In contemporary society, there is an established gender hierarchy that maintains male superiority over females. This hierarchical perspective that is constantly reinforced generation after generation, consistently places a higher value on masculinity than on femininity (Schilt; Westbrook, 442). Many components attribute to the gender hierarchy like gender roles, racial privileges, “doing gender”, and a most important factor of heterosexuality. Heterosexuality contributes to the subordination of women to men, as being a male and heterosexual grants more privileges and positions of power than being a female, homosexual, or anything else for that matter. When people of the trans community openly express their self-identity, “gender normals”
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Those lengths men go to even reach to the point of violence against transwomen; they do not know how else to prove their masculinity besides showing aggression against these women who transitioned. Men who find out that their intimate partners are transwomen show off this violence because they were “feeling deceived by the transwomen about their ‘true gender’ and ‘tricked’ into a homosexual encounter” (Schilt; Westbrook, 453). Many cases of aggression against transwomen end in death and the media defends the perpetrators because the transwomen were the ones at fault for not following heteronormative and heterosexual rules; they basically mean that these transwomen should not have transitioned and conformed to the system that subordinates women to men because they would have been in the position of power and instead they exposed themselves to risk choosing to be …show more content…
On college campus, especially in Greek life fraternities and sororities, many college students, mostly women, are prone to sexual violence (Canan, 1). The rape culture on college campuses is a normative that nothing is being done to stop it and instead there could be potential victim-blaming of women about suggestive clothing and not going out alone at night (Canan, 22). Heterosexuality plays a part in rape culture because it’s the men who are sexually aggressive towards women, as they have more power to coerce into getting what they want. The superiority they have over women, in this case physically, places women in a subordinate role that results in them being victims of sexual assault. In this rape culture the men are expected to initiate the sex while the women once again take the passive role and just respond to the men, even when they do not want too (Canan, 4). In order to dismantle the rape culture and the gender hierarchy the prevention programs need to be targeted on men, not blame women, who are the main perpetrators of sexual assault cases on
Those lengths men go to even reach to the point of violence against transwomen; they do not know how else to prove their masculinity besides showing aggression against these women who transitioned. Men who find out that their intimate partners are transwomen show off this violence because they were “feeling deceived by the transwomen about their ‘true gender’ and ‘tricked’ into a homosexual encounter” (Schilt; Westbrook, 453). Many cases of aggression against transwomen end in death and the media defends the perpetrators because the transwomen were the ones at fault for not following heteronormative and heterosexual rules; they basically mean that these transwomen should not have transitioned and conformed to the system that subordinates women to men because they would have been in the position of power and instead they exposed themselves to risk choosing to be …show more content…
On college campus, especially in Greek life fraternities and sororities, many college students, mostly women, are prone to sexual violence (Canan, 1). The rape culture on college campuses is a normative that nothing is being done to stop it and instead there could be potential victim-blaming of women about suggestive clothing and not going out alone at night (Canan, 22). Heterosexuality plays a part in rape culture because it’s the men who are sexually aggressive towards women, as they have more power to coerce into getting what they want. The superiority they have over women, in this case physically, places women in a subordinate role that results in them being victims of sexual assault. In this rape culture the men are expected to initiate the sex while the women once again take the passive role and just respond to the men, even when they do not want too (Canan, 4). In order to dismantle the rape culture and the gender hierarchy the prevention programs need to be targeted on men, not blame women, who are the main perpetrators of sexual assault cases on