Lately rape has been in the news quite a bit . . .
Congress voted down the Violence Against Women Act.
Jyoti Singh Pandey, the 23 year old med student was
brutally gang raped and beaten, days later dying from the event.
Notre Dame University chose not to bench 2 football
players after separate allegations of sexual assault and rape, leading to the
suicide of one victim.
Two
members of Steubenville, Ohio’s high school football team were videoed bragging
about taking a girl who had passed out at a party, stripping her, digitally
penetrating her (fingering her), and taking her, unconscious, to three other parties where they exposed her
body to others, urinated on her and humiliated her.
The boys still got to play . . . .
I think the
underlying reason that so many people are willing to use this as an excuse to
‘slut shame’ (she was drinking, out at night, wearing X style of clothing, was dancing, wasn’t a virgin and had it
coming) or ‘victim blame’ (she fought back, didn’t fight back, should have done
X to avoid the situation) is because
rape isn’t generally understood.
That
rapists can’t control their sexual urges.
That
rape is about sex . . .
Rape is about power
and control, not sex.
Rape is about
taking the power to consent away from the victim, about proving the rapist has
more power because they can make you submit to them.
That
the rapist is entitled to the victim’s body, to sex,
even
to the victim’s life.
I have been
lucky. I am 31 years old and have not been the victim of sexual assault or
rape. But there is a very real chance that at some point in my life I will be,
simply because I’m a woman. My sister and three other friends over the course
of my life have been. My daughters, my sons (men are as vulnerable to rape as
women but very, very few report it), my wife (she’s at higher risk because
she’s transgender), everyone I love has the potential to be a headline.
Or, far
more likely, not make the headline.
Prevention
isn’t about the victim avoiding being victimized. That hasn’t worked in the
past, and isn’t working now.
Rape prevention
is about people, men as well as women, working to change the conversation.
Parents teaching their sons and daughters that only yes means yes. That being drunk doesn’t
equal consent. That no does not mean try harder.
Custador, a fellow blogger who writes at
Unreasonable Faith
), has made
this pledge in order to help do just that . . .
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I
will never condone rape or support rape culture in any way. I will object,
loudly, when a rape joke is told. I will not tolerate objectification of
women, amongst my male friends or amongst anybody else. I will do my best
to be aware of my male (and white, and straight, and middle class)
privilege, and to not take advantage of it. If and when I have children, I
will try to educate them to critically appraise the media to which they are
exposed and be aware of the gender messages within it. I will not spend
money on any product, company or media which I am aware of having promoted
rape culture or gender disparity, regardless of whether they have done so
deliberately.
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I think most of
us, men and women, can get on board with that.
