Masculinity In Runaway Girl

Runaway Girl by Carissa Phelps is a memoir that has brought many of the concepts and material in this class to life. One of the first concepts that was given context to by this memoir was the violent masculinity that was discussed in the film Tough Guise 2. This violent masculinity was the notion that violence is a men’s issue and the ignorance of media and society to this issue and where it stems from a majority of the time. Where we see this take form in the memoir especially is with Carissa’s step father Steve. Right from the very beginning his anger is very dominant over anything else anyone is feeling. He is physical with a second grade girl and her mother does not stop this, Carissa does not see the injustice in it. She is blamed by herself. The police that hear the story do not recognize this issue of a man being violent and it is left alone and not approached and addressed as the serious matter this is. Carissa explains his violent nature and action being the overall theme in the home the words, “Do …show more content…
The act of victim blaming has been discussed in the class many times and has somewhat timed into rape culture in discussions but there was one piece of victim blaming that was very hard hitting. In Carissa’s memoir she is talking about when Icey made her smoke crack and she starts faking a seizure and calls her mother asking her to come and pick her up and all that her own mother says in response is “Honey you ran away, you got yourself there. You can get yourself home, can’t you?”(72). Carissa’s mother is blaming her for the situation she is i. Yes, Carissa chose to run away but she did not choose to be forced into doing crack and being a prostitute. Victim blaming has been a concept in class where people always ask things that would somewhat explain why a victim was abused. Her mother is blaming her for running away so is then responsible for whatever happens because of running