Dealing with rape culture is an everyday contact. Women (of all ages and walks of life) have to deal with the utter nonsense that is spewed from the mouths of both women and men (however, we must acknowledge power systems and that men have the power in dominant societies and that what they say has more power because of the structures of society).
This is a shirt you can buy at Amazon.com
THIS IS OK TO SELL IN OUR SOCIETY – A profitable commodity.
These sentiments from Twitter are also highly liked sentiments:
These are actually some of the most benign tweets I could find. These are really sentiments by ‘educated’ citizens of our society. How we stop them? We prevent rapes by stopping rapists, not by interrogating rape victims. The “he was such a nice guy” argument is far too used and one that I’ve experienced first hand here on campus. With a recent, highly publicized sexual assault case, here on campus, the “he was such a nice guy” argument was used just as much as the “why would he rape HER…Maybe she’s lying” argument.
Focusing on the .3% of rape accusations that turn out to be false over the 90% of rape cases that go unreported is rape culture (@Sazza_jay). Thinking that she is lying is not only inflammatory, it is, statistically, virtually not an existent argument.
There’s also the STUPID argument that only “women who respect themselves deserve respect”…Only respecting modest women means not respecting any woman.
I (and most women) really don’t understand what is SOOOO hard to understand about this statement. It’s not rocket science! Get your Sh*t together, society.
I agree that the culture is real and serious. We need to address it as much as, if not more than, other crimes such as kidnappings and carjacking. It’s ridiculous that there are products you can purchase online. It is also unacceptable how people make jokes about it on different streams of media. I feel like it has saturated almost every corner of our lives. It makes some people think it is OK to take advantage of women because the women were acting and/or wearing clothes that purportedly encouraged the abuse to happen.
Wow. Just wow. It blows my mind that there are people in this world disgusting enough to believe that only some women are “worthy” of their respect. Whether or not you think someone’s outfit is “appropriate” is one thing, but it in no way justifies unwanted advances or crude and disrespectful treatment. EVERYONE is worthy of respect.
This was an upfront piece about the undercover issues. Thank you for dissecting some of the qualms that I have had to address as a woman in this society. Your piece hits the nail on the head – we must STOP condoning such culture. At the same time, your piece, and the examples used within it, demonstrated that there’s a lot of understanding that needs to be had around sexual assault culture. So many people attack individual situations, but not the perpetuation of the situation. (NOTE: The fact that I had to revise this piece to not have the r-word in it, is apart of the problem).