The Book Push by Sapphire - Research Paper Example

?Topic – Research Paper In the book ‘Push’ by Sapphire the trivial issue highlighted is that of the rape and sexual assault conducted towards a younggirl who is living with her low class black family. The girl is illiterate and raped many times by her father and was impregnated at a young age with two children. Here we can see that rape as a atrocious act, which can spoil the entire life of a female child and when it happens at the hands of a family member it becomes all the more difficult to accept. Rape is an issue which has gained lot of attention from media and public since many decades due to his envious and criminal nature. Women have been ever frightened about this issue and think it to be the most derogatory thing that can happen to them. It is a shocking fact that most of the rapes go unnoticed and it happens within the family arena. There are lots of cases of sexual assault and rape among families and many of the children and individual are afraid to bring out this subject in to the public. Rape is a social violence and cannot be an act of passion as there is coercion happening in the act which results in damage to the physical and mental stability of the victim. “It is found in the study by National Institute of Justice and the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention that 22 percent of male and 48 percent of female have confronted their first rape before the age of 12” (Golden,17). Rape is a social issue which most people encounter directly or indirectly in a particular social environment. Women are always subjected to sexual assault and suffer mainly because she is judged more as an object of sexual desire. Since ages they are looked upon as a medium to satisfy sexual gluttony of men, and she has been living in darkness when it is the matter of her individual right and freedom. In this novel, the girl named precious is forcefully impregnated by her father and less could be done by the girl to protect her virginity and self respect. However, this is not a frequent case in America where female are subjected to sexual exploitation and rape from the hands of parents, close relatives and friends. The main issue as in case of the character Precious is that there is less support offered from her mother when she has been molested and raped by her father .This mostly makes the scenarios worse and the victim feel helpless and hate her individuality and the social connection she share with her family members.“It was found that instead of lagging behind female rape along the stranger - acquaintance rape dimension, male rape was viewed predominantly in terms of ‘other’ factors (factors not found on the stranger - acquaintance dimension, e.g. victim/rapist sexual orientation, rapist calls victim names), which were erroneous, sexualizing and homophobic” (Anderson,25-245). Rape is a social evil and many girls and women are victimized at the hands of parents, strangers and other men in the society at a staggering rate Rape as a heinous act as reached a high proportion in our society and has ruined many innocent lives on a permanent basis. The black girl in the book “Push” have found to be helpless and imprisoned in an atmosphere where she had no support to look for and has been struggling under the cruel hand of her father and ignorant mother. It is not only women who are subjected to rape, but also infants, corpse and men become a slave of this cruel act. Mostly it is found that the traumatized victims of rape are frightened and emotionally handicapped at such a level that they carry this tragedy through out their whole life. Trauma victims essentially need more private time to sort out their feelings, and grasp what had happened to them in order to get some professional help in dealing with their emotional tragedy. If we read the book ‘push’ we can find out that Precious the character which was subjected to sexual assault from her parents was illiterate and was from low class family. However, according to studies, rape more frequently it occurs among low classes as their social awareness and literacy is far below limit. People usually also have a very stereotypical assumption about the molester and rapist being illiterate or sleazy .Surprisingly, he can be well educated, elite, well groomed, government official or spiritual guru. It is not the position they hold in the society but the attitude and mental status of a person which lead him to do such heinous acts towards women. “ We know that rape is common in the United States, which is in all likelihood one of the most rape prone societies in the world” (Sanday,.9). According to (Kivlahan,150-59) “The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court recognizes that rape and other forms of sexual violence by combatants in the conduct of armed conflict are war crimes and can constitute genocide”.We can observe in the book ‘Push’ that the father of precious also had extra marital affair and is having sex with multiple women during his life time. During his absurd sexual life, he has spread HIV to many people and also paved way to the death of himself and his wife. His daughter Precious also got infected and lived a life of terror and sexual submission and did not have anyone for support rather than one of her teacher. Because of this social crime, the women and female children contracts with many sexually transmitted diseases like how the girl precious in the story has suffered. HIV being the most fatal disease, can not only spoil the life of a girl but also spreads to disease to other women who comes in contact with the rapist.According to Studies in USA , a rape happens there every two minutes, and this is a horrible scary information which can startle any women on the planet. Unlike people think it not only occurs among low level, poor and illiterate people but in all social groups and classes of a society. Raping tendency can be more of a mental obsession to rapist, and mostly people addicted to drugs and alcohol perform such act as compared to normal men. It is generally noticed that, more cases of rape occurs when one or more parties are involved in alcohol consumption and have lost their mental stability “Generally alcohol is used as a relaxant and a social lubricant .The most instances of acquaintance rape, particularly on college campuses when one or both participants have been drinking”. (McGregor,147).This alcohol and drugs alleviate aggression in men and can lead them to indulge in activities that result in animalistic sexual behaviors. Nevertheless some people are also of the opinion that alcohol gives them the resistance power towards attack from men, which is indeed shocking information. Generally speaking, it is very important for the government and social supporting activists to enhance social awareness and alertness among the public regarding rape and other sexual exploitation to eradicate this crime from the society. No one is excluded from it and age is never been a bar for the barbaric humans to haunt the victims for the animalistic hunger of their body. Mostly victims do not come out in the public as the legal battles and support from society is less than supportive than recommended. Rape is sexual sadism, and the demonic human who perform this act should be thoroughly punished, so that this kind of acts are never repeated by people so rampantly. Bibliography Golden, R.N. (2010). The truth about rape . New York: Infobase Publishing Ltd. This is a book written by Robert Golden where he describes about the truth about the social crime rape .In his book he explains about the negative factors related to rape and how it eats in to the society disturbing the very structure of the society. This book elaborates that the rape is faced by children and infants and women alike and the rapist are obsessed groups of the society which are animalistic in their approach to opposite sex. The author reveals in the book very important information done in U.S.A. that “National Institute of Justice and the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention that 22 percent of male and 48 percent of female have confronted their first rape before the age of 12” .It helps in understanding about the percentage people who are faced with rape in a huge and sophisticated country like America. Anderso, I. (2007). What is a typical rape? effects of victim and participant gender in female and male rape perception. British Journal of Social Psychology, 46(1), 225-245. This journal article is completely explaining about the typical rape related issue and the factors underlying this social issue. The journal is a psychology related one and the main psychology of people involved with rape situation is explained in this journal article. The article not only covers issue related to rape cases with women, the but also give importance to the trauma of male victims too. The author states that female rape is related to acquaintance and family members but male rapes are concerned with other factors. The author writes that “It was found that instead of lagging behind female rape along the stranger - acquaintance rape dimension, male rape was viewed predominantly in terms of ‘other’ factors (factors not found on the stranger - acquaintance dimension, e.g. victim/rapist sexual orientation, rapist calls victim names), which were erroneous, sexualizing and homophobic”. Kivlahan, C. (2010). Rape as a weapon of war in modern conflicts. BMJ, 340(10), 150-59 This journal article is written my Kivlahan , who is a volunteer forensic physician and has given in depth information about social problem rape. The author attempts to explain that sex by force or rape is an ultimate crime and can be considered as a war in political terms. When we consider the story ‘push’ the character Precious can be considered as a victim of social war as her life has been stripped to nothing with less or no support from anyone. The author in this article explains that rape is a war occurring from Sudan to Bosnia and the victims mostly are weak women and innocent children. The author states that “The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court recognizes that rape and other forms of sexual violence by combatants in the conduct of armed conflict are war crimes and can constitute genocide”. McGregor, J. (2005). Is it rape?: on acquaintance rape and taking women's consent seriously . Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Ltd. In this book Joan McGregor assess and study the ethical and legal problems that emerge with acquaintance rape cases. The author gives importance on coercion and the effect of it on the victims. In this book the author establishes that alcohol and drugs are major stimuli in creating chance for acquaintance rape cases. In this alcohol plays a definite role in creating aggression and delusion in men which leads to atrocious act towards women who are physically inferior to them. The author here states that “Generally alcohol is used as a relaxant and a social lubricant .The most instances of acquaintance rape, particularly on college campuses when one or both participants have been drinking”. Sanday, P.R. (2007). Fraternity gang rape: sex, brotherhood, and privilege on campus . New York: New York University Press The author in this book writes about gang rape and other issue related to this in campus boundaries. In this book it is detailed that there is lot of sexual assault and rape cases occurring in the campus background of U.S. This could be mainly due to the campus party culture and the fraternity of gang rapist who prey on innocent girls and children. The author also states that more cases of sexual violence happen in United States which is the largest sophisticated city in the world. .“ We know that rape is common in the United States, which is in all likelihood one of the most rape prone societies in the world” The main highlight in this book is fraternity gang rape which is a bonding created through sex which is usually practiced among athletic groups. Read More