I was looking at the headlines today and noticed a disturbing trend in teen relationship violence. Katie Couric interviewed two teenagers who experienced relationship violence and emotional abuse from their significant other and believed that it was part of a normal relationship. Since March of 2007 and March 2008, the amount of calls and emails to the National Teen Dating Violence Hotline increased almost 600 percent, and in a recent survey showed that 25 percent of teenagers claim they are experiencing physical violence in their romantic relationships.
Despite some of the advantages of technological advances, the article describes how technology like texting, instant messaging, and online social networking has simply added to the amount of control partners can have over their significant other in a relationship.
While our class has looked at the different ways society views sex and gender, this article explains that the increase of teen relationship violence is a result of the constant messages teenagers receive from pop culture images objectifying and degrading women. When 15-year olds are proclaiming, “it’s hard to resist violence,” we need to step up and inform teens that relationship violence is NOT normal.
http://wcco.com/national/teens.abuse.relationships.2.1348954.html