In the essay “The Promise” by C.Wright Mills the author focuses on the individual. In particular, he focuses on the individual analysis of the effects of day to day life, and what it does to an individual. The author opens his essay by saying that we feel “trapped” in whatever social situation our mundane lives put us through on a regular basis. The author states, “Nowadays people often feel that their private lives are a series of traps. They sense that within their everyday worlds, they cannot overcome their troubles, and in this feeling, they are often quite correct.”(Mills, 1959). The article “America’s Knowledge Deficit”, on the contrary focuses on us as a whole. This article focuses on the collective, and statistics of the collective.
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The woman who wrote this article was told “"You were drinking, what did you expect?" when she confided in a friend about her rape. This is a disturbing social norm that women and men experience every day. The author began a hashtag on twitter that began to become mainstream, the tag was #RapeCultureIsWhen, and got a booming response. Here are a few of the hashtags: “Rape culture is when women who come forward are questioned about what they were wearing. Rape culture is when survivors who come forward are asked, “Were you drinking?” Rape culture is when people say, “she was asking for it.” Rape culture is when we teach women how to not get raped, instead of teaching men not to rape.” (Maxwell, 2014). People argue that rape is not a social norm, and that rapists are alienated, and hated, despite the alarming facts that Maxwell presented; “97 percent of rapists never spend a single day in jail for their crimes.” (Maxwell, 2014). And that rape is a social norm, due to the alarming amount of people who are sexually abused, “1 in 5 American women surviving rape or attempted rape considered a cultural norm? Is 1 in 6 men being abused before the age of 18 a cultural norm?”(Maxwell, 2014). These alarming numbers make women fear for their safety. A “normal” joke about prison for men is that they should not drop the soap in fear of getting raped. In a women’s reality, we are taught to not do a large number of things to avoid rape, do not go out drinking, do not wear provocative clothing, do not flirt, do not sleep around or you are asking for it, do not walk at night, etc. In society, these are all seen as “norms” for women. It is an unfortunate fact that women avoid many things that men do on a regular basis that is seen as dangerous and life threatening to
The woman who wrote this article was told “"You were drinking, what did you expect?" when she confided in a friend about her rape. This is a disturbing social norm that women and men experience every day. The author began a hashtag on twitter that began to become mainstream, the tag was #RapeCultureIsWhen, and got a booming response. Here are a few of the hashtags: “Rape culture is when women who come forward are questioned about what they were wearing. Rape culture is when survivors who come forward are asked, “Were you drinking?” Rape culture is when people say, “she was asking for it.” Rape culture is when we teach women how to not get raped, instead of teaching men not to rape.” (Maxwell, 2014). People argue that rape is not a social norm, and that rapists are alienated, and hated, despite the alarming facts that Maxwell presented; “97 percent of rapists never spend a single day in jail for their crimes.” (Maxwell, 2014). And that rape is a social norm, due to the alarming amount of people who are sexually abused, “1 in 5 American women surviving rape or attempted rape considered a cultural norm? Is 1 in 6 men being abused before the age of 18 a cultural norm?”(Maxwell, 2014). These alarming numbers make women fear for their safety. A “normal” joke about prison for men is that they should not drop the soap in fear of getting raped. In a women’s reality, we are taught to not do a large number of things to avoid rape, do not go out drinking, do not wear provocative clothing, do not flirt, do not sleep around or you are asking for it, do not walk at night, etc. In society, these are all seen as “norms” for women. It is an unfortunate fact that women avoid many things that men do on a regular basis that is seen as dangerous and life threatening to