As I wrote in my reflective essay
for English 360 last semester, I haven’t always been a writer, in fact I was
born with Dyslexia which is a learning disorder that causes reading and writing
to be very difficult to comprehend. However, as I learned to cope with my Dyslexia
I grew to really enjoy writing. English became my favorite subject in high
school, and ended up being the class I succeeded most in. Coming into college I
had no idea what I wanted to major in, all I knew was I wanted to do something in
which I could apply and continually advance my creativity. After taking
introductory courses in English my freshman year, I grew to really enjoy them.
I started exploring other English and Art classes and soon after decided
without a doubt I wanted to major in digital technology and culture, and later
made rhetoric and Professional Writing my additional major.
My ultimate goal has been to become
a graphic designer since the beginning of my college career, but I would love
to incorporate writing into my career in some way. Regardless of the exact path
I choose, rhetoric is going to inevitably be a major part of my work. Currently,
I am the intern at Washington State Magazine and have learned a lot about
narrative-non-fiction writing which I have fallen in love with. It’s a great
way to tell real-life stories, but include my own voice in my writing. The type
of writing done in English 460, however, did not come as easy to me. It took me
longer than usual to write the essays for this class, and I still was never
completely satisfied with the end product. Rape culture is just such a complex
topic, it was difficult for me to sit down and execute one cohesive point.
As a junior in college, I have been exposed to
rape-culture so much that I had become desensitized to the constant comments,
disregard of rape, and disinterest in making a change. The biggest challenge I
faced in this class was writing the essays. It’s so difficult to write about
such a controversial topic, especially because no two people’s views on it are
identical. Even my own views are often conflicting, which lead to a challenging
writing experience. I found myself coming up with a thesis, but as I wrote it I
found counter arguments to everything I had been previously writing. As someone
who has mostly written about books, people, or non-controversial topics – this was
a huge challenge. However, challenging myself as a writer is the best way to improve,
and writing about such a difficult topic was a great way to ground my opinions.
I have been required to take multiple rhetoric classes,
and learned a lot of the basics in English 360 last semester, which made English
460 tremendously more interesting. Analyzing rape culture through the lens of
rhetoric has been extremely eye opening, and I know that my views on rape have
been forever changed.
My first essay was about rape in
pop-culture. Since the beginning of the semester I have watched TV and movies through
a different set of eyes, in that I didn’t even realize how many of my favorite
movies and shows involved rape. The most disturbing is the amount of rape in TV
shows designed for teenagers to watch. In my personal opinion, rape should not
be allowed to be scripted into any show unless it is an accurate depiction of
the consequences that follow.
My second essay was about
sex-education around the world. This is another thing that I never realized how
lacking it was. My personal experience with sex-education in schools was very
minimal, which is presumably the case with many others my age. This is why when
we get to college, rape statistics are so high – because the lack of education received
prior to being on our own.
The blog assignments felt slightly
repetitive as we often talked about similar topics on multiple days, but they
were extremely useful when it came time to write an essay. Writing about a day’s
discussion into a blog helped sort out my thoughts, and served as a reference
and reminder for writing the essays. The third project, however, was my
favorite. It gave me a chance to put my design skills to use and come up with
something that could potentially be used to make a difference. Through refining
my design and information involved on the flyer, I may turn it in to someone
just to see if there is anything further I can do with it.
The relationship between rhetoric
and rape-culture could be what makes a difference. In this I mean that the
language of rape-culture needs to change, the arguments against rape need to
change, and the way students are taught about rape-culture needs to change.
Something that truly stuck out to my from recent class periods was the idea
that “guilty until proven innocent” is synonymous with the victim being a liar
until proven honest. This is just one example of the things that need to change
within our world.
Each student coming up with
different readings was a very interesting topic. The reason I liked this is
because we did this in such a way that we had three rounds, and each round held
a different sort of conversation. The first round was organizing our thoughts
and views, the second round solidified them, and the third was brain-storming
ways to make a change. It may be beneficial for future classes to switch the
groups around each round though, because this way each round receives a fresh
set of eyes constructing the research.
Listening to my class-mates input was
a great way to find a foundation for my views because they often offered a
counter-view which is a great form of critical analysis of controversial
topics. This class was filled with mature, intelligent students which was a
very lucky find when discussing something so heavy. Listening to topics each
student wrote about was also a good way to find topics for myself to write
about. It was also great because others offered ideas that I may have not even
thought about prior to this class. It was also great, because most of us knew
each other from English 360, and therefore were already comfortable sharing our
views.
Overall, this class has truly
opened my eyes, and my hope is that it continues to be taught. It’s vitally
important for as many young people’s eyes as possible to be opened to the
reality of rape. It’s something that has become so taboo in our world, and won’t
get the attention it deserves until people make a stand. I feel optimistic
about the future of universities and rape-culture, because through doing
research in this class it seems that people are beginning to make changes. My
deepest hope is that rape statistics drastically drop, and that rape-education
rises tremendously.
