Weekly News Post #11

Females can be rapists too

In recent times sexual harassment and assault stories where the perpetrators are men, especially powerful men have come to light in society. With icons such as Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey being accused of sexually assaulting and harassing women, and movements such as the 'me too' movement have formed, twitter has gone into meltdown about how men constantly sexually exploit women and members have come together to support victims and try and change the society we live in.

Recently however, singer Melanie Martinez has been accused of raping a former friend, Timothy Heller. On December 24th Heller took to twitter to write about her ordeal, and although she didn't name her attacker instantly, Heller later told the world that her rapist was her best friend, Melanie Martinez. Following the accusation, Martinez has denied sexually assaulting Heller and tweeted her version of events in which Heller 'never said no'.

This story is extremely relevant in today's society as not only is representation of issues, but also representation of gender. The story shows how representation of gender lead to inequalities in which both genders are supposedly capable of. People instantly started defending Martinez because she's a female, and therefore 'cannot commit rape'. People seem to be baffled by the idea of a female being capable of sexually assaulting someone since women are always represented as victims in the media, and this story goes against the norm. However, if you're looking at stories where the perpetrator is male, such as Bruno Langley, society goes into chaos and instantly attacks him and makes them public enemy number one. This inequality of beliefs and views in sociology based on the issues of sexual assault, harassment and gender prove that how the media choses to represent certain topics impact the mentality of consumers and can alter their thoughts and beliefs.

However, many twitter users, and users of social media in general, did come together to support Heller and call out Martinez about her wrongdoing with the same message that anyone can rape, assault, abuse, and harass anyone without their gender being an important factor in whether they're guilty or if they're even capable of such an act.