Feminism and Chris Brown in the Age of Donald Trump

After reading Roxanne Gay's essay titled "Dear Young Ladies Who Love Chris Brown So Much They Would Let Him Beat Them," I decided I couldn't do a close reading analysis, I just had to give my opinion. 

I was fairly young when it came out that Chris Brown beat Rhianna, but I do remember it was the first time I had seen (and could remember) an instance of domestic violence between two celebrities that I was familiar with. I remember looking at the pictures of Rhianna's face. But then after no more than a month, it was all business as usual. Both Rhianna and Chris Brown kept releasing ablums, and as far as I know, Chris is still performing today, although he is far less notable than Rhianna. 

Gay writes that society fails us “every single time a (famous)man treats a woman badly without legal, professional, or personal consequences,” and she is actually right. The sad fact is that it makes sense why some young people might view abuse by a famous man as a worthy trade off for fame. As a young person, the Chris and Rhianna incident showed me a man who was famous and had a lot of money receive little to no punishment for physically beating a woman. The severity of what Chris Brown did was completely disregarded when they allowed for his continued success.


Now, instead of seeing Chris Brown beat Rhianna and getting away with it, young girls are seeing our President of the United States blatantly sexually harass women, and still be allowed to hold arguably the highest position of power we have. I don’t know how we’re going to make up for the psychological damages that has on young girls images of themselves. I really don’t. 


Comments

  1. Leah EricksonNovember 29, 2017 at 6:41 PM

    Okay, I loved this post a little too much. Well, not the subject matter of course. I really liked how you brought up the point of the impact of seeing sexual harassment or domestic violence on young people. It is truly heart-wrenching that domestic violence and sexual assault are all over the media. The impression that it makes on so many people is drastic, and I feel that even though speaking out is important and should happen, it is just so sad that it is so prominent in today's society. Your ending paragraph made my heart hurt, as I too do not know what the future holds for the youth who have their self-image destroyed by men who get away with anything.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownDecember 3, 2017 at 1:45 PM

    "Young people might view abuse by a famous man as a worthy trade-off for fame."
    This, right here, is why I am frustrated with some of the reactions from people, young and old, surrounding the recent cases of assault and harassment that are resulting in men losing their jobs. My aunt, actually, found it "very upsetting" that Lauer was fired, because he "was very good at his job... What a shame!"
    To me, her reaction very closely reminded me of Trump's tweets that seem to go out every two seconds. To feel pity for someone who has allegedly done something horrible- several times? I wouldn't want to see his face on my TV before work every morning. I guess that's a generational difference. UGH. I'm with you, sister.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Raquel GorresDecember 4, 2017 at 4:38 PM

    Talking about the problem of sexual harassment and assault in today's society, not only is there no punishment or consequences coming to these men, now that Trump has become president, people are dismissing it at a higher rate. Sexual assault is now seen as something that men “can’t help” and should be expected if a woman (or man) acts or dresses in a certain way. It seems like such an everyday thing now, that people no longer seem to car that it’s happening. People don’t see it as the evil that it is.Then if a woman does bring up the occurrence of sexual assault in their own lives, they're passed of as lying or as attention seeking.

    ReplyDelete

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