Introduction
Sexual assault is, in fact, a crucial public health problem that has attracted a growing concern across the world. Sexual assault typically connotes to the unwanted sexual activity, whereby a perpetrator makes use of threats, force, or takes advantage of the victim`s inability to provide consent. It includes attempted rape, rape, sexual exploitation, and sexual abuse. Also, the term sexual assault can cover behaviors of adults towards children with the aim of sexually stimulating either the child or the adult. History has much to offer to the comprehension of sexual assault. Sexual assault is basically a social practice, and social practices have semiotic lives and institutional lives. Accordingly, social practices such as sexual assault have histories and patterns.
Historical Context
Sexual assault practice is at least centuries old when it is defined as the unwanted sexual relations that are imposed by the superiors at work on subordinates. For instance, sexual coercion during chattel slavery was a common feature endured by the African-American women with no protection by law. Even though during this time, there were significant differences when it came to free women who were employed as domestic workers, they as well encountered often sexual advances by the men from the homes in which they worked. The accounts of the women who were employed in the clerical and manufacturing positions during the late 19th as well as 20th centuries pinpoint also to many contexts where men forced sexual relations that ranged from sexual assault to all sorts of unwanted verbal or physical advances on the women who were working for them. This sexual assault never shrouded in silence.
Public Perception and Legal Protection
Since the antebellum era, innumerable public discussions concerning the susceptibility women to forced relations at their various places of work have been held. As a matter of fact, many people blamed the sexual predicament of women on the women themselves. Domestic servants together with slaves often were held accountable for their downfall since by nature they were promiscuous. However, other public views condemned men for their behavior of abusing sexually the women who were working for them. As D'Cruze (n.d.) notes government reports and hearings, together with all sorts of public commentary, over the decades, examined this issue as well as other servant problem issues. Thusly, by the end of the 19th century, the 1887 report of Hellen Campbell on the "Women Wage-Workers" invoked the common comprehension that household service had become rampant and this degraded the women. In this report, Campbell described the types of sexual assault practiced on women who were working in the garment industry and factories. On the same note, Upton Sinclair in "The Jungle" exposed the predicaments which women faced while working in the meat industry and compared the types of sexual coercion that were practiced in chattel slavery and wage slavery.
Legal Protection and Reporting
The victims of sexual assault were not protected by law during the 19th century. For example, as Sinclair and Campbell observe, the legal system of America provided women with insufficient protection from sexual abuse at work. Albeit, rape was punishable by the law, the criminal law never protected slaves from rape in addition to defining rape elements in a restrictive manner that made many free women be forced to have sex at work by men who could take advantage of them. This factor made few women expose the vice as they feared their reputation will be tarnished, and their complaints would not make the state restrain men from taking advantage of them. In fact, the common law during this time obliged any woman claiming to have been raped to make a script indicating that the sexual relations were indeed nonconsensual. It should be noted that this motivated men to continue sexually assaulting women because it was hard for the women to prove the assault before a court of law Hock (2015) remarks, "human sexual feelings and behaviors are strongly influenced by our emotions, which can also serve as powerful motivational forces." Therefore, it can be argued that the law courts perceived women as culprits through their reporting of sexual assaults.
The Rise of Women's Rights Movements
During the 1970s, the sexual assault got the attention of many people as a result of the awakening of the women movements and activists who were advocating for the rights of working women. This made the law courts take another angle concerning the sexual assault issue. For instance, the legal system of America in response to a number of fronts by Second-wave feminist movement slowly started to give in to this pressure. In history, this was the first time the law courts recognized the right of women of working free of the unwanted sexual advances.
Patterns of Sexual Assault
Historically, the sexual assault patterns demonstrate the perpetrators of sexual assault normally range from the members of the family to the close acquaintances and to strangers. Studies show that younger victims are more susceptible to sexual assaults than older victims. Sexual assault may entail the use of objects, forcible sodomy, and forcible fondling. The forcible rape as Sobsey & Doe (n.d.) articulates can entail only one victim compared to the other forms of sexual assault. Perpetrators usually use personal weapons like legs, fist, and hands during rape, although other weapons like a gun and knife are also used. Notwithstanding this, some studies indicate that in some situations perpetrators have not used any weapon but rather verbal threats. However, the usage of weapons is common when a victim is older. Similarly, the specific time when the sexual assault takes place is primarily related to the victim's age. As such, it should be borne in mind that for adult victims, sexual assault commonly occurs after midnight whilst the pattern of child assault occurs in earlier hours of the day, probably after or during school hours. Likewise, almost all the perpetrators who have been reported to the agents of law enforcement are males while nearly all the victims are women and children. Nevertheless, the female perpetrators usually assault younger children below the age of six years. Moreover, there is a sexual assault against individuals with disabilities in our society. Sexual assault on victims who are physically disabled is at a higher rate as compared to normal people. This is because it has been determined that the people who take care of them take advantage of their condition to abuse them.
Conclusion
In summation, sexual assault has been in existence for centuries since the antebellum era. Women and children are the most susceptible group in society to sexual assault. During the 19th and 20-century women got sexually assaulted in their working places, particularly because the law was lenient on the perpetrators. However, over time following the rise of women movements and the activities of activists, the legal system began to recognize slowly the rights of women, a factor that has seen a significant drop in sexual assault in society. Pertaining to the patterns of sexual assault, it has been found that most perpetrators are males, and most victims of sexual assault are women and children. Older victims are sexually assaulted mostly after midnight while children are assaulted in the earlier hours of the day. Disabled people have also been victims of sexual assault perpetrated by close acquaintances.
References
D'Cruze, S. Approaching the history of rape and sexual violence: notes towards research. Women's History Review, 1(3), 377-397. doi: 10.1080/09612029300200016
Hock, R. R. (2015). Forty studies that changed psychology: Explorations into the history of psychological research.
Sobsey, D., & Doe, T. Patterns of sexual abuse and assault. Sexuality And Disability, 9(3), 243-259. doi: 10.1007/bf01102395
