Rape Culture

Rape Culture

This was actually a speech I wrote whilst in the shower (deep thoughts whilst washing, anyone?) but because I have the public speaking skill of a naked mole rat and actually, I'm developing a stutter as I can be a relatively nervous person, I figured it might be a lot easier to write it down in a blog post, where I don't actually have to see the people that read it. It also meant that I could link relevant pages that can offer both a few of my sources, but further information. But it was written as a speech, so I do not know how well it will translate. You have been warned.

1 in 3 women has been sexually assaulted. 1 in 6 has been raped. Alone, these statistics make for a shocking statement. So how do we get from the mindset that rape is wrong, to 6 percent of students admitting to either attempting or committing rape, without believing themselves to be rapists. Indoctrination from the media, from the community - rape culture - dictates that people with otherwise stellar records will rape.

Because guess what? In the majority of cases (approximately two thirds), sexual assault is committed by someone the victim knows. The bad man lurking in the bushes after dark is not to blame for these cases. So often they are "very good students" or "prevalent athletes"; so many factors differentiate the abusers except
for that fact - they are all abusers.

If the people that rape are anything but perfect villains who frequent melodramas twirling their moustaches, then we must ask ourselves, what, means that so many people are or have been abuses.

Rape culture is both partially to blame for the crime, but also affects what immediately follows. Press, public, media and law systems' tendencies to victim blame mean that 97% of rapists will never spend a day in gaol. Cases where eleven year old girls have been blamed for having breasts - "she’s pretty or you know, developed, because that’s relevant", women have been blamed for being drunk, for wearing short skirts, for being in certain environments after dark. And this is not a message spread by uneducated people - victim blaming is rife within many powerful organisations and individuals. "Some girls rape easy," said Republican Roger Rivard, without any kind of major repercussions. A judge let abusers walk free, because "sex was in the air", as the victim was wearing revealing items of clothing. If we blame the victims, we let the rapists walk free, and this is a major issue that has been discussed by many people more educated and informed than I am. It is hugely important, but does not explain why people rape in the first place.

One way in which we as a culture inadvertently cause rape is through our constant objectification of women. We bombard ourselves with constantly sexualised female body parts, and then we turn it back around and claim that these body parts are there to be sexualised. Women breast feeding in public is massively controversial, my school has a dress code that insists we wear long skirts, even on the days when we can wear our own clothes. We are not even allowed to show our shoulders as obviously men cannot see a female shoulder without going mental and ripping off our clothes. If a woman is an object then why is she not simply there for you to have sex with? Things have no emotions and things cannot say no - or if she can, then obviously it doesn't mean it.

Rape culture endorses things such as the idea of "playing hard to get." Whilst a woman might be, the fact that nowadays if she says "no" it can be taken as probable that she does in fact want to have sex with, or be in a relationship with you has taken the idea too far. "Nice guys finish last" - on the internet appears to be hoards of people insisting that because they are a "nice guy" and there is a person who does not automatically want to love them that person has no grounds for saying "no" to you. Very seldom does anyone seem to point out that you do not need to be a horrible person to be turned down. In this way, rape culture endorses the idea that men are entitled to have sex with women.

This sick culture teaches women to fear men and rape, not so much consciously, but very much constantly. Ever nervously walked home with someone walking behind you, keys anxiously in hand. Or, even more subtly - I was involved with a friend's university paper in which she studied the psychology behind how we sit. Women cross their legs, often away from any men present, we put our knees together, if not both our knees and heels - in stark contrast to men who have not been socially conditioned to do any such thing, instead sprawling any which way is comfortable.

We often see rape culture making rape seem a trivial thing. It is socially accepted to use terms such as "frape", for a university to have a "rape chant", for rape jokes being used to advertise things...By trivializing rape we make it easier for rapists and sexual abusers to justify their frankly unjustifiable actions.

This post is in no way meant to excuse rapists. Rape culture does not excuse rape, because we are all exposed to it and the majority of people neither rape nor sexually assault people. The only person who causes an individual rape or assault is the rapist. However, we must accept that no one (or very few people) are born inherently bad, are born to be rapists. Something enables these people to become that way. And this may be partial circumstances, but it is likely that rape culture plays a part in dictating what these people will become. And whilst no one excuses rape, and we cannot un-social condition today's rapists and assaulters, by ending rape culture, perhaps we can prevent this crime in the future.

And whilst you read this post (if it took you about two to four minutes) somewhere three women were raped and about double that were sexually assaulted. This is a real problem. It has to stop.