Rape Culture, AKA a Load of B.S.

In the United States, one in five women will be raped at some point in their lifetimes. That means in my school with a total student body of 2,139 students, where 1,079 are girls, 215 of them will be raped. Our society is one where sexual assaults frequently occur, in fact, less than every two minutes somebody in the country is sexually assaulted. Every 107 seconds, someone is sexually assaulted; we hear this term everyday, but I sincerely believe we don’t realize the severity of the crime, especially if it hasn’t happened to us.

A sexual assault, defined by the United States Department of Justice, is “any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape.”

Let me repeat myself. Every 107 seconds, one of the crimes listed above happens to someone in the United States.

So now, after bombarding you with these mindbogglingly harsh facts and statistics, my question is, why is rape culture even a thing?

Rape culture is a setting or society where rape and sexual assault, both heinous crimes, are overlooked and seen as less of a problem than they really are. Rape culture is where sexual violence is pardoned and essentially normalized in the culture.

Sadly, rape culture is prevalent in the media and pop culture, meaning we support it even if we don’t mean to. We see it everywhere, because the media controls us, and we don’t even realize what it’s doing to us. Some common examples of people subconsciously supporting rape culture are as follows:

1. Victim blaming and shaming. “Why was she dressed like that? She was basically asking for it!” “She should’ve enjoyed it.” “It’s not rape if you like it.”
2. Sexist jokes and promoting sexist stereotypes. “Hey girl, go make me a sandwich!” “You’re a girl, why aren’t you in the kitchen?” “Only weak guys cry!”
3. Assuming that only women get raped, or that men that get raped are gay or powerless.
4. The stupid, stupid situation in which men challenge each other to score the most girls, often resulting in rape because their ego and manhood gets in the way of their judgement in exchange for the pride of winning. Because a stupid bet justifies violating a person, right?
5. The objectification of men or women, which is seen everywhere in the media, is when people are only seen for their bodies and physical features. This is especially true for women, who are degraded into being mere sex objects for a man’s pleasure and are completely ignored for their minds and anything not tangible.

Look familiar? It should. I can’t even count how many times I have witnessed rape culture before my own eyes, and realize there isn’t a thing I can do about it besides speak up. It’s too deeply embedded into our culture to even attempt to change, but that doesn’t mean not trying to stop it won’t help. By educating people not to rape, rather than how not to be raped, we could potentially save a person from facing a tremendously appalling experience that could ruin them, physically and mentally. Though that isn’t much of a difference number-wise, a person who is saved from a sexual assault has a grandiose affect.

Rape culture is disgusting. The way it has ingrained itself into our everyday lives with things listed above, such as sexist jokes and victim blaming, is so devastating. It’s an easy fix, though. People just don’t realize what’s happening around them.

The first and most common part of rape culture, sexist jokes, is probably the most frequent thing society is faced with. Sometimes jokes are meant to be funny, but when they degrade someone’s worth because of their gender or any other aspect of their identity, it isn’t funny. Stop enforcing gender stereotypes, stop believing in the thought that rape is okay under any circumstance, stop blindsiding rape and sexual assault when it could very well happen to someone you know and love. It’s not funny.

Victim blaming is the second most common. Nobody deserves to get raped, regardless of their clothing, because that would be like saying shooting someone who wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest should deserve to die for not protecting themselves fully. It’s absurd, and immature. Why should the victim, the person who was hurt in this instance, be blamed for something that was never their fault? If it was not consensual, it was rape. It’s not rocket science.

Once again, in our society, rape culture is heavily supported and promoted without people realizing it. Which is why I encourage you if you haven’t already to open your eyes, and look around. It’s everywhere, and it only exists because people feed off of it. Stop participating in rape culture and help stop it, and spread the word, educate people who may not know much about what it is. If we the people built the problem, we very well have the ability to change the mindset of our nation, our youth, and our future.

I know I’m just a 16 year old who’s writing this at 11:33 p.m. on her laptop (and ignoring her homework) and that I’m far too idealistic for the limited crowd I’m reaching with this post, but if you’re reading this, take it seriously. It only takes a movement to change things, and a movement can’t do much without dedicated participation and belief in change.

Thank you.

~

E.L.