America’s Rape Culture

The United States is a rape culture. Our society, as it has since its beginning, sustains and normalizes rape and sexual violence against women, forcing them to remain subordinate. One might assume that women have reached equality when looking at the many legal changes that have occurred since this country’s birth: women have gained the right to vote, many birth control and abortion rights, better wages and working conditions and much more. Even with all this change, we are still seeing the same stereotyping, prejudices and violence against women. The general attitude towards women hasn’t changed nearly as much as our legal rights have. The specific problem that encompasses all of this is the rape culture in our country. As I should point out, I understand that there are similar attitudes towards women all around the world, not just in the U.S. But, for the purpose of this article and from personal experience, I will be focusing on this issue relating to the U.S.

A rape culture can be defined as an environment “in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture,” according to the Women’s Center of Marshall University. There are many examples of how our country fits this criteria, including its incredibly high number of rapes.

The number of rapes reported in the U.S. is appalling. We are ranked fifth in the world for the highest number of reported rapes per capita, according to democraticunderground.com. In 2009, there were 28.6 reported rape cases per 100,000 people. Keep in mind, this number only reflects reported rapes, and rape is the most underreported violent crime in the country, with only 16% of rapes ever being reported (rapetraumaservices.org). Following this statistic, approximately 178.8 per 100,000 people are rape victims. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that 91% of rape victims are women and 99% of rapists are men. With the incredibly high number of rapes and the fact that most rape victims are women, the rape culture in America clearly oppresses women, who must live in fear of being raped and/or live with the trauma from being raped, while most men do not. This is how rape functions as a powerful means to keep the entire female population subordinate to the entire male population, even though not every man is a rapist and not every female has been or will be raped.

There are certain things that cause this rape culture where hundreds of thousands of women are raped each year and discrimination is commonplace. The three that I will focus on are victim blaming, misogynistic language and jokes and the objectification of women in the media.

Victim blaming is a serious problem that has been around for thousands of years. Rape victims are often blamed for their attack. Victims are told they are “asking for it” due to their clothing, flirtation, level of sobriety or prior sexual history. This leads to women becoming afraid or embarrassed to speak up about being sexually assaulted, and it helps rapists (and society as a whole) justify the action of rape or make excuses. Victims might be scared to say anything about their attack because they are afraid of being blamed, or they might even blame themselves.

I run a blog, and on numerous occasions I have received messages from rape victims who are afraid to tell people what happened because they feel that it might be partly their fault. For example, last month, a teenage girl anonymously asked me whether or not she was to blame for being raped because she was drunk at the time of the assault. Of course, the answer is no, but because of this country’s attitude towards victims, she thought it might have been her fault. Victims wouldn’t regularly blame themselves nor feel scared of being blamed if it weren’t for our society’s constant victim blaming in rape cases.

I have experienced victim blaming myself and by my own friend. A few weeks after being raped for the second time in my life, I was lying on my bed and feeling hopeless. My roommate was trying to comfort me and give me advice, and she said, “Well, Bella… Maybe you don’t realize the message you’re sending to guys, and that’s why it keeps happening.” My own roommate, my friend, was defending these rapists’ behavior because she knows I can be a flirt. She wasn’t trying to be malicious, but society had so deeply ingrained this idea into her head that she thought it could be partially my fault that someone raped me.

There are rape shield laws in place that can soften the blow of victim blaming in legal situations. Rape shield laws are in place so a victim’s sexual history cannot be taken into account during trial. However, there are holes in rape shield laws: the complainant’s sexual history with the defendant can be admitted, and some cases slip past the laws (National Online Resource Center on Violence Against Women).

Victim blaming is very real, very prevalent and very hurtful. It is one of the main factors in our society that feeds rape culture. The main thing that people need to understand is that there is no gradient of fault. It is not “sort of your fault” if you were flirting, drunk or anything else that might affect the situation. It is either 100% consensual or 100% the attacker’s fault. The second someone says “no” and the other continues, it is assault, no matter what was happening beforehand.

Another perpetuation of rape culture is misogynistic language and jokes, which I hear examples of on a daily basis. Listen in on some teenage boys playing a video game and there’s a good chance you’ll hear something like, “I totally just raped you!” which is supposed to be the equivalent of “I defeated/destroyed you.” I also hear jokes about women constantly, even directed at myself. Numerous times guys have told me to “get back in the kitchen where I belong,” and when I get offended, they defend themselves with, “Calm down, I was just joking.” Not to mention the douchebags walking around in “Cool Story Babe, Now Go Make Me a Sandwich” T-shirts. Most familiarly, many popular songs feature misogynistic lyrics. This type of language is commonplace, and when it is used constantly, the ideas are ingrained into people’s heads. When rape and misogyny are joked about, it makes light of a very serious situation. The more you make light of rape, the more a rapist or potential rapist might think it’s less serious than it really is. Rape jokes provide justification for their actions. The more misogynistic language is used, the view that women are subordinate will become more deeply ingrained.

The language that is used also reflects how society feels about women. For example, think about names that are used to describe a sexually active woman: slut, whore, skank, tramp, ho, broad, hussy, prostitute, sleaze, the list goes on. Most notably, all of them are negative. Now, think about the names used for a sexually active male: player, stud, ladies’ man, pimp. These names aren’t nearly as negative; most are even used lightheartedly. This reflects the bias that has been in our culture for a long time. It is bad for a woman to be sexually active but admirable for a male to be, all leading back to the fact that women are seen as subordinate. This also plays a part in victim blaming, as many victims of sexual assault are called sluts and whores for “lying” about being assaulted.

The objectification of women has grown and become more acceptable since the beginning of what we know as “modern media” (television, advertisements, music, etc.). Every single time I flip through a magazine, turn on the TV or walk through a shopping center, I see media that objectifies women: magazines are heavily stocked with perfume, beer and cigarette advertisements featuring half-naked girls; TV channels feature actresses wearing significantly less clothing than their male counterparts; and malls are plastered with huge posters of women in sexy lingerie (which are usually not advertising the actual lingerie).

The media’s objectification of women has become so common that it doesn’t seem to bother or phase most people, unless it’s a man that’s being objectified. No one seems to be protesting the sexualization of women in advertisements, but there is an entire campaign focused on one ad by Kraft depicting a nearly naked man having a picnic, according to usatoday.com. One Million Moms, a branch of the American Family Association, is rebuking a magazine ad for Kraft’s Zesty Italian salad dressing, claiming that it’s “disgusting” and “has gone too far.”

Apparently, sexualizing and objectifying women in the media is alright, as it’s left untested, but as soon as there is a man involved, it’s gone too far. Objectifying women has become normalized, so no one questions it. Both men and women start to see women as objects, because it is constantly fed to us, and this can be supported by the fact that the objectification of a woman is left unquestioned while the objectification of a man causes an uproar. Because women are advertised as sex objects instead of people, it becomes “easier,” in a sense, for rapists to justify attacking them and for women to blame themselves.

The rape culture in America will only end once the prejudices and stereotypes end. The only way to stop this is through education. We live in a society that teaches “don’t get raped” instead of “don’t rape,” and this goes hand in hand with the ideas that women are at fault, subordinate and objectified. Sex education classes in schools should be way more informative than they are now, and it is a parent’s responsibility to reprimand behavior that put women in a subordinate position, as it starts from a young age. I hope that in the near future we can start to make those changes.

Think before you speak, and don’t be afraid to speak up when you hear or see something that you feel is harmful to women. We’ve come so far with human rights, but let’s not stay stuck in the past when it comes to how we treat women.