Rape Culture 101: "Frequently, I receive requests to provide a definition of the term "rape culture." I've referred people to the Wikipedia entry on rape culture, which is pretty good, and I like the definition provided in Transforming a Rape Culture:
A rape culture is a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent. In a rape culture, women perceive a continuum of threatened violence that ranges from sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself. A rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm.
In a rape culture both men and women assume that sexual violence is a fact of life, inevitable as death or taxes. This violence, however, is neither biologically nor divinely ordained. Much of what we accept as inevitable is in fact the expression of values and attitudes that can change.
But my correspondents—whether they are dewy noobs just coming to feminism, advanced feminists looking for a source, or disbelievers in the existence of the rape culture—always seem to be looking for something more comprehensive and less abstract: What is the rape culture? What are its borders? What does it look like and sound like and feel like?...."
We do live in a rape culture. I've been subjected to it multiple times over my life. Guys treating my body like public property thinking they can hit my ass whenever they feel like it. I normally tell when they do it that it's their only warning and next time I will hit them. I am now thinking that I will now immediately backhand them after reading this blogpost.
2 comments:
That is true. Men feel they have the right to pat, grope or whatever else they want to do. The worst part, if you haven't been completely rude at all times to the offending male, some other male will excuse their conduct.
Yep, and it sucks. I hate being treated like a piece of meat.
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