Summarize the article in 200 words. Do not use quotes in your summary. On April
ID: 458299 • Letter: S
Question
Summarize the article in 200 words. Do not use quotes in your summary.
On April 25, 2014 high school student Maren Sanchez was stabbed to death by fellow student Chris Plaskon in a hallway of their school after she declined his invitation to prom. In the aftermath of this heartbreaking and senseless attack, many commentators suggested that Plaskon likely suffered from mental illness. Common tells us that things must have not been right with this person for some time, and somehow, those around them missed the signs of a dark, dangerous turn. A normal person simply does not behave this way.
Indeed, something went wrong for Chris Plaskon, such that rejection, something that happens to most of us rather frequently, resulted in an act of horrific violence. Yet, this is not a standalone incident. Maren’s death is not simply the result of an unhinged teen.
Taking a sociological perspective on this incident, one sees not an isolated event, but one that is part of a longterm and widespread pattern.
Maren Sanchez was one of hundreds of millions of women and girls around the world who suffer violence at the hands of men and boys. In the U.S. nearly all women and queer people will experience street harassment, which often includes intimidation and physical assault. According to the CDC, about 1 in 5 women will experience some form of sexual assault; the rates are 1 in 4 for women enrolled in college. Nearly 1 in 4 women and girls will experience violence at the hands of male intimate partner, and according to the Bureau of Justice, nearly half of all women and girls killed in the U.S. die at the hands of an intimate partner.
While it is certainly true that boys and men are also victims of these kinds of crimes, and sometimes at the hands of girls and women, the statistics show that the vast majority of sexualized and gendered violence is perpetrated by males and experienced by females. This happens in large part because boys are socialized to believe that their masculinity is premised in large part on how attractive they are to girls.
Sociologist C.J. Pascoe explains in her book Dude, You're a Fag, based on a year of in-depth research at a California high school, that the way boys are socialized to understand and express their masculinity is premised on their ability to “get” girls, and in their discussion of real and made up sexual conquests with girls. To be successfully masculine, boys must win the attention of girls, convince them to go on dates, to engage in sexual activity, and dominate girls physically on a daily basis in order to demonstrate their physical superiority and higher social status. Not only is doing these things necessary for a boy to demonstrate and earn his masculinity, but equally important, he must do them publicly, and talk about them regularly with other boys.
Pascoe summarizes this heterosexualized way of “doing” gender: “masculinity is understood in this setting as a form of dominance usually expressed through sexualized discourses." She refers to the collection of these behaviors as “compulsive heterosexuality,” which is the compulsive need to demonstrate one’s heterosexuality in order to establish a masculine identity.
What this means then, is that masculinity in our society is fundamentally premised on the ability of a male to dominate appropriately submissive females. If a male fails to demonstrate this relationship to females, he fails to achieve what is considered a normative, and preferred masculine identity. Importantly, sociologists recognize that what ultimately motivates this way of achieving masculinity is not sexual or romantic desire, but rather, the desire to be in a position of power over girls and women. This is why those who have studied rape frame it not as a crime of sexual passion, but a crime of power--it is about control over someone else's body. In this context, the inability, failure, or refusal of females to acquiesce to these power relations with males has widespread, catastrophic implications.
Fail to be “grateful” for street harassment, and at best you’re branded a bitch, while at worst, you’re followed and assaulted. Decline a suitor’s request for a date, and you may be harassed, stalked, physically assaulted, or killed. Disagree with, disappoint, or confront an intimate partner or male authority figure, and you could be beaten, raped, or lose your life. Live outside of normative expectations of sexuality and gender, and your body becomes a tool with which males can demonstrate their dominance and superiority over you, and thereby, their masculinity.
We won't escape this widespread violence against women and girls until we stop socializing boys to define their gender identity and self-worth upon their ability to convince, coerce, or physically force girls to go along with whatever they desire or demand. When a male's identity, self-respect, and his standing in his community of peers is based on his dominance over girls and women, physical violence will always be the last remaining tool at his disposal that he can use to prove his power and superiority.
The death of Maren Sanchez at the hands of a jilted prom suitor is not an isolated incident, nor is it so simply chalked up to the actions of a singular, disturbed individual. Her life and her death played out in a patriarchal, misogynist society that expects women and girls to comply with the desires of boys and men. When we fail to comply, we are forced, as Patricia Hill Collins wrote, to “assume the position” of submission, whether that submission takes the form of being the target of verbal and emotional abuse, sexual harassment, lower pay, a glass ceiling in our chosen careers, the burden of bearing the brunt of household labor, our bodies serving as punching bags or sexual objects, or the ultimate submission, lying dead on the floor of our homes, streets, work places, and schools.
The crisis of violence that pervades the U.S. is, at its core, a crisis of masculinity. We will never be able to adequately addr
Readers are warned that this post contains discussion of physical and sexual violence.
On April 25, 2014 high school student Maren Sanchez was stabbed to death by fellow student Chris Plaskon in a hallway of their school after she declined his invitation to prom. In the aftermath of this heartbreaking and senseless attack, many commentators suggested that Plaskon likely suffered from mental illness. Common tells us that things must have not been right with this person for some time, and somehow, those around them missed the signs of a dark, dangerous turn. A normal person simply does not behave this way.
Indeed, something went wrong for Chris Plaskon, such that rejection, something that happens to most of us rather frequently, resulted in an act of horrific violence. Yet, this is not a standalone incident. Maren’s death is not simply the result of an unhinged teen.
Taking a sociological perspective on this incident, one sees not an isolated event, but one that is part of a longterm and widespread pattern.
Maren Sanchez was one of hundreds of millions of women and girls around the world who suffer violence at the hands of men and boys. In the U.S. nearly all women and queer people will experience street harassment, which often includes intimidation and physical assault. According to the CDC, about 1 in 5 women will experience some form of sexual assault; the rates are 1 in 4 for women enrolled in college. Nearly 1 in 4 women and girls will experience violence at the hands of male intimate partner, and according to the Bureau of Justice, nearly half of all women and girls killed in the U.S. die at the hands of an intimate partner.
While it is certainly true that boys and men are also victims of these kinds of crimes, and sometimes at the hands of girls and women, the statistics show that the vast majority of sexualized and gendered violence is perpetrated by males and experienced by females. This happens in large part because boys are socialized to believe that their masculinity is premised in large part on how attractive they are to girls.
Sociologist C.J. Pascoe explains in her book Dude, You're a Fag, based on a year of in-depth research at a California high school, that the way boys are socialized to understand and express their masculinity is premised on their ability to “get” girls, and in their discussion of real and made up sexual conquests with girls. To be successfully masculine, boys must win the attention of girls, convince them to go on dates, to engage in sexual activity, and dominate girls physically on a daily basis in order to demonstrate their physical superiority and higher social status. Not only is doing these things necessary for a boy to demonstrate and earn his masculinity, but equally important, he must do them publicly, and talk about them regularly with other boys.
Pascoe summarizes this heterosexualized way of “doing” gender: “masculinity is understood in this setting as a form of dominance usually expressed through sexualized discourses." She refers to the collection of these behaviors as “compulsive heterosexuality,” which is the compulsive need to demonstrate one’s heterosexuality in order to establish a masculine identity.
What this means then, is that masculinity in our society is fundamentally premised on the ability of a male to dominate appropriately submissive females. If a male fails to demonstrate this relationship to females, he fails to achieve what is considered a normative, and preferred masculine identity. Importantly, sociologists recognize that what ultimately motivates this way of achieving masculinity is not sexual or romantic desire, but rather, the desire to be in a position of power over girls and women. This is why those who have studied rape frame it not as a crime of sexual passion, but a crime of power--it is about control over someone else's body. In this context, the inability, failure, or refusal of females to acquiesce to these power relations with males has widespread, catastrophic implications.
Fail to be “grateful” for street harassment, and at best you’re branded a bitch, while at worst, you’re followed and assaulted. Decline a suitor’s request for a date, and you may be harassed, stalked, physically assaulted, or killed. Disagree with, disappoint, or confront an intimate partner or male authority figure, and you could be beaten, raped, or lose your life. Live outside of normative expectations of sexuality and gender, and your body becomes a tool with which males can demonstrate their dominance and superiority over you, and thereby, their masculinity.
We won't escape this widespread violence against women and girls until we stop socializing boys to define their gender identity and self-worth upon their ability to convince, coerce, or physically force girls to go along with whatever they desire or demand. When a male's identity, self-respect, and his standing in his community of peers is based on his dominance over girls and women, physical violence will always be the last remaining tool at his disposal that he can use to prove his power and superiority.
The death of Maren Sanchez at the hands of a jilted prom suitor is not an isolated incident, nor is it so simply chalked up to the actions of a singular, disturbed individual. Her life and her death played out in a patriarchal, misogynist society that expects women and girls to comply with the desires of boys and men. When we fail to comply, we are forced, as Patricia Hill Collins wrote, to “assume the position” of submission, whether that submission takes the form of being the target of verbal and emotional abuse, sexual harassment, lower pay, a glass ceiling in our chosen careers, the burden of bearing the brunt of household labor, our bodies serving as punching bags or sexual objects, or the ultimate submission, lying dead on the floor of our homes, streets, work places, and schools.
The crisis of violence that pervades the U.S. is, at its core, a crisis of masculinity. We will never be able to adequately addr
Explanation / Answer
Summary :
A jilted kid killed a 16-year-old girl in a Connecticut high school on Friday after she say no to go to prom with him, friends and observer said. The violence erupted following Chris Plaskon, also 16, shoved Maren Sanchez, downward the stairs and tried to strangle her inside Jonathan Law High School in Milford regarding 7:15 a.m., friends told the Daily News.
The boy - using a kitchen blade he brought from home - then stabbed Sanchez in the neck, witnesses and cops said. "She was screaming," one friend, who was contained by the building at the time of the molest, told The News. "There were students in the vestibule when it happened. The kids who motto it are all a wreck."
Plaskon was cuffed by a school resource officer previous to cops arrived, Milford Police Chief Keith Mello told reporters.The think, who was not officially identified since of his age, was not right away charged."The gratuitous attack on Maren this morning has unluckily, for our family, resulted in the permanent loss of Maren Victoria Sanchez: a vivid light, full of hopes and dreams, with the prospect at her fingertips," the girl's mature cousin, Edward Kovac, told journalists Friday afternoon. "Maren should be celebrate at her prom this twilight with her associates and classmates. Instead, we are grief her death, and we are trying as a group of people to understand this pointless loss of life."
The gruesome killing stunned friends of Sanchez, an respect student who was active in more than a few after-school programs."She was a animated contributor to the school society and we will greatly mourn this loss," Manager Elizabeth Feser said. "We are devastated as a the people."But even her accused killer had a treasured reputation."He was smart, he did well in classes," the friend said. "Something had to snap."Sanchez, who was a constituent of the school's drama club, was likely to appear next weekend in the group's show of the musical, "Little Shop of Horrors," friends said. She was schedule to perform quite a few small roles and act as puppeteer of the the star quality, a plant.
Crisis workers found the bleeding teen, a for children, in the stairwell and hurried her to Bridgeport Hospital, where she was marked dead. The school was positioned on lockdown immediately after the attack, but the order was lifted soon after police arrived. Students and staff were allow to go from school about 9 a.m. The school’s for children prom was scheduled for Friday nighttime at a feast hall in nearby Stratford, but bureaucrat said the event would be late to one more day.
Sanchez was enthusiastic for the prom, redistribution a depiction March 3 to Face book of her exhausting her prom clothes.
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