Feminist revenge fantasies are aptly named because they are indeed fantasies. While rapists and batterers have a good probability of evading punishment for their crimes, the women who fight them back are not. The number of women in U.S. prisons is increasing at an alarming rate, and the vast majority of them who are incarcerated for violent crimes are there for killing their abusers or the abusers of their children. So the criminal justice system that fails to protect women is very swift in regulating them when they attempt to protect themselves. Hence, media that portrays women avenging their assaults and evading prosecution are rightly called fantasies. Our fantasies allows us to have the needs met that the world denies us. So just how entrenched and damaging is patriarchy that even in our fantasies, women acknowledge the inevitably of sexual assault. So deeply entrenched is misogyny that our deepest fantasies involve avenging rape and other violence rather than just being safe. So for everyone outraged with Rihanna for Man Down, when there is no more rape and assault culture, there'll be no more revenge fantasies.
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