Rape Culture : The Limitations Of Rape Culture

Almost two-thirds of sexual assault is committed by someone known to the victim. Yet rape and sexual assault are one of the least reported crime in the united states with only 39% of attacks being reported to the police each year. Rape culture has been present throughout history in the entire world and sadly it continues to exist. Rape culture needs to be talked about more openly, so victims are not afraid to accuse their rapist or attacker. Communities should come together to create a culture of care and stop shaming men, women, and children into victim blaming. Educating society about what is right and wrong while offering victims support can potentially prevent rapes from occurring and putting the sick people who committed the crime into prison.

Many individuals might wonder, what is rape culture? “Rape Culture is an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture. Rape culture is perpetuated through the use of misogynistic language, the objectification of women’s bodies, and the glamorization of sexual violence, thereby creating a society that disregards women’s rights and safety.” Most women limit their behavior because of the existence of rape. (Marshall University)

As kids we were taught about “stranger danger;” we were taught to protect ourselves from strangers and as we got older, females were told to protect themselves from getting raped. In this paper, I will discuss how living in a rape culture affects women and men, how does rape myths affect society and how we can change the negative effects of living in a rape culture and rape myths. In order to understand this, we must first define what rape is.

It is six o’clock in the evening, a special news segment on world affairs is on the television. The journalist is doing a piece on inhumane practices that occur in third world countries, one of these travesties being rape. The voices of women who have been stolen from their homes and have been taken advantage of against their own will infiltrate the air. These personal stories have an incredulously powerful impact on those listening and make one think “How could such an outrageous thing happen?” Truth be told, these horrors are not just happening in far-off places, but they are happening right now in the United States of America. The very simple fact that one is oblivious to the magnitude of sexual violence in their very own country is an

The term ‘rape culture’ was coined by feminists in the United States in 1970. The term itself was designed to illustrate the ways in which society blamed victims of sexual assault, and how the normalization of male sexual violence was acceptable. Rape culture can stem from the acceptance of rape as a daily occurrence, manifested as a male prerogative. There is a hesitation by the authorities to go against the patriarchal cultural norms, hence linking nonconsensual sex to the cultural disposition of society. The patriarchal perspective of rape culture, embedded with gender inequality and misogyny are passed through generations which ultimately leads to the extensive institutional and social acceptance of rape. Actions which advocate sexist ideals are utilized to justify and validate normative misogynistic perceptions. Rape culture sexualizes violence inflicted upon women, as it serves as a continuum of a society which views a women’s body to be sexually available by default, deriving from the overall domination and objectification of a female. The underlying cause of rape culture is localized as it based upon the social aspects of culture. For example, countries with a prolific ‘war culture’ tend to emphasize violence and masculinity, and therefore rape is viewed as a normal facet of society. I intend to parallel the element of rape culture to the enforcement of social rules and the conditioning of gender roles. I plan on analyzing the notion that within the encompassment of

Now as a College student, speaking of rape culture is definitely an obligation. Reading the “The myth of the college ‘rape culture’” article in the NY post by Naomi Schaefer, she talks about the survey Harvard did as part of an effort by the American Association of Universities to quantify sexual assault on campus. The survey where bit vague but it looked like it was more of an alcohol problem more than a rape problem. The statistics show that most of the victims and the offenders drank alcohol or did drugs voluntarily. Yes there are some cases where the rapist was just a mad man that like raping but on campuses this is rarely seen. Quoting two things from Scaefer “On campuses where students are encouraged to see every bad sexual decision as an assault, incapacitated is a way students can explain away their behavior” and “Once you dig through all of the data collected here, there is no evidence that women are

In the United States individuals of both genders are being sexually violated, yet way too often their offenders often get off scot free or with very little punishment. Rape culture exists because we don't believe it does. The first step to ending such culture is to name the real problem, which is victim-blaming. We treat victims like they’re responsible, which would be obscenely different for any other criminal charge. When a sexual assault is reported on the news the first questions the media asks are about the victim’s sobriety, clothes, or sexuality. The right question is, “What made the attacker think this was acceptable?” Changing a mind set that has been engraved in us for centuries is going to be strenous, yet not impossible. It starts

Although the term Rape culture wasn’t coined until the 1970’s the practices associated with the term have been used to mistreat women for several centuries. Rape culture refers to the several aspects of culture such as art, science, and history that tolerates the sexual assault of women; people often mistake rape culture as something that is only seen through music or in the past, but the act of using vituperating language towards women and telling sexual explicit jokes are examples of rape culture. The political, social, and philosophical practices of the American society contributes to the oppression of women in the form of rape culture; although rape culture is deeply rooted in our society it could be diminished by enforcing stricter rape

Rape culture is everywhere, many people don't take this problem as something important that has existed in our society for many years now:

In today's society, the promotion of rape culture is heavily prevalent. Despite the world making massive headway in a multitude of social injustices, victim blaming and the willingness to ignore the truth in media are still major issues. Although one may not realize, both local and global media frequently create pieces that are biased - using prejudice in favor of one group or individual - to blindly sway public opinion.

Rape is one of the crimes committed in the US. Rape is also one of the most underreported crimes in America and has low prosecution and conviction rates compared to any other violent crimes in America. "Rape Culture" has become a popular term when it comes to rape prevention education and advocacy; it refers to a society that contains within it practices and beliefs that minimize the negative impacts of victimization while accepting and continuing the perpetration of acts of sexual violence.

Deborah M. Roffman, a teacher and author on human sexuality claims that “You can hear and see evidence of this longstanding folk ‘wisdom’ about boys almost everywhere, from the gender-typed assumptions people make about young boys to the resigned attitude or blind eye adults so often turn to disrespectful or insensitive male behavior.” Boys are taught from a young age that their actions are justified by the statement “boys will be boys”, and when they do something disrespectful, it is not their fault because of their gender stereotype being perceived to be animalistic in nature and to not have manners. By teaching this to them at a young age, it is carried with them for their entire lives, including high school. With this stereotype in mind, school officials will allow boys to cat-call and verbally harass a girl because ‘boys will be boys’. What they do not understand is what they are enforcing by allowing boys to get away with such things. They are enforcing a sexist stereotype that will cause men to objectify women as though we were all to be living in a power-hungry patriarchal society. Roffman goes on to illustrate what the phrase really implies “Consider, though, what ‘boys will be boys’ thinking implies about the true nature of boys. I often ask...what inherent traits or characteristics the expression implies. The answers typically are astonishingly negative: Boys

When you’re a star, they let you do it,” he had the gall to say. No, Donald Trump, they didn’t “let” you do it.

September 2012 Saratoga High School sophomore Audrie Pott committed suicide after being raped by three of her classmates, and photos of the assault circulated through her school (Sulek). This isn’t just one rare occurrence in our day and age many incidents like Audrie’s frequently occur. Not only have we become accustomed to the word rape our western culture has made it one of its prime time events by the way we see traces of it every single day. From the news we watch every morning to the songs we listen to on our daily commutes the influences of rape on our culture and media are common.

Most people would agree that as you grow up you learn by seeing, feeling ,touching , smelling, and hearing . Albert Bandura supports this by a theory he created called the Social Learning Theory (McLeod, 2011). Social Learning Theory is a theory that explains that behavior is learned by your social environment, interactions and observations of others. With this theory I would say it supports opinion in which I would say that rape is not something somebody just decides one day to do. I believe that rape is learned throughout time. There are many social and even media factors that sometimes may come off with the intention that rape is acceptable. In some media factors they may even perceive that being forcibly raped is pleasurable. Movies tend to do it often and sometimes movies don 't realize that what people see on television can sometimes influence people to see these acts as a norm. For instance the fact that a college kid is in a frat and he 's in a party there is a good percentage that he would reenact what television had stereotype frats boys to do. Television would label the frat boys as potential rapist and the human mind would consider that when you take on that role as a frat boy. One of the biggest media factors all the way from television to the internet that for so many years that perceive rape as acceptable is pornography.