Stories from an Empty Classroom

Fighting Rape Culture: Why It's Done

Everyone has experienced it, the fear of that one suspicious person on the train or the confusion as to why that one girl seems so nervous when a guy sits next to her. It is constant, it is big, it is there. It has been given a name: Rape Culture. So what is Rape Culture? Why is it such a big deal? And, more importantly, why does it still exist?

Rape Culture is the way the world views and thinks about sexual violence and assault, including rape. It is important to note the fact of 'including rape.' Rape Culture is not just about the rape, it is the way people think about and treat sexual assault victims. That is why it is so important because that treatment is not so great. And it is important to fight against the wrong things, but fighting something that has been around for hundreds of years is harder than people think. Especially when the fight is a slow one. It is better than nothing, however. 'Why keep fighting,' some ask. 'If it is such a slow fight?' The fight against Rape Culture is a constant one because very few rape survivors get to see their attacker brought to justice; because the law enforcement fails to do its job as is appropriate; and because male sexual entitlement exists.

There is an awful amount of people who will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. According to the 2010-11 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, one in five women and one in seventy-one men will be sexually harassed or assaulted in the U.S. That number jumps to 50% for gender-nonconforming people. Chances are, everyone knows someone who has been assaulted, whether they speak out about it or not. With these numbers, it would make sense that several people are arrested and do their time, right? Out of the 99,708 reported rape cases in 2017, only a third were cleared and tried, let alone convicted. There is also something to be said about the insane number of untested rape kits in metropolitan areas alone. In 2009, a Detroit attorney documented at least eleven-thousand untested rape kits. That means that no less than eleven-thousand rape survivors never saw their rapists behind bars as they should've.

There is also the fact of rapists and abusers getting less time than they should. In January of 2015, Brock Turner was found raping a girl, who is referred to as 'Emily Doe', behind a dumpster near a fraternity house on the campus of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. He was tried in March of 2016 and found guilty of three felony charges. This seems good, yes? He was convicted, all is good. Wrong. The judge in charge of his case, Judge Aaron Persky, disagreed with the Jury's verdict of rape, believing, instead, that "Turner's drunkenness made his behaviour less bad than if he had been sober." He sentenced Turner to six months in county jail, rather than the requested six years of Emily Doe's Attorney, feeling that it would be unnecessary to ruin Turner's life any further. Turner was released after three months, due to good behaviour, and Judge Persky was recalled in 2018. All is well that ends well, yes? No. What about Emily? What about her life that's now been ruined? Why does she not get to see justice? The sad thing is that she is not alone. There are so many others like her who are, not only denied the right to justice but ridiculed and scrutinized in ways to excuse the rapist. Not help the raped. There are cases where the police will flat out deny that anything happened. "One officer asked a woman bringing a rape charge, "Why are you messing that guy's life up?" In another case, an officer is described laughing when a prosecutor calls a victim a 'conniving little whore.'" These things happen regularly, and frankly? Like a serial killer, it is not going to stop unless it is stopped.

Speaking of things that will not stop unless stopped, Male Sexual Entitlement (MSE). The belief that men can behave how they like for, and have a right to, female attention and their bodies. It is a big thing and is honestly very dangerous. It is the same reason you hear all about crazy ex-girlfriends, but not a word about ex-boyfriends. Because many girls do not make it out alive from that. In 2014, a man shot up a University of California sorority in Isla Vista, California. He killed six people and injured fourteen more before taking his own life, leaving behind a 147-page manifesto and several disturbing videos. "I don't know why you girls aren't attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it... You are animals and I will slaughter you like animals. And I will be a god," he wrote, in some of his more... disturbing material. Driven by a strong sense of Male Sexual Entitlement and misogyny, he thought that he deserved sex and attention from any girl he pleased. When he was denied this, his anger sky-rocketed. Violence, however, is not the only result of MSE. In 2017, Luke Howard, an Australian composer, was dumped by a girlfriend of four months. Unable to accept this, he bought a piano and had it placed in a park in Bristol, England, where he vowed to play non-stop until his ex took him back. The media called it 'Heartbreaking,' and an act of 'true love.' Some women, on the other hand, called him 'stalkerish' and 'self-obsessed.' @sianushka posted: "Men, women are allowed to leave you. You are not entitled to a girlfriend. Media, stop romanticizing controlling, stalker behaviour." on Twitter, pointing out, along with several others, that Howard was using emotional blackmail and acting like an entitled prick.

When women bring up Rape Culture, people will often call them offensive slurs, such as 'feminazi' or 'slut who had it bad.' It is not okay. Society as a whole is tasked with fixing itself because no one can do it for them. Society has to deliver justice, society has to fix the system, society has to kill Rape Culture because it is not going to die out by itself.