Rape and its psychological consequences across intersectional identities

Gender Violence (Rape) and on race, sexuality, gender, and class

The problem of gender violence in general has attracted a wide debate and concern in equal measure for a long time among many players, both active and armchair, in the campaign against the vice. This has been mainly due to its high prevalence which needs to be addresses urgently.Historically, the definition of violence was mainly confined to assault by people who were strangers and overlooked the close acquaintances and intimate people. However, this has widely changed to encompass more of what can be considered gender-based violence.

According to the United Nations Declaration on Violence Against Women, article 1 defines violence against women as "any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivations of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life." UNFPA, (1998).

In order to define the accurate parameters of the violence, the article two of the same declaration outlines what it recognizes as the generic forms of the violence against women as; battering, dowry related violence, Female genital mutilation (FGM), sexual abuse of small children, marital rape, non-spousal violence, sexual harassment, trafficking in women, exploitation related violence, intimidation at work place, forced prostitution or any form of violence committed or condoned by state.

Although there are cases where women do abuse fellow women, children and even men, the gender-based violence mainly emanates from men directed to women (Asencio, M., 1999).

Of particular interest in light of this paper is the gender-based violence of rape, which is the act of forcing someone to commit to sexual intercourse against their free will (Word Net, 2011)

Consequences of rape

A. Emotional/Psychological (Trauma)

The resultant effects of rape are not as superficial as the physical scars they leave behind to heal. The more hurt is the ego of the victim, the torture they go though as persons is far much more than can be quantified medically or legally. The emotional effects manifest themselves in the following ways:

1. Fear, Anxiety, Trust issues; the victims will tend to be uncooperative, too afraid or bothersome with their requests for more information or assistance in almost all they do and undergo (Resick, P., 1984). They tend to be very choosy of whom and what to trust

2. Anger, Revenge; since the violence of rape is so intensely embedded into the victim, they more often that not develop the feeling of revenge which are considered maladaptive coping reactions to the cruelty meted upon them.

3. Low self-esteem, Eating disorders; the victims are bound to feel they lost self-identity at the scene of the crime, they may feel the crime was part of their destiny and give up looking of feeling good in any way. This despair may be accompanied by abnormal eating habits that hitherto were not displayed.

4. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; the rape survivors have been found to suffer persistent post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and is higher among them than any violence victims (UNFPA, 1998).

B. Physical.

These are the evident signs that can be seen by the public or the victim herself as the result of the heinous act of rape. They are the tangible scars of the crime that are carried for years or even forever in the life of the victim. They are manifested as:

1. Genital mutilation; this is a consequence more prevalent in the situations where rape is used as a weapon of war to suppress women and show despise to the men. It is being widely used in Congo DRC and even Sierra Leone during the civil wars (AFROL, 2011). The act of rape is accompanied by mutilation of the genitals using crude means and weapons to inflict pain apart from humiliation.

D. Other

1. Reduced entitlement to food, education, and medical care; in some cases the victim may be denied or deprived of the basic items ad amenities like food, education and even medical care. Most of these cases are due to misconstrued facts that blame the victim for the rape. The victims may also not get sufficient medical attention to the insufficiency of equipping of hospitals with rape medical response kits and training, a scenario that is likely in underdeveloped countries.

Reasons to hear victim experiences.

The victims of rape have a right to be heard, and it is not only healthy for their psychological composure, but also for the community to know what menace this is and face it. There are several reasons why the rape victims should be heard, here are some:

A. May inspire others to speak out; this way more of the victims will get the confidence to speak out make the society to embrace the cruelties of the crime and act upon it.

B. Educational purposes- the experiences that the society has had can be used to educate the entire community on the ills of the heinous act and it is an education that cannot be given better than the victims themselves, for a safer future society.

C. Public awareness- the victims should be allowed to speak so as to help heighten the public awareness on how to avoid being a victim and what to do incase it unfortunately happens, where to go and how to handle oneself.

D. Self re-invention- when the victims speak out, they will be regaining control of their self-esteem by catharsis, whereby speaking about the crime makes them pour out the pent up emotions ad regain themselves.

Consequences for speaking out.

There are however the negatives of speaking out on rape and these have for long kept the victims under suppression. These negatives of speaking out are majorly found in underdeveloped countries where it is a kind of taboo to expose any sexual acts beyond the bedroom hence the quiet or one may suffer the following:

A. Social Stigma -- the community as a whole may segregate you on the basis of the act that u went through. Some consider that an ultimate curse, ironically this is what fuels the crime even more since the aggressor knows he can use it to dehumanize a woman totally.

B. Cutting ties with family, friends-as the society shuns the victim, the effect may come closer and friends disappear and even the family sees the woman as unfit even to get married, hence many victims would rather be silent on this.

C. Fear of losing something / the unknown- many women have a profound fear that that they never know what they may lose if they spoke out and resort to dealing with it internally.

D. Humiliation, Shame- many are humiliated for sure and even earn nicknames on the consequences of the crime. Some communities will even bundle them together as outcasts that should not live with the rest of the society until such a time that they will be deemed cleansed.

Even though there have been tangible steps taken and achievements made in the fight against the vice of rape, more still need to be done from the societal level to the government quarters, from the civil education grounds to the legal benches. The victims of race due to their class, sexuality, gender or race should be taken with equal seriousness and justice done and seen to have been done to them all.