Sex vs Violence

442 Words2 Pages
The essay “The Issue Isn’t Sex, It’s Violence” by Caryl Rivers, points out the amount of violence towards women that can be heard and see through the music of today. Rivers disagrees with the fact that songs portray women as worthless and that there’s nothing wrong with exploiting them. The irrational response of the public towards this issue is also very indifferent. Many believe that there’s nothing wrong in decreasing the value of women and this is why no one does anything about it. Whether men do it to feel more powerful than women or to just purely increase the interests of others, using women and making them look like “toys” is not ethical but rather embarrassing. Furthermore, River argues on how there sort of lyrics against women do not create any sort of issue for the music industry; men and women as well. She compares that if such lyrics or graphics contained discrimination towards things other than women, such as Nazis and African Americans, the response from the public would be different. Rivers mentions, “I always find myself annoyed when “intellectual” men dismiss violence against women with a yawn as if it were beneath the dignity to notice,” wanting for this sort of disrespect to be terminated and for more people to do something about it so that it will no longer be tolerated. In addition, this sort of disrespect and violence towards women is unfortunately seen on TV, making it accessible for children and teenagers of today to be exposed to this sort of violence. This can affect the behavior of a child who is used to learning from what they see on TV as well as grow up with the idea that this sort of treatment towards women is normal. Rivers says, “American teenagers have instant access, in their living rooms, to the messages of rock, on the same vehicle that brought them ‘Sesame Street’. Who can blame them if they believe that the images they see
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