Current feminist theories and practices are helping to change tactics Research Paper

Current feminist theories and practices are helping to change tactics and prevent rape worldwide. What are these tactics, how ef - Research Paper Example To address the problem of rape in society, it is important to understand the cause in order to device effective legal and social preventive mechanisms. Rape in contemporary society Sexually explicit media programs, such as pornographic materials have been attributed to promoting rape in society. Currently, the media is saturated with objectionable sexual programs and advancement in information technology has enhanced the availability the content to many people, including young children. This has resulted to sanctioning of the programs to prevent the minors from being sexually influenced by the content. The relationship between watching pornographic content and rape is debatable and many research studies have been undertaken to establish the association. However WHO (2003) indentifies individual, relationship, community and societal factors as the major determinants that influence men’s attitude to commit rape. The high prevalence of rape in poor and politically unstable countr ies disapproves the assertion that pornographic content encourages rape. Feminists consider rape as a form of violence intended to assert the authority of men over women in the contemporary society (Kerns, 2001). Rape has been recorded in various contexts, which can be classified in two categories depending on the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator. ... e being married or in sexual relationship with men, drug abuse, being too young to make informed sexual decision, poverty, involvement with multiple sexual partners and commercial sex in addition to high level of education. Other factors include wearing sexually suggestive clothing. From these factors, it is apparent that rape is primarily aggravated by the behavior and actions of the perpetrator rather than the victim. Feminists disapprove sexual passion as the motivation for rape, but a combination of factors that undermine the psyche of men. This includes reduced income and disempowerment of men. WHO (2003) notes that highly educated women with higher incomes are at high risk of being raped by their male partners especially those with lower education and income. In addition, higher rape incidents occur in regions with low incomes than in affluent regions (WHO, 2003). High incidents of rape have been reported in countries affected by civil strive and political instability especiall y in Africa. Some of the countries include Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan. In these incidences, rape is used as a war strategy to break or undermine the social cohesion in the societies with the intention of weakening the enemy. In some countries such as East Timor, rape was used as a tool of ethnic cleansing (WHO, 2003) Prevention of rape globally Currently various rape deterrent measures have been implemented to protect women from potential rapists and to punish rape offenders. They include imprisonment of rape offenders and instituting programs to empower rape victims and the society about the adverse effects of rape. The programs offer supportive and psychological care to rape victims, and others are specially designed to guide and inform rape perpetrators while they are