the Steubenville trials from a few years ago. Even health clinics and local law enforcement make the reporting process EXTREMELY uncomfortable for victims of rape, sometimes going so far as refusing medical treatment. In so many instances, the law favors the assailant, and the victim is blamed.
Our own university is a perfect example of American society's resistance to progressive attitudes towards dismantling rape-culture. Shepherd University has only now joined the conversation about sexual violence, acknowledging that rape happens on its campus [http://supicket.com/commentary/2015/02/11/victim-blaming-brings-more-hurt-to-survivors/ ]. We now have an entire tab of resources on our SU homepage, including the instructions for anonymous reporting. It is 2015. Where has this been before? The process for reporting sexual violence on this campus has previously been "hush-hush," as is the norm with other colleges.
I write of these things candidly on the behalf of friends who have experienced the horrific after-effects of rape in a small town and in a conservative community.
"Rape apologist" culture is so common on college campuses, particularly in instances of fraternity/sorority scandal. The vocabulary is only recently evolving to "survivor" and "victim."
I so very wish I could imagine a world that victim-blaming in sexual violence didn't exist, but in the United States and abroad, even our literature does not escape the barbaric attitude that it is a woman's fault for being attractive and therefore "asking for it."
If you have the time, consider reading into the following links below:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/rape-victim-blaming/
http://www.thedaonline.com/article_54e3b251-5676-5a64-a6b3-d1580e19d07e.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/college-rape-culture/
https://shemustchallenge.wordpress.com/category/slut-shaming/
**Sorry for the long post lacking attention to this week's reading, but this is something I feel very passionate about and it is relevant to our course. After all, it is the lack of education that continues to perpetuate rape apologist culture. I truly think we still live in Kingston's world of "No Name Woman," but instead of destroying our homes, we are destroying the esteems of our women.
I don't recall that the story ever said that she was raped. Her mother wouldn't tell Kingston how her aunt died. In response to Charles comment on scapegoating, I think that the village clung to any reason to attack the woman and rape was Kingston's way of not blaming the aunt for her situation.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Caroline, in that the text does not explicitly tell us how the narrator's aunt died; the rape was just a speculative scenario.
DeleteAs Caroline pointed out the rape was speculation, but even if it was a rape the end result would have been the same. That is what we are supposed to walk away from that no matter what the story was behind the child it would always end with the No Name Woman killing herself.
ReplyDelete