According to sociology, street crime involves any criminal offense that occurs in public places. Although the actual causes of street crime are not yet known, it is said to involve a combination of individual and external factors mostly. These factors may include negative personal emotions such as fear and mistrust and external elements such as poverty and lack of support from society. One such example of street crime is rape. Rape is considered as a pervasive social problem that results in severe psychological and physical repercussions. According to the United States National Statistics, one in five women and one in seventy men are raped at some point in their lives. Moreover, the annual lifetime costs for rape victims in the U.S are estimated to be 122, 461 dollars (Vagianos, 2017) . M ore often, the recovery of rape victims is complicated by the failure of the public to believe the victims and restore justice.
Rape is an act that usually involves sexual intercourse or any other forms of penetration that are against a person’s consent. More often, it is carried out through the use of physical force, coercion, abuse by an authority figure, individuals who are incapable of providing consent or those who have a mental disorder that precludes consent (Kalra & Bhugra, 2013) . However, criminologists often face challenging situations because the numbers of rape cases that go unreported are higher than the ones that are reported by statistics.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
In every ninety-eight seconds, someone in the United States gets sexually assaulted. In short, each day more than 570 individuals go through sexual violence in the United States (Vagianos, 2017) . A s it turns out, sexual abuse is an issue that has permeated our culture from violent rape scenes that we see on screens to sexists dress codes that fuel the culture of rape, to near-daily stories of sexual assault on college campuses. The examples given above have created a culture that reinforces the normalization of sexual violence in America. According to research, the number of reported sexual assault victims increased for the third consecutive year by 3 percent since 2013 with female victims making up 83 percent of the sexual assault victims in the year 2014 (Vagianos, 2017) .
Feminist literature mostly argues that rape is a consequence of gender inequality with the central argument being that rape is an issue rooted in male domination of both economic and sociopolitical activities (Understanding the Criminal Act of Rape through the Social Strain Theory., 2016) . More often, rape is considered to be more common where women hold little economic or political power. In many rape cases, sexes are highly segregated, and the occupational statuses that women hold are inferior compared to those of men. In this context, rape including other forms of sexual assaults is considered as functions to maintain the subordination of women and to preserve the concept of male dominance in the society (Kalra & Bhugra, 2013) . Throughout the instances of humiliation and terror or rape, women are often kept “in their place.”
In our society, not all feminists are convinced of the fact that narrowing the gap existing between males and females in regards to the socioeconomic status of the two genders can reduce instances of rape. Research indicates that some men resort to rape as a result of the feeling they have of women obtaining equality. In many occasions, abuse provides a way for mane such as these to express the resentments and hostility that they feel towards women. Although, this concept may seem so, public concerns on male backlash and how it does not appear to neutralize society's beliefs that greater gender socioeconomic equality will result in the decrease in the level of rape (Kalra & Bhugra, 2013) . However , other authors express their concerns only on the reactions of some men while ignoring the benefits of parity in reducing sexual violence against women. In short, they assume that the existence of this parity is only far-reaching.
From the arguments stated above it is without question to state that gender inequality is a significant factor that significantly contributes to rape. Moreover, the greater the income gaps between men and women the higher the prevalence of rape. In the United States, on average every 1000 dollars unit advantage in the earning of women and men is associated with a 2.3 increase in the prevalence of rape (Vagianos, 2017) . Studies indicate that if the income gap between men and women would fall to zero, then the incidence of rape cases would be reduced by 16.34 percent per 100,000 female populations (Kalra & Bhugra, 2013) . The relationship between gender inequality in income and the prevalence of rape cases is because rape is not considered much as a sexual offense. Rape is a crime of power which serves as a means for insecure men to express their control and mastery over the female population.
Strain Theory and Gender Inequality
According to Merton is his explanation of strain theory, individuals in the society predominantly have their appetites originating from the culture of American society rather than from nature (Thomas, Gerould, & Snipes) . Moreover, he states that the social structure of the American society is built in such as a way that it limits the ability of certain groups in the community to satisfy their appetites completely. The result of this situation is a definite pressure on certain individuals to engage in conducts that are nonconformist rather than conformists. Studies indicate that strains in the society that are severe, harmful or threatening in addition to those that are seen as unjust are primarily associated with low social control and thus contain some special incentive for crime. Additionally, some strains such as parental rejection, child abuse, excessive discipline, and criminal victimization are likely to be criminogenic (Kaufman, 2010) .
Consequently, Agnew states that the negative relations that exist between different individuals in the society predominantly elicit negative emotions such as depression, fear, anxiety, frustration and anger (Thomas, Gerould, & Snipes) . However, among all this anger mainly lowers inhibition, encourages the blaming of others, and consequently motivates behavior, thus anger is likely to lead to one having a criminal choice. Depending on an individual’s disposition and societal constraints, there will be an incentive to either relieve the negative emotions or to alleviate the residual negative feelings that are built up from prior strains (Kaufman, 2010) . In situations such as these, individuals with cognitive or social resources such as high- self esteem or social support will be able to call upon these resources to deal with these negative emotions through a legitimate means. However, when the strain is severe, an individual's capability to deal with the pressure will be lacking, and therefore will attempt to deal with the negative emotion through an illegitimate means (Thomas, Gerould, & Snipes) .
According to research conducted on gender differences in emotional experiences and behavioral expression in the straining process, it was found that white males and females reported same levels of strain and responded to strain with anger. However, women were found to have high likelihoods of experiencing non-angry negative emotions and therefore used legitimate coping strategies to respond to strain (Kalra & Bhugra, 2013) . On the other hand, males were found to have high likelihoods of responding to strain with criminality as a coping strategy. The same study found that although both males and females experience similar levels of anger from the family related strain, women reported higher levels of guilt than males. Because guilt is predominantly associated with delinquency, the gender difference in emotionality that exists between males and females explains why females have lower levels of misconduct compared to males (Kaufman, 2010) .
In cultures where men's roles are prized better, additional or real power may encourage them to think of their "rights." However, if a woman resists sexual intercourse, it may be seen as a direct threat to men to their masculinity thus triggering a crisis of male identity and consequently contributing to sexual control and violence as a way of resolving this crisis (Kalra & Bhugra, 2013) . Moreover, it is stated that rape victims who attempt to resist or escape from the situation are more likely to be brutalized by the offender. This situation helps to explain the reason as to why female victims of sexual assault are higher than males by a more significant percentage. To vent their anger of being minoritized by the female population, most men will resort to illegitimate means to show that they dominate over women, and they may do this through rape as a way of degrading the female population.
Conflict Theory and Gender Inequality
Conflict theory particularly identifies both economic and social factors as the leading causes of crime and deviance. Conflict theorists do not see these factors as positive functions of the society but rather as evidence of the inequality that exists between males and females in the community (Thomas, Gerould, & Snipes) . According to conflict theory, crime in the society revolves around the underprivileged, while those who commit the crimes (wealthy and powerful people) often go unpunished. In the United States, losses from frauds by powerful individuals in the government are far-reaching than those made through theft or burglary by minority citizens. The imbalance existing in American society based on class power is also prevalent in the U.S. criminal law (Lumen Courses) . Thus, conflict theory states that those in the community who hold the enormous influence are the ones who make laws relating to crime, laws that benefit them while those who lack resources to make such decisions suffer the consequences.
In society, the gender difference existing between men and women mainly revolves around societal patriarchal attitudes towards women and the disregard for matters that are considered to be of private or domestic nature (Lumen Courses) . In most r ape cases, women often undergo secondary victimization on instances when their sexual history and willingness to consent are questioned when laying charges. In many occasions, women are said to be untrustworthy and thus lie about assault out of their malice towards men to get back at them for their grievances. Moreover, they are supposed to say “no” to sexual relations when they mean "yes." For instance, in a certain case in which a man pleads guilty for sexually assaulting his thirteen-year-old babysitter, it was stated that "the girl, of course, could not consent in the legal sense but was a willing participant." (Kalra & Bhugra, 2013) . In short, consent to sexual discourse is this sense is defined as what a woman is saying or doing and not what the man believes to be consent.
Even though American society is mostly ignoring the issue of rape, ignoring it further is not acceptable. It is therefore critical to acknowledge that sexual violence is an issue that transcends national and cultural boundaries. Ignoring this issue also only contributes to its growth. Like many other crimes, the causes of rape are complex and may not be wholly understood and explained by a single factor. Thus, to clearly understand sexual violence, we should re-phrase and re-understand various models of various gender roles and gender expectations that are responsible for higher or lower rates of sexual abuse (rape) in the American society.
References
Kalra, G., & Bhugra, D. (2013). Sexual violence against women: Understanding cross-cultural intersections. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 55 (3), 244-249.
Kaufman, J. M. (2010). Gendered Responses to Serious Strain: The Argument for a General Strain Theory of Deviance. Justice Q, 26 (3), 410-444.
Lumen Courses. (n.d.). Reading: Conflict Theory and Deviance. Retrieved from Lumen Learning: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/alamo-sociology/chapter/reading-conflict-theory-and-deviance/
Thomas, J. B., Gerould, A. L., & Snipes, J. B. Vold's Theoretical Criminology (6th edition ed.). Oxford University Press.
Understanding the Criminal Act of Rape through the Social Strain Theory. (2016, August 11). A Medium Corporation (U.S.) .
Vagianos, A. (2017, May 04). 30 Alarming Statistics That Show The Reality Of Sexual Violence In America. Retrieved December 2018, from HuffPost: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sexual-assault-statistics_us_58e24c14e4b0c777f788d24f
