Our Alliance against Rape Culture

Before I commence, let's define rape culture. The WAVAW, or women against violence against women, defines it as "a term coined by feminists in the 1970's. It was designed to show the ways in which society blamed victims of sexual assault and normalize male sexual violence." I know that was a lot so if you didn't follow, rape culture is when society blames the victims instead of the rapist. Rape culture isn't something that's thought like geometry, either. It's sprinkled through our lives and permeates into our psyche like rain in our Northwestern soil. As young girls we are told strangers are dangerous, as adolescents we get our clothes critiqued as if they're too promiscuous and get told we look like a streetwalker and most of all, as adult women we get told we are in charge of our lives and what happens with it. Now, there are infinite examples of how rape culture is reposed in our society. Rape culture is our girls being scared to walk by men who can overpower them. Rape culture is as the WAVAW describes, "major news outlines waxing sympathetic about how two teen rapists' "promising" lives will be destroyed by a youthful mistake, without once mentioning how the rape might affect the survivor." Rape culture is teaching our girls not to get raped instead of teaching our boys not to rape. We actually do this extremely insidious practice. Doing this makes it to where some rapists don't even know that what they did was rape. Brock Turner, more commonly known as the Stanford rapist, for example, raped an unconscious college girl behind a dumpster and proceeded to say that he "thought it was really weird the guy though [he] was raping the girl." according to the Free Thought Process. Not only did he not know that what he did was wrong, he also got a smaller sentence than a man that did what I know plenty of high schoolers do. Having less than three ounces of weed in your house, giving some to a friend/family member and then driving a friend to go get some more can get you a life sentence in prison while rape just gets you three months in jail. If that doesn't leave you harrowed I don't know what will. Another example of this according to Huffpost is William Dekle which "has served 22 years of his life without parole for conspiracy to import and possess large quantities of marijuana." while Daily Post says, "After just three months, Brock Turner walked out of San Jose's main jail south at 6:09 am. He said nothing and showed no sign of repentance." This system and the evidence of rape culture in our defunct society is reproaching and our dilatory actions are not helping. We need to understand that telling someone who has been raped that they shouldn't have been wearing that is like telling someone who got shot they should have been wearing a bullet proof vest. We need to understand that we can't be so contradicting with what we say. The Huffington Post states in their article, 'Tell me there's no rape culture', "As women we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. We grow up receiving these conflicting messages from all angles. Be nice- but not too nice, or your intentions might be misinterpreted and you could get raped by someone who assumes you were flirting. Defend yourself against rape, fight as hard as you can- but not preemptively, because that just makes you a bitch." We need to make it to where there aren't articles called '25 everyday examples of Rape culture' on Everyday Feminism that express "a judge who sentenced only 30 days in jail to a 50-year-old man who raped a 14-year-old girl (who later committed suicide), and defended that the girl was "older than her chronological age"", "People who believe that girls "allow themselves to be raped"" and "Assuming that false reporting for sexual assault cases are the norm, when in reality, they're only 2-8%, which in on par with grand theft auto." This shouldn't be our society. We need to be punctilious when we hear evidence of rape culture. Some examples I have heard recently are, "she raped my mind." when a peer was confused by something I said. I also had a male adult friend tell me, at 30 years old that "like 85-90% of rape claims are just girls who got really drunk and felt disgusted with themselves when they realized what they did." Yes, those really were his exact words. Rape culture isn't just a problem for women either, and as a society we assume "men don't get raped or that onlt "weak" men get raped." according to Southern Connecticut State University. While Everyday Feminism states, "While this list demonstrates the pervasiveness of rape by cis men against cis women, everyday feminism would like to note that sexual violence and rape culture affect trans and gender non-conforming people (as well as cis men) at an alarming rate. Rape culture is everyone's issue, regardless of gender." So let's for an alliance against rape culture. Let's conscientiously change this perspective not only for eachother but for out little brothers and sisters, or nieces and nephews and our future children. Let's fix this for the generations to come. It is, however, our story so let's write it the best way possible.

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Okay, So that way my very long winded, very repetitive speech. I know it's not the best but I know it's a message that needs to get out there. Thank you for all of you that read this far it really means a lot. Let this speech sink in and really change how you see things. 

-Mae ♥