Gender Inequality In 'Missoula' By Allison Huguel?

Rape is a powerful word that can cause a lot of pain to a victim. The thought of being categorized as a “victim”, is not what one may hope for. Yet, there is always a possibility that the victim may not report this horrific crime. In the book Missoula, we hear the stories of brave young women who came forward to tell their stories. Yet,what makes these cases so appalling is how they were handled. In the town of Missoula, football players are worshipped and treated as royalty. Even though they commit these horrific crimes, they are portrayed as untouchable.
Some may even say they are the head honchos. These athletes are highly favored and kept protected of their wrong doings to these women, which shows us prime examples of how gender inequality …show more content…
Yet, these football players are committing crimes of sexual assault to women, and the cases have been covered to protect the “good” name of the school. Taking a look back at Allison Huguet’s's story, we know she was raped by her trusted friend, Beau. She felt protected by him and never thought she would have to fear him. As heartbreaking as it is, what's even worse is how gender was institutionalized within this text. The first prime example of gender institutionalization was when Allison’s lifestyle was changed. Allison decided to take all of her college classes online from The University of Montana. A school she presumably liked, was no longer an option for her to go to. The rumors and words said behind Allison's back were consuming her and she couldn't function. I couldn’t help but question, why weren’t people talking about Beau, in the way they were talking about Allison? Allison was the victim and you would think she would receive words of encouragement for coming forward,but it was the opposite. Yet, you may wonder, but how does this institutionalize gender? Well, this institutionalization of gender in Allison’s case, is giving us the impression of the opposite of what we should do.That is to speak about sexual assault. We are told to report assaults but …show more content…
Regardless of the alcohol she consumed, it still wasn’t right. Yet, what I find even more shocking is how the detectives handled this case. They take a statement from Kelsey Belnap and are immediately skeptical of her story. To me, they seemed to treat her as if she was at fault because she was drunk. This as another example of how gender is institutionalized, and brings inequality. We are really constructing a woman’s role, which brings gender inequality. Let me further explain this institualization. This constructed role given by society that a women should be pure, innocent, and nurturing can all be constructed when she does get assaulted. Then this woman, just like Allison in the text, can be called cruel names or even forced out the community. You don’t see this in this text hapening to the men. We are told that women shouldn't drink alcohol because we are prone to get more unwelcome attention and if we do drink, we had it coming. It’s as if we make it an excuse for men to assault women and get away with it. We can see this inequality play a role when Kelsey Belnap’s attacker was protected. Yet, Belnap’s friend, lies to cover for the football players, saying the sex was consensual and she wasn’t raped. I believe the gender inequality in our culture plays a role in the issues that make rapists lash out. Lets look back in the text. Many of the men who were accused of sexual assault were football