Gender and sexual violence have a very strong connection. Some people could even say that the reason for sexual violence is because of gender standards in the United States.
There are very clear standards of how certain genders should act. Society has certain sexual scripts which “reflect social norms practices and workings of power...” (pg 165). These scripts often times give people an idea of the way that they are supposed to act. Men are supposed to be strong and dominating. In Kimmel’s article he discussing that men are constantly ranking one another. The man on the top is that one that is the most powerful and dominating. Often time’s men think that one way to show this dominance is through violence. On the other hand women are often times at the other end of the spectrum. Social standards and sexual scripts set standards so that women should be more timid subservient.
These standards often carry over into relationships between men and women. Men play these more dominate roles such as the economic provider and women play the more sensitive roles such as the homemaker and caregiver. These roles often set women up to be dependent on men and allow men to be the power players in the relationships. These feeling of dominance can lead to the violence in relationships.
It should be noted that as stated in the text men can also show dominance over other men and lead to violence among them. Women can also be the ones that are violent however, female violence is often times more emotionally harming than physically harming.
Over time all societal standards change. That is to say that eventually one day the typical ideas of how males and females act may one day change and that these issues will no longer be prevalent. This is not saying that sexual violence will end when there is equality among the sexes but I do believe that it will greatly decrease when men feel that they no longer have to show dominance over women, and one way to do that is through violence. The first step in stopping this is education and encouraging both males and females to take on both feminine and masculine roles.