Rape culture justifies sexual violence by denying or minimizing its existence, and holding victims responsible. We must all play a role in ending it.
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April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. All across the country, events are being held to commemorate it. Women everywhere have been taking to the streets to speak out against sexual violence. These events began in the 1970s as “Take Back the Night” to directly challenge the ways sexual harassment and the threat of rape restricted women’s access to public spaces. This brought attention to the larger culture of sexual objectification, devaluation of women’s lives, and the overall dehumanization of women. Since then, activists have coined April, Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. However, despite the powerful work of this movement, there is far more work we must ALL do in order to eradicate sexual violence.
It was traumatizing to hear her break down, cry, and tremble as she described how her friend raped her while his brother served as a look out.
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Sexual violence is a pandemic.
In the United States alone, someone is sexually assaulted approximately every 2 minutes. A conservative estimate by the Department of Justice found that each year, 293,066 individuals are sexually assaulted over the age of twelve. Too often, even when I share these statistics with audiences, we easily forget that these numbers represent people, lives, stories, families, and communities that are impacted by sexual violence. They are a testament to survival, resilience, strength, violence, pain and collective trauma.
For me, this issue hit home when I was sixteen years old. At that point, a dear friend of mine confided in me that she had been raped. It was traumatizing to hear her break down, cry, and tremble as she described how her friend raped her while his brother served as a look out. She was strong, resilient, and had spent months in isolation while finding ways to attain medical care and process the violent assault. It was her experience and strength that galvanized me to become an anti-rape crisis advocate and spend the past seven years to actively advocating and organizing to end sexual violence.
However, in engaging in this work, I have been constantly reminded that far too many survivors are silenced and are expected to internalize shame and blame. Our rape culture is enforced and upheld by friends, family members, parents, our institutions, criminal justice agencies, and in some cases the very direct services providers that are tasked to advocate for survivors. For example, a few years ago I was sitting in an ER room with a survivor.
A few years ago I was sitting in an ER room with a survivor. The only moment she broke down is when her father refused to meet her in the hospital because he didn’t want to be seen as the father of slut.
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The only moment she broke down is when her father refused to meet her in the hospital because he didn’t want to be seen as the father of slut. She was fourteen years old and at a moment when family support would have helped her, especially her father’s support, she didn’t want to move forward with reporting to law enforcement and didn’t want any counseling services. She shut down and walked out. Such cases were common and our society cannot be excused from the level of victim blaming we perpetrate against survivors. We all create, contribute, and uphold rape culture.
A rape culture is defined as a society where societal attitudes and norms justify sexual violence by either denying or minimizing its existence, treating the issue as a joke, and/or holding victims responsible. A rape culture gives perpetrators the safe spaces to commit violence against others without any fear of accountability.
- It is a culture where women and girls are presented as nothing more than sexual objects rather than individuals with sexual agency. It is a culture where women and girls are devalued, exploited, and discarded.
- It is a culture where we socialize boys into believing they are entitled to women’s bodies, time, and space.
- It is the very culture that turns a blind eye to sexual violence and puts forth the idea that “real men” cannot be raped and silences millions of young boys and men.
We must acknowledge our role in perpetuating rape culture. We can do so by creating a counter-culture to a rape culture in our own social circles, in our relationships, our homes, our workplaces, and our spheres of influence.
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These attitudes are held by many of us, either consciously or subconsciously. Hence, we have to take the active effort to unlearn these attitudes. Even friends mean well will make statements such as “she shouldn’t have been there” or “what was she doing or not doing, wearing, drinking. . .” and other victim-blaming statements. These statements are said without an understanding of how triggering they are for survivors.
We must acknowledge our role in perpetuating rape culture.
We can do so by creating a counter-culture to a rape culture in our own social circles, in our relationships, our homes, our workplaces, and our spheres of influence. This counter-culture should value a culture of active consent, respect boundaries, and constantly counter any attempts at dehumanizing individuals across gender, race, class, sexuality, and ableism.
- It is a counter-culture built upon respecting women and girls because sexism and patriarchy are at the core of rape culture.
- It is a counter-culture that builds our communities by recognizing that the building blocks of healthy, powerful, and resilient communities are relationships that are free of violence in every sphere.
- It is a counter-culture that holds individuals who commit sexual violence accountable without further reproducing rape culture.
For example, joking about rapists being raped in prison produces the same problems as sexual violence in prisons and jails disproportionately impacts girls and youth.
Most importantly, we must do this by centering the voices and experiences of survivors of sexual violence and believing survivors.
@ Tom B @ OirishM @ Dr. Williams I think a large part of the dynamic is the way we talk about the subject. Simply submitting an article that meets editorial standards is simply not enough. As Dr. Williams points out GMP is concerned also with how the article will be received by its readership. You’ll see articles talking about male victimization and even a few that discuss female perpetrators. You will not see articles blaming women as a gender, expecting women to take responsibility as a gender, or claiming that violence / sexual violence disproportionally committed by women is… Read more »
This article very clearly centers itself in women’s experiences with sexual violence – though it does mention male victims. If you are unsatisfied with the representation of male victims of sexual violence here, I invite you to be proactive and write the article you’d like to see. Create something that is centered in the male experience and tells the story you wish you be told. If your article is up to editorial standards, GMP would be more than happy to print it. For more information or to submit your article, send an email to [email protected].
Well, no, it’s talking about the subject of rape culture, and giving an incomplete picture of it.
GMP is very good at obtaining articles from various sources .. we’re, for the most part just readers and arm chair critics. I would think that a site like Good MEN Project would know and take the initiative to obtain and present these articles. Not too long ago, GMP put something out that asked for readers input and many readers responded with wanting to see more information and articles about male victims. Ironically, if you look at the the cover page of GMP, there is mention of how things are changing with respect to stereotyping men, yet here we are.… Read more »
Tom, I think it would be helpful if you spoke for yourself here – you are a reader and you are an armchair critic. And let me tell you, it’s easy to sit on the sidelines and take shots at other people. It doesn’t require you to do any real work, build anything or be a part of constructing a proactive solution. If you’ve ever been a part of building or sustaining a movement, i’m sure you’re well aware that people who sit on there asses and do nothing – or even worse, tear down other people doing the work… Read more »
For one thing, I don’t think I took a “pot shot” at anyone. But if it was perceived that way, I apologize. That being said, a lot of knowledge can be obtained by listening to the “arm chair critics.” I could understand some frustration if the “critic” was the proverbial drive by but when it comes to many of us, we have been posting with GMP for quite some time. Sadly, I do know some past regulars who no longer participate. Whether they read the articles, I don’t know. In fact I have cut back quite a bit. The truth… Read more »
I think your comments here underscore my point. You DO have much more to offer than being an armchair critic. The paragraph about your life alone does far more to prompt thought than your initial comments about “pissing in the wind”. THAT comment was dismissive and did nothing to add dimension, or encourage substantive dialogue or thought. In other words, it added none of the things that you said armchair critics were capable of contributing. Movements don’t progress based on what we’ve done – they progress based on what we do. And it seems that you are involved and doing… Read more »
When comments critical of articles very often don’t make it out of moderation, why on earth should we believe an entire article would be run?
I’m not sure what you’re referring to here OirishM. I will say that if a comment is considered inappropriate, it will be moderated. If you’ve offered a comment that wasn’t approved in the past, perhaps you offered your contribution in a way that the administrative team felt was not in the best interest of the site and its constituents. My offer extends to you as well. However, let me clarify – I am not offering you an opportunity to write an article critiquing this one. That would be a reactionary waste of space. I’m offering you an opportunity to: 1.)… Read more »
Accepted the invitation today. I guess we’ll see what happens.
I’m looking forward to reading it.
My offer extends to you as well. However, let me clarify – I am not offering you an opportunity to write an article critiquing this one. That would be a reactionary waste of space. I’m offering you an opportunity to: 1.) Write the article you would have liked to have seen and/or; 2.) write an article about this topic that is explicitly grounded in the male perspective you feel is lacking. Excuse me? How is critiquing an article here a “reactionary waste of space”? I find that a hugely ironic statement given how many articles published here are essentially critiques… Read more »
I have no problem with critique. But if you’re just complaining in your critique, well hell, plenty of people do that. You’ll have to do more to differentiate your voice form the cacophony other voices doing the same. I’m far more interested in solutions than complaining. Don’t simply tell me what’s wrong: SHOW me what’s right. If this article was missing that one line and if, as you mentioned, it’s far from the only article that omits these statements, then this is a teachable moment. Show us what that statement looks like. Tell us what it means and why it’s… Read more »
Did the article get written?
For the many female readers, I just came across this.
“In news that flew under the radar last year for obvious reasons, UK think tank Demos found that women slut-shame and use the word “rape” to offend as much as men. Thus, science confirms what you already knew: women use the word “slut” pejoratively and embrace additional epithets against other women without ever being held accountable for it.”
Some explicit mention of female perpetrators might be nice, but otherwise I think article is at least more balanced than recent offerings.
E.g. we create a culture that convinces women (and men too) that guys always want sex, and that rape is something men do to women.
I was gonna do this long response but decided not to. I’m done pissing in the breeze and saying the same thing over and over again when these articles come out.
“And silences millions of young boys and men…” I just read something about how Michael Jackson and his lawyers paid off his victims $200 million in hush money….It was hard to read the sordid details about his “wedding” to an eight year old boy…. We must “center” the voices of survivors and believe what they are saying… The dean of my grad school intervened when I was attacked by someone I thought had “loved” me…up until that point, I thought I was to blame for what had happened…”Victim blaming” is what keeps an abuser in power…it’s important when someone supports… Read more »
And what do you do when an article perhaps well meaning talking about sexual assault minimizes the victimization of a particular group? That would be rape culture also. What would you say to those who then rush up to silence the dissenter because that would be rape culture too?