The Implications Of Rape Culture In The Media

Not a day goes by where we don’t see or hear about a story of sexual assault; whether it be on the news, someone we know personally, or a story we see on social media. Sexual assault is any unwanted sexual act against a person or without a person’s consent. Sexual assault refers to any sexual, physical, verbal or visual act that is forced upon a person. “Every 107 seconds, another American is sexually assaulted. This is an average of 293,000 victims each year” (Statistics). The culture in the United States can be defined as a rape culture. Emilie Buchwald, author of Transforming a Rape Culture, defines rape culture as “a complex set of beliefs that encourage 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 both men and women assume that sexual violence is a fact of life” (What is Rape Culture?). Examples of living in a rape culture include things like blaming the victim and teaching women to avoid getting raped rather than teaching men not to rape. Factors that play a role in creating a rape culture is the gap between men and women, gender roles, and the porn industry.

Rape culture is an environment in which rape is prevalent, sexual violence is normalized — even excused — and victims are blamed for

In Roxane Gay’s article, “The Careless Language of Sexual Violence,” she breaks down rape in the perspective of our society nowadays. Gay states that our world today does not take the act of rape as an important issue to pay attention to by saying, “the idea that male aggression and violence towards women is acceptable and often inevitable.” Also, that in many cases the idea of victim blaming plays a big role in the way our society looks at the subject; saying that the individual that was raped is in the wrong and the rapist is not at fault. In the article, Gay states that we live in a “rape culture,” meaning that the way the world is today is to view violence towards women as something that is not an important

“In the minds of many high school boys, rape isn 't always wrong. A Patriot Ledger survey of 527 high school students conducted for this series found that 7 percent of boys said it was OK to force a girl to have sex on a date” (Eschbacher).The media needs to redefine and differently represent rape because it is portrayed as being too hard to define, the media has begun stereotyping the victims and rapists alike, and rape is not being reported because students are afraid of the stigma created by the media. Rape culture, or the media’s portrayal of rape is ridiculously inaccurate and overly pigeonholed. Rape needs to be redefined, as evidence by the staggering statistic stated. In the following paragraphs, the reasoning behind the thesis stated will be explained.

What is Rape Culture? It is a culture in which sexual violence is normalized and it is seen as something that happens often and it does not surprise the masses due to giving or having excuses for rape and sexual abuse. It also means that Rape is perpetuated through the objectification of a women’s body and the glamorization of sexual violence, this means that having a society that doesn’t care about a women’s rights and safety. With Rape Culture being normalized, it teaches women to not get raped instead of teaching men not to rape. The effect of Popular Culture normalizing rape like sexual imagery in music videos and advertisement, it focuses on the male gaze solely to please men and their desires. It also makes it normal for the Victims to

As defined by southernct.edu, rape culture is “an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence is normalized and excused in the media and pop culture.” Some examples of common rape culture ideals are: blaming the victim, refusing to take rape accusations seriously, and defending sayings such as “boys will be boys” and “she was asking for it.” Today, the media is a large platform for this kind of behavior, many people have begun to accept these ideals.

We have continued to accept rape culture as normal in our lives because we grew accustomed to the sexual violence that we were exposed to on a daily basis. We need to stop allowing rape jokes to be passed off as harmless, the over sexualization of young girls, victim-blaming, and put an end to the double standard surrounding rape. We’ve continually white-washed rapists’ actions towards victims and taken no action against their crimes. There are thousands of cases that have been slipped under the rug in order to protect the rapist from social stigma. I believe that rape culture is a product of our ignorance as a society. We have chosen to ignore the importance of this growing problem. It’s so common to hear about young girls getting raped on college campuses or at high school parties. We often turn the other way because that is how it has always been. The portayal of victims in the media has continued to be the same, she has either been drinking too much, wanted to have

A prime example of rape culture is blaming the victim when it was not his or her fault. He or she is accused of being to promiscuous and that what she was wearing is the reason that he or she was raped. It is never the victims fault. We live in a society where it is okay for men to force themselves on to when with no issue and no repercussions. We teach do not get raped instead of do not rape. According to the National Statistic Violence Resource Center, every one in five women and one in every sixty-one will be raped at some point in their life. Rape should not be accusable. Our society does not hold the abuser accountable for their actions. A prime example of this is a man named Brock Turner. He was accused of raping an unconscious woman at Stanford University after a night of heavy drinking. The average time rapists are convicted is 9.8 years, he only got six months because of his swimming career. Turner got out in three months. His sentence was much shorter than it should have been. This happens a lot more than it should. The perpetrators hardly ever get their just desserts. About 60% of sexual assaults get reported and even less then that get investigated. One reason it is that way is because the victims are scared to share what happen to them because the backlash against them. They would be accused of lying or they would be blamed for the whole event. Making excuses against the rape of men and

Rape culture is an expression that was conceived by feminists in the 70s. It was intended to reveal the ways that society condemned sexual assaulted victims. There are movements, campaigns, feminists, and activist trying to change that but they can't do it by themselves. Amber Amour is a feminists that has her own website with other women that talk about rape culture. The website, stoprapeeducate.org, teaches about rape culture itself, 'consent and healthy boundaries'. They enlighten the masses through creative expression such as chalk art that has positive messages on them in New York City (see page ). The 'Stop Rape. Educate.' Campaigns purpose is "to end sexual violence against women,

What is rape culture? “a complex set of beliefs that encourage 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 [or anyone else] as the norm . . . In a rape culture both men and women assume that sexual violence is a fact of life, inevitable.”is how Emilie Buchwald, author of, Transforming a Rape Culture decribes it “. . . . However . . . much of what we accept as inevitable is in fact the expression of values and attitudes that can change.” Buchwald also said. And that’s what needs to happen we need to, we must recognize the issues in our culture that promotes and accepts rape and do everything we can to stop this alarming trend.

Imagine, a woman, walking home alone, wearing a short clubbing dress after a night out with her friends. A man pulls her aside and sexually assaults her. This scenario will occur often in today’s court. The victim is blamed because of what she is wearing and for being alone at night. This is often known as rape culture. What is rape culture? “Rape culture is a term that was coined by feminists in the United States in the 1970’s. It was designed to show the ways in which society blamed victims of sexual assault and normalized male sexual violence” (WAVAW). In today's society, rape culture is normalized and completely overlooked instead of thoroughly examined by the many examples of rape.

Of all the controversial topics circulating through the media recently - abortion, suicide, teen pregnancy, Kim Kardashian’s newest nude photoset - nothing spurs more debate than when someone utters that ugly word: rape. Even more so when we add “culture” to the end of it, because all of a sudden “culture” (defined by FreeDictionary: “the totality of socially transmitted behaviour patterns…beliefs…and all other products of human work and thought.”) becomes something that we as a society are involved in as a whole. This means that we can’t talk about it as if it was simply a horrible event that happened to someone we know, or even something that happened to a friend of a friend. When we refer to it as “rape culture” it holds all of us responsible and, in return, puts all of us on the chopping block, instead of just the person who committed the rape. Rape culture is the normalization of rape in society, to the extent that rape is now condoned and even romanticized everywhere; in the media and even coming out of our own mouths. Rape culture exists because we, as a society, are prone to victim-blaming; it exists because, even though our judicial system is generally ahead of the curve in comparison to other countries, we are somehow lackadaisical in our prosecution of rapists; it exists because, in our “advanced” education, not once in the curriculum do we use the words “consent” or “sexual assault” (Kane, 2013). Rape culture exists because we allow it to, because the idea that

Many of the attitudes, beliefs, and mistaken ideas about rape have been with us for centuries. By looking at myths, such as "women ask for it," and "women secretly enjoy rape," from a historical perspective, lead us for better understanding how they evolved. Women are still seen as the property of men, are protected as such. Men and women are still taught to occupy very different roles in today's world. Men are usually in power positions, and women are seen as passive. This socialization process is changing, but slowly.

Rape culture in our society across America has become complicit in allowing a harmful cycle of misogynistic attitudes towards women and sexual assault persist. The concept linking rape and sexual violence to the culture of a society, causing predominant perspective to normalize, excuse, tolerate, and even condone rape. Is largely caused by the one thing that connects all people in society, pop culture. Pop culture gives negative attributes towards women by objectifying them in the entertainment industry. The things we see on television and hear in popular music have caused one to think its an acceptable behavior. Society has continued to tell women they cannot to be sexual beings in the way men can.

Rape culture is defined as society’s normalization of sexual assault and abuse (Roebuck and Komanduri). Acceptance of rape culture is prevalent in American society. Throughout a lifetime, 1 in 5 women will experience some type of sexual assault in the United States (Giraldi and Monk-Turner). Widespread of