Definitions
Sojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth was an activist, feminist, and author born into slavery in the United States but who escaped as an adult. She became a rebel and advocate for human rights soon after her release from slavery (Epis, 2022).
Marlon Troy Riggs
Marlon Troy Riggs was an African-American film producer, teacher, writer, and activist for the LGBT community (NBJC Ubuntu, 2018). He produced, wrote, and directed several films that explored the history of racism and sexuality in America.
Intersectionality
The notion of intersectionality outlines how regimes of inequalities based on gender, ethnicity, color, sexuality, gender identity, disabilities, class, and other types of discrimination intertwine to generate unique patterns and consequences (Brady et al., 2017). For example, when a Muslim woman wearing the hijab faces prejudice, it is hard to separate her gender from her religion and identify the underlying factor leading to her discrimination.
Beauty Ideal
The feminine beauty ideal refers to a standard of beauty for women that is instilled in them from a young age forward and emphasizes specific characteristics that are thought to enhance their physical appearance. Despite its origins in hetero-normative ideology, heterosexual notions of female attractiveness significantly impact women of all sexual orientations (Brady et al., 2017). The feminine form, dress, skin tones, facial features, height, and weight are attributes gauged in the beauty ideal. An example is reconstruction surgery among some women globally to alter some of their body parts to meet the beauty standards emphasized in society, such as skin tone.
Rape Culture
Rape culture refers to a society where rape is widespread and sexual violence against women is accepted and even celebrated in the news and the public sphere. Sexist and racist language, degradation of women’s bodies, and idolizing of sexual violence all contribute to a culture that normalizes rape and fosters a society that cannot protect the rights of women.
South Africa has the highest rape rate in the world, with about 50,000 rape victims each year (Khan, 2019). Over 40% of South African women are expected to be assaulted in their lifetime. As revealed by the Medical Research Council, only around one in every nine rapes is recorded (Khan, 2019). Thus, the absolute number of assaults is far greater than those registered by the police.
Feminist Praxis: Right to Be
The non-profit organization Right to Be is dedicated to eliminating gender-based violence against all sexes. The group maintains that everyone should have access to tools for responding to, preventing, and intervening against harassment (Right To Be, 2022). Free community training, individual customized training, and personal non-customized lessons are all offered by the company.
The group needs members because it can not change society independently, but working together can make a difference. The group acknowledges that transgender and gender non-binary people, girls, and women face street harassment daily in the United States due to gender identity or presentation. It reminds citizens that they all have a role to play in ending gender discrimination in society, but they frequently remain petrified in the face of this pressing problem. The group emphasizes that their interventions do more than only lessen the distress experienced by the target of street harassment.
The organization makes steps toward dismantling the discriminatory social structure that sustains discrimination against women and the sexual harassment of all sexes. Right to Be provides free, interactive training that lasts an hour and teaches participants how to intervene when they see or are victims of street harassment. People learn a concise, flexible, and accepted set of techniques throughout this session that has been demonstrated to lower the frequency of street harassment (Right To Be, 2022).
The group begins by helping participants comprehend street harassment and its effects. Then, it discusses five intervention strategies: distract, delegate, record, postpone, and direct, and ensure personal safety first when intervening. It addresses how to handle the possibility that interveners would become the target of violence and prevent things from worsening. Finally, the group discusses what to do if someone experiences harassment and provides them with safety measures.
The group knows that everyone, regardless of ethnicity, cares about the effort to abolish harassment. To broaden this program, it collaborated with partner organizers throughout the globe and L’Oréal Paris (Right To Be, 2022). To improve all communities, it has taught facilitators in over 22 nations. They invite anybody in Canada to enroll in free public training provided by Right To Be Canada partners (Right To Be, 2022).
Additionally, the program’s participatory, one-hour-long lessons are available in French. Learning how one’s identity affects one’s experience of discrimination and the effects of harassment is essential in the fight against Asian and American prejudice. The organization discusses how to evaluate an individual’s safety and whether an immediate response is warranted. It also delves deeply into ways to strengthen one’s resilience at the individual, community, and societal levels.
Roxane Gay’s Hunger: Relationship Between Body Image and Trauma
The effects of sexual or physical assault on survivors are complex. Others choose to self-medicate by engaging in sexually risky behavior or abusing substances after experiencing sexual assault to dull the agony of their trauma. It is indeed usually a mix of different damaging actions.
Writer Roxane Gay admits in her novel Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body that she chose to overeat after experiencing sexual assault at 12 (Gay, 2018). In excruciating detail, she describes how this trauma had shown itself in her life and how her fat body affected her mental health. The author describes how she struggled with the mental and emotional pain, leading to overeating to cope. After the rape, her life was distorted, and she did not know how it happened (Gay, 2018). Feelings of resigned astonishment crept in as she considered her life and realized it was nothing like she had imagined.
The author despises her fat body but worries about being too vulnerable when trying to shed weight. She hates how obese people are portrayed in the media and popular culture in the United States. Still, she has absorbed these stereotypes and now finds her body unacceptable, particularly in social situations. She feels anger against individuals who discriminate against obese people and disgust at her own fatness. These inconsistencies indicate that she had not entirely accepted who she was.
The author confronts head-on the backlash she had gotten from members of the fat acceptance group, who were offended by her confession that she did not love her body. She remarked that these individuals were aware of some difficulties associated with being fat but did not understand what it was like to be very fat (Gay, 2018). She thought it was essential to recognize that some individuals have issues with their bodies and have not yet reached a point of accepting themselves as they are. She felt excluded from society’s beauty expectations because she was Black. In the author’s view, a Black woman’s femininity is wholly overlooked when she is also fat.
References
Brady, J. L., Kaya, A., Iwamoto, D., Park, A., Fox, L., & Moorhead, M. (2017). Asian American women’s body image experiences. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 41(4), 479–496. Web.
Gay, R. (2018). Hunger: A memoir of (my) body. Harper Collins.
Right To Be. (2022). Hollaback! Has changed its name to right to be. Web.
Epis, M. (2022). Sojourner Truth. Big Issue Australia, (656), 46. Web.
NBJC Ubuntu. (2018). Marlon Riggs. Web.
Khan, E. (2019). Top 10 countries with highest rape crime. Wonders List. Web.