Serina Washington

Rape

Everyone should be heard and have a right of protection

Dear Future President,

The issue of many women getting accused for going out too late at night or not hanging out with the right people is their fault and that need to change. It’s not any victims fault, they didn’t ask for it, they didn’t want it and they shouldn’t be blamed for it. For many years this has been an issue and women are afraid to go out or wear things. Why do the victims get blamed for this? Why are we even bringing up the possibility that its them at all.

Women getting blamed is a big part of this, we turn this on them because we “think” it’s their fault, is why they’re all sitting in a courtroom about it. Daisy was a girl who had been 13 years old and had drank for the first time and went to hangout with her older brothers friends not thinking people that her family trust and she’s known for a while would ever do anything. They had her drink more and more till she didn’t remember anything, then they raped her and left her on her lawn frozen to the ground and unconscious. She tried speaking up and they said “What do you expect being that young drinking and going out that late with guys”...Yes her drinking is not a good choice but her going out with people she knows she didn’t ask for them to do anything to her she didn’t ask to be left to freeze or get raped. She wanted to have a good time with people she knew so how is it her fault? How can that ever get switched, just because the boy’s have lived in that town their whole life and have a well known family is a ridiculous reason to blame Daisy.

Also, a big problem is being blamed because the type of clothing women wear. No matter what you are wearing rape is still wrong and inhumane. This makes it sound like when we go shopping we have to buy clothes thinking “oh maybe I won’t get raped in this one so it’s perfect” It feels like a law we have to abide by when buying or wearing clothes, but men can wear whatever because it won’t happen to them. I saw a picture of a women protesting about this and she was wearing maybe undergarments and she said she wasn’t asking for it even almost being naked so how is it being fully clothed the victims fault?

As a young women I want to be able to dress how I like without saying I’m asking to get raped or because of the way i dress or who I hangout with, being my fault if I got violated. The criminal should get their fair punishment obviously they had the urge to do the acts they did and when you do wrong you are supposed to get the punishment for it. One person's story gets around and we see that men aren't getting punished and the victims are getting blamed, it doesn’t just affect that one victim it affects many women that haven't even been in that situation. It makes us scared and self conscious, It makes us upset thinking maybe if this happens that we will get blamed. Many of cases go unreported because people feel to scared or that nothing will happen if they decide to speak up. Everyone has voice that should be heard.

I think we need to do something about this, the only way to fix this problem is to address it with the whole world and I feel it should be a law. We need fair punishment for the criminals that have made the action of rapeing an innocent person. It needs to be known that just because we dress a way or hangout with guys that we’re not asking for it because maybe we hangout with guys cause it’s way less drama or we dress a certain way because we feel cute and don’t usually like ourselves. It should be apart of basic Women's Rights

Sincerely,

Serina  

Foster High School

Nohl's 1st period Civics

First period class.

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