Blog #9 Women's Discrimination Project

While doing this project, my group had been researching sexual assault and rape cases during the Women's Rights Movement and before then. They came across several interesting facts like the fact that women could not deny having sex with their husbands because they had legal authority over them and women were considered to be property to men. Marital rape wasn't recognized until the mid 70's and wasn't criminalized until 1993. Also, enslaved women could not refuse to have sex with their masters and if they brought the case to court they could not testify against them otherwise it would be considered disrespectful. Lastly, if a women was raped it was only considered rape if the woman was white and the perpetrator was black. This means that if a white man raped a white woman or a white man raped a black woman, it would not be considered rape in court. It's very interesting to me how some things have and haven't changed between then and now. Sex trafficking still exists in our modern society and women typically don't speak up about it in court just like they did in the past. Women also don't typically speak up about marital rape even though they are not considered property of their husbands in the eyes of a jury or a judge. But, it's a good thing that race has nothing to do with rape anymore otherwise a lot of women could still be suffering from these types of situations more than they did back in the past. Rape is rape and should not be tolerated by anyone in any type of society.