This essay gave us so much freedom to express our thoughts without having to go through so many articles. With that being said it was not as easy as I thought. It was a great essay that helped us organize our side of a story in a better way. However, I felt like I was repeating myself a lot and I tried my best to change that. I chose a video and poster for my essay. A video seemed like a good option because of how it can be spread through social media. The intended audience for the video is young adults and parents because of the responsibility they hold. The video included different perspectives, protests, and a few other things. Through the two genres, I tried to send an awareness about how criticism from the people of a community on the rape issue can potentially hurt a victim’s mental state. Convincing parents to be more upholding and understanding toward their children was also intended.

My intended audience for my essay is the ignorant people in our society, parents, and elderlies. parents play a major role in the recovery of their daughter.  They have to be supportive of their daughter to help them get out of the trauma. Parents will also have to teach their sons. abut these matters from a young age. I want to spread the word all around, so it can reach out to the ignorant people in our society who are still victim-blaming and seeing the fault of the girls. There are still a huge number of populations that do not consider this issue and try to find a solution for it.

I want to create a video that will include different views and opinions people from different background has to about rape. which will give us a better understanding of different perspectives and show us why women are still not safe outside. I also want to include videos of rape survivors sharing their experiences with society.  Making a video has a good chance of getting to a wide range of audiences with the help of social media. Many people repost a video or picture with their opinion and that starts and conversation. It will be beneficial because it will also be seen by the ignorant people, who will get a sense of how the survivors feel.

The topic of my inquiry-based research essay was about the effects rape has on victims and different ways we can minimize the numbers of rape. I want to go on the same path by writing about violence against women in every form. I want to focus on the people who are not interested in the topic understand the issue and also those who disagree with certain parts of the topic. I will be using videos of victims expressing their feelings and what they went through. I will also be using data that will prove the massive number of women who are going through physical harassment every single day. I want to make a video because it will give the audience a clear visual of how affected these individuals are from the trauma they are going through. Which will help them to understand the situations these women go through and spread awareness about this issue.
Another genre to spread awareness about violence against women and the effects is an opinion editorial. It will provide me with more information and maybe help me to look at the issue from a different perspective. I will be able to use more information and knowledge on how we can provide safety to the women population.

After researching I have collected few sources that I will be using for my paper. In this report I will be explaining where the articles are from and the importance of these articles for my essay.

The first source that I found is “Effects of Sexual Violence” is an article by Resilience Empowering Survivors Ending Sextual Violence which gives us information about the effects that rape can have on a person. The article breaks the effects into emotional reactions, phycological reactions, and physical reactions and many ways loved ones can help. This article will help me provide the different effects which will the other articles to show different ways it can be taken. The second article I found is “Recovering from Rape and Sexual Trauma”. This article gives mentions few myths about sexual assault that society throughs at victims. “You can spot a rapist by the way he looks or acts.  If you didn’t fight back, you must not have thought it was that bad. People who are raped “ask for it” by the way they dress or act. It’s not rape if you’ve had sex with the person before.” are some of the myths that creates victim blaming. Which causes victims to get into trauma. This article also mentions few different ways to recover from sexual trauma.

The third source I found is “Being Silenced: The Impact of Negative Social Reactions on the Disclosure of Rape” by Courtney E. Ahrens, published in 2006. The article has been reviewed by many other authors which helps us to understand the credibility of the source. This article provides information about how many victims tries to open up and talk about their experiences, which can cause them to face many negative comments. These reactions can cause them to self-blame. The author clearly states how negative comments from experts or friends and family can change the way survivors recover. “A guide for Friends and Family of Sexual Violence Survivors” another source that I found which was published in 2013. It has few chapters on immediate concerns, how you can help, effects of the assaults. It includes families being calm, believing the victim, giving the victim control, being available for the victim to express their feelings, making sure the victim has support and many more. Communicating and supporting the victim will give them the courage. Which is something I want to emphasize in my paper.

“Sexual assault victims are seeking justice on social media. Experts warn it’s not bulletproof” by darcy Costello and Bailey Loosemore was published in December, 2017. It is about people using social media to share their sexual assault stories. #metoo is a worldwide movement. It has been used by more than millions of people all around the world. “”For many survivors, it was very powerful for them, they could feel as though they’re not alone,” said Laura Palumbo, communications director for the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.” Even though there are consequences that can lead into bigger problem, social media gives them a hope of receiving justice.

Another source that I found is “VICTIMIZATION AND ASYMMETRIC GENDERED POWER RELATIONS: A LINGUISTIC INVESTIGATION OF HARASSMENT COMPLAINTS REGISTERED IN LAHORE.” by Umara Shaheen and Maria Isabel Maldonado Garcia, published in June 2020. This article is about violence against women being normalized in Pakistan. I am not sure whether to use this article or not because it talks about all kinds of abuse and harassment which includes “unwanted sexual attention, gender harassment and sexual coercion. Unwanted sexual attention is verbal or nonverbal behavior ranging from “repeated and nonreciprocal” requests for dates; disturbing calls, letters or emails; touching,”. My research is not including all types of abuse. However, the article makes good points about how women are constantly keeping up with these abusers and not being able to report because of the sake of their religion, culture, family values. Which is similar to the rape victims.

I have not come across any articles that did not relate to my essay just yet.

Bibliography

Effects of Sexual Violence.” Resilience, 8 Aug. 2018, www.ourresilience.org/what-you-need-to-know/effects-of-sexual-violence/.

Ahrens, Courtney E. “Being Silenced: the Impact of Negative Social Reactions on the Disclosure of Rape.” American Journal of Community Psychology, Kluwer Academic Publishers-Plenum Publishers, Dec. 2006, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1705531/.

(n.d.). Retrieved October 27, 2020, from https://go-gale-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T002

A Guide for Friends and Family of Sexual Violence Survivors. (n.d.). Retrieved October 27, 2020, from https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/2017-10/friends_and_family_guide_final.pdf

Melinda. (n.d.). Recovering from Rape and Sexual Trauma. Retrieved October 27, 2020, from https://www.helpguide.org/articles/ptsd-trauma/recovering-from-rape-and-sexual-trauma.htm

Question: What are the social and psychological effects of rape culture on victims and how can our society help to limit these consequences?

Model Essay: “Sexual assault and posttraumatic stress disorder: A review of the biological, psychological and sociological factors and treatments” by Kaitlin A. Chivers-Wilson.
(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2323517/)
I want my paper to highlight the effects rape has on victimes and how we can help to stop it. Others might forget it after few weeks or months, but the victim suffers from this for the rest of their life. Growing up I was used to seeing parents including mine being overprotective about their girls even though I did not know the reason behind it. As a kid it seemed like a part of our culture to me until I witnessed people getting harassed right in front of me. It is rare for a girl to not get harassed in those societies if she is out all by herself espacially if its night. Parents are constantly in fear for their daughters which leads them into being very controlling. Girls are always required to dress a curtain way, go out with a reliable person, get home earl, etc. Whereas most guys are free to go anywhere, anytime without having to fear about getting raped. Even though it is rare there are boys who were sexually harassed and majority of the time it is by the male population. “He was allegedly raped by his teacher, Alauddin, the principal of the madrasa.” (Md Shahnawaz Khan Chandan) The society protests for it for a short amount of time but the victim suffers from both mental and physical pain for a very long time which includes getting flashbacks, nightmares, depression, guilt, shame, self-blaming, anger, numbness, confusion, shock, disbelief, low self- esteem, physical injury and many more. Our society is very much involved in making it worse for the survivors. Blaming the victims is one of the biggest issues. Rather than acknowledging the crime a rapist commits, many people of our society will blame the female for the way she dresses, or where she was. Which gives the rapists a huge amount of support. Tolerance of sexual harassment, defining manhood as dominant, assuming that men don’t get raped are some of the example of rape culture. Parents needs to teach their kids about sexual harassment from a younger age and also learn to treat their kids equally, which will help them understand each others value.
The audience for my paper is the people who supports human rights. It is for people to understand the value of speaking up and not tolerating any type of offensive jokes and to be able to make a change. From this article, I want people to understand the situation victims go through and help them to try and live a better life. They will also be informed about the actions that they can take to reduce rape in their society.

Timeline: I will need the next week to do further research for my secondary sources to find more information about different ways to support survivors and shut down the supporters of rape culture.

The model essay I have chosen for my research question is “Sexual assault and posttraumatic stress disorder: A review of the biological, psychological and sociological factors and treatments” by McGill University. This essay is about the effects of rape which is similar to my essay. It consists many effects that rape causes. However, I have to do more research on how it can be handled and also different ways to decrease the rape rate.

Bibliography:
Chivers-Wilson, Kaitlin A. “Sexual Assault and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: a Review of the Biological, Psychological and Sociological Factors and Treatments.” McGill Journal of Medicine : MJM : an International Forum for the Advancement of Medical Sciences by Students, McGill University, July 2006, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2323517/.

Chandan, Md Shahnawaz Khan. “Abuse behind the Closed Doors of Madrasas.” The Daily Star, 18 Apr. 2019, www.thedailystar.net/star-weekend/education/news/abuse-behind-the-closed-doors-madrasas-1731775.

Effects of Sexual Violence.” Resilience, 8 Aug. 2018, www.ourresilience.org/what-you-need-to-know/effects-of-sexual-violence/.

“Rape Culture.” Womens Center, www.marshall.edu/wcenter/sexual-assault/rape-culture/.

I want my research question to be based on rape as it’s one of the worst issues that societies face all around the world. Even though society is starting to give women the equal rights as men, a huge amount of the female population is not progressing because of the constant fear of being harassed, raped. Some of the question I have as far is now are-

Will there be a time when females will feel free to be out on their own without the fear of getting attacked?

What can parents do from a younger age for their children to learn about consent?

What will it take for society to learn to stop victim blaming?

I decided to write about this topic because of the recent incidents that happened in my country. A girl was raped by a group of guys while visiting a city with her husband for their honeymoon. Another one was also gang raped and a video of the incident was posted on Facebook about a month after by one of the rapists. These are only two girls who the whole country knows about. whereas at least 632 rape incidents took place between April to August this year. Many committed suicide after being raped and many were killed. A lot of the time the victim is blamed because of the clothes she was wearing, why she was alone, why were she out so late and many more. However, it is crystal clear that it is not the clothes, rather it clearly is the guy because there are also many little kids, elders and babies who are being a victim of rape. I have lived in my country for a very long time and I know the fear that was always stuck to my head. My sister and her family are still in my country which keeps my family and I in constant fear. I want to find different ways of self-defense, role of a family, ways to teach our society to stop victim blaming and many more from this research. Rape is an issue every country face. Few months ago, I read stories that girls from NYC posted about them getting raped which made me have fears again. This is important to me because I myself don’t feel safe going out at night even in America and I am sure no-one is supposed to feel this way.

In my opinion writing is one of the best ways to express ourselves. It gives us the total freedom to get creative and put our thoughts out. Usually I write down my own thoughts about the topic and try to go from there. It gives me the chance to understand the topic much better and helps me put things together in a better way. However, it became much more difficult as I had some issues with my draft.Writing this essay without any feedback became a lot more difficult than I anticipated. However, it became better after working with one of the articles because it gave me a better understanding for the next three. I am still not sure about the genre because I don’t think I explained it correctly. However, the topic I chose gave me much better feeling about the writing because it is something I can relate to. As a Muslim I have been in many situations where people questioned and made fun of my belief. It is an ongoing problem that has been going on for a very long time. However, This assignment was a great start for me to learn different type of writing. I look forward to improving my writing skills.

Scholarly Source:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/17/many-americans-see-religious-discrimination-in-u-s-especially-against-muslims/

People from many religions faces religious discrimination in the US. Religious groups including Catholics, Jews and Mormons has faced discrimination in the US.  According to a recent analysis of Pew Research Center Survey 82% American adults says Muslims face at least some discrimination.  This research includes a chart shows the result from the survey they did to evaluate which religious groups faces the most discrimination. Even though 82% Muslims faces discrimination in the US, Jews and Christians also face a lot of discrimination in our society.

Magazine- New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/video/multimedia/100000002983556/there-is-no-peace-for-us-muslim-in-myanmar.html?searchResultPosition=2

Muslims in Myanmar are living in fear because of the inter-religious violence. Mosques and religious schools were put on fire. Group of Buddhists were going around the city shouting that they will kill all of the Muslims. This has been going through for couple of years. Muslims were being raped, killed. There was no safety for them in the country. The Buddhist-led government targeted the Rohingya people and the fight between the two religious group led a majority of Muslims to seek refuge in Bangladesh.

News Paper: NBC News

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/india-s-new-anti-muslim-law-shows-broad-allure-right-ncna1112446

Muslims don not only face discrimination in the US. They also face major issues in a country like India where Islam is the second largest religion. Just like many Donald Trump supports, right-wing Hindu nationalists believes there are over millions of Muslims who are illegally living in India and they should be deported. Even though Prime minister Modi promised to take the Anti-Muslim campaign as a populist project nationwide. He is requiring over 200 million Muslims to prove their Indianness or else they will face being rendered stateless. In the article it is also mentioned how people of every other religion are getting the chance to legally become a citizen of India if they immigrated before 2015. Even though the religion of Islam is practiced by over 200 million Indians. The article also mentions the injustice that Muslims of Myanmar and Uighur are facing.

Social:

https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-11-29/tiktok-apologizes-us-teen-after-removing-video-critical-chinese-government

The crisis Muslims are facing in China is not going across most of the social media platform. Many people have tried to spread the new through tiktok. However, it is not a surprise that most of the videos were deleted by tiktok since it was a Chinese owned company. 17 years old high school Junior Feroza Aziz’s tutorial on how to get long lashes went viral which included information about the Chinese Concentration camps. They have been locked in the highly secured camps for over 3 years. She talks about the many ways the government is trying to brainwash the people from forgetting their religion, culture, language and their faith.

A social issue that interests me is the discrimination against religion. It is not an issue that everyone talks about, but it definitely is one of the major issues throughout our country and many others. People makes jokes about Muslims in the US almost every day. Most of them throughs their disrespectful comments about someone’s belief at them with something like “It is just a joke”. Even though freedom of religion is part of our 1^st amendment a large amount of people faces discrimination in a daily basis. By making little comments, people create even larger issue then they intent to. There have been many situations where people were rejected from jobs, places, groups because of an item of clothing that is a part of their faith. Personally, I was asked to not wear hijab at my workplace because it is against the company’s rules. I demanded to keep it, because of the shortage of workers they were imposed to keep me. However, I find it really disrespectful to have to demand a right that is given to me by our amendment. Today’s date is a tragedy for the American history, which killed thousands of people, it also left many more under the title of “Terrorist”. I have been asked if I am hiding a bomb under my hijab many times with the phrase “it Is just a joke”. However, America is not the only country that is not taking any step against actions like these. Cristian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu and many more are facing this problem all around the world. There is a genocide happening in China where the government put over millions of Uyghurs, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and many more ethnic Turkic Muslims in Concentration camps. It is destroying lives and families. This camp was created months ago to torture Muslims to neglect their religion. People of different religions are facing issues regarding their belief and people with the most power are not doing anything to change it. We live in a modern world where we have many people who has influenced others’ lives in many ways. I want to know if those influential people are taking any action. I also want to know what we can do so people can stop discriminating each other based on their religion.

In the article “The 7 biggest challenges facing refugees and immigrants in the US” author Christian Nuñez describes her experience with refugee people when she was working with several refugee camps. She has encountered the hardships immigrant people face even after moving to the states. Which starts with difficulty speaking English, helping their kids with school and better education, securing work, accessing service, securing housing, transportation, cultural barriers.

Coming to the states with little to no knowledge of English is the biggest struggle for most immigrants. It is already hard to move to a different country and build everything from scratch, not knowing English just makes it extremely difficult. The struggle behind immigrant parents raising their children is extremely difficult. Raising their children in a different culture is devastating for them because they feel like the kids are quickly becoming more Americanized. The language barrier also keeps the parents away from their kids school life, where kids face bullying very often because of the difference in culture.

Everyone comes to the country with more hope about having a better and secure future. Many of them tries to start with a simple job, however a lot of them struggles to communicate because of the language barrier. Most of them face discrimination because of the differences with everyone else in the workplace. Living in a country like America seems like the best opportunity a person can get but the struggle they have to go through while trying to fit in gets washed away in others eye. Living in a tiny apartment with a big family is not the best way to live but that is the reality of many peoples life.

Even though immigrants and refugees face challenges throughout most of their lives, they work hard like no others. They are grateful for the opportunity they get and use it make a better future for their children.

Nuñez, Christina. “The 7 Biggest Challenges Facing Refugees and Immigrants in the US.” Global Citizen, Global Citizen, 12 Dec. 2014, www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/the-7-biggest-challenges-facing-refugees-and-immig/.