How Does America Have A Rape Culture
America is known for its many diverse cultures. Mostly, these cultures are celebrated and widely accepted, however, there are some that are not so easily accepted. Since the 1970’s, there has been an ongoing debate on whether or not America has a “rape culture.” The term rape culture was introduced in the United States in the 1970’s by feminists who wanted to display how society normalizes sexual aggressions, behaviors, and violence. Rape culture includes everything from unwanted “catcalling” to rape jokes to movies that focus on male characters getting girls drunk in hopes that they will have sex with them. Those who believe that such a culture exists point to main stream movies, music, television, etc. that all make sexual violence a normalized
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and societally accepted issue. A shockingly high number of rapes are committed in America every day, and those who believe rape culture exists feel that we simply cannot expect the amount of rapes to decrease in while American culture itself is not doing enough to reinforce that the concept of rape as bad and should be look at with extreme severity.
On the opposite hand, there is a large following of people who believe that a culture of rape in America in fact does not exist, and that the term was made up by feminists as a way to pin men as being dangerous, as well as shift the focus away from the people committing sexual assault crimes. According to them, in order to make any progress against sexual assault and violence, the term “rape culture” needs to be shelved. Of course, the issue of rape is one that should not be taken lightly, but to decide if a “rape culture” exists, we must look at both sides. Here are some facts on rape to set the stage for the debate: According to RAINN (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network), 54% of sexual assaults are not reported to police while 97% of rapists will never spend a day in jail. More than half (54%) of all rapes of females happen before age 18, and the perpetrator is twice as likely to be an adult (National Institute of Justice, US Department of
Justice). Recently, an op-ed article published in Time Magazine caused quite a stir on the issue. In the article, titled “It’s Time to End Rape Culture Hysteria” author Caroline Kitchens argues that rape culture does not exist and extensively explains why we need to stop shifting the blame of rape onto rape culture. One main argument that Kitchen’s focuses on in her debate of rape culture is that it paints all men as dangerous and potential rapists. Kitchens writes, “By blaming so-called rape culture, we implicate all men in a social atrocity, trivialize the experiences of survivors, and deflect blame from the rapists truly responsible for sexual violence” (Kitchens). Along with that, she argues that rape culture vilifies the “average guy” and does not put appropriate focus on the very small population that actually commits acts of rape and sexual assault. In response to this article, thousands of enraged victims of sexual assault began using the twitter hashtag #rapecultureiswhen, leaving furious and chilling evidence and stories of how they feel they have alienated by hyper-sexualized life. Alana Prochuk, author of an article published in WAVAW (Women Against Violence Against Women) titled “Rape Culture is Real- And Yes, We’ve Had Enough” responds to this argument. She speaks for many believers of rape cultures existence when she disagrees that rape culture vilifies all men, and states that no true believer in rape culture would ever claim that all men were rapists. She furthers this claim by providing statistics, “…30% of American college men surveyed admitted they would commit rape if they were sure they could get away with it” (Prochuk). Prochuk, along with all other believers of rape culture, claim that rape culture is not about painting all men as dangerous, but rather it’s about pointing out how many men have adopted normalized behaviors of rape and sexual violence through mainstream American culture. This bring us to a second point of debate: victim blaming. Victim blaming is when the victims of the attack or aggressions are blamed, rather than the aggressor. Examples of victim blaming include calling a survivor a liar, pointing to their past sexual deviances, alcohol levels, or style of dress to shift blame, or any other form of insinuation that they were “asking for it.” It is argued that those who don’t believe in rape culture often use victim blaming as a way to justify sexually aggressive behavior. Victim blaming exemplifies rape culture’s existence and teaches women that they should learn how to shelter and protect themselves against anything that is considered “dangerous.” Along with that, women should not dress or act in a manner that is sexually inviting, or drink too much at parties and social events, because it could be perceived by an aggressor as them “asking for it.” The frequent cry of rape culture believers is this: we should not being focusing on telling victims how not to get raped, but instead on teaching men not to rape. Prochuk states that 80% of rape is committed by someone the victim knew, “by making rapists out to be random wacko deviants, rape culture deflects attention from itself—that is, from our society’s insidious normalization of sexualized violence” (Prochuk). Author Janet Bloomfield, writer of the article published in A Voice For Men titled, “Sick of Rape Culture BS,” makes an enraged response to the claim of victim blaming. However, one quote in particular sums up her belief: “Every adult person can behave in certain ways to avoid being victimized. Why is rape such a special crime? There are things every adult can do to avoid being mugged, which we heartily encourage, and no one for one second thinks we are victim-blaming. Rape is a terrible crime. But it’s not special” (Bloomfield). Those who do not believe in rape culture claim that women need to understand that it is common sense watch their drinking, to dress less provocatively, and to take other precautions, all in the name of not getting raped. A provided example is this: you would take precautions to avoid your house from getting robbed, your identity getting stolen, and other unfortunate events, so why not take precaution to avoid getting raped? A third major argument in the debate of rape culture is how the media and legal systems handle cases of reported sexual assault. In a dated, but still culturally and socially relevant journal titled “The Rape Culture,” author Dianna Hermann discusses how poorly the court systems handle cases of rape and sexual assault. She argues that in numerous cases, the women who reported the assaults felt as though they were the ones on trial, not the defendants. Along with that, often times women are looked at as liars, and their stories of assault are not believed-or believed to be exaggerated (hence victim blaming). This can head to harassment and public scrutiny for the victim. A recent case that has been referenced quite heavily to show mishandling of sexual assault cases happened in Steubenville, Ohio in 2012. What happened is this: two popular high school football stars were found guilty of committing rape against a 16 year-old girl at a party. The boys videotaped the crime, which showed them ridiculing the victim and joking about “how raped” the she was. Along with the video tape, they also spread pictures of her naked to several peers and classmates. The case did not immediately get national media attention, and only got picked up after an online blogger refused to let it get swept under the rug. Both boys had to register as Tier II sex offenders, and one of the boys was sentenced to serve two years in juvenile hall. The other got sentenced to one year in the juvenile court system, was released after just 9 months, and was back on the football team the following year. Those who would look to rape culture as a cause for this crime would pose this question: Why is this boy getting let back onto the football team, let alone back into the school after getting convicted of such an atrocious crime? For the opposing side, we will look back to Caroline Kitchens’ article. Kitchens disagrees with the claim that our legal systems handle cases of sexual assault extremely well and do not take the issues lightly. In fact, statistics show evidence that back up Kitchens’ claim. A statistic found by the Department of Justice finds that the overall rate of rape has declined sharply by 60% since 1995. SOURCE USNEWS She speaks for several others when she states that, “Twenty-first century America does not have a rape culture; what we have is an out-of-control lobby leading the public and our educational and political leaders down the wrong path” (Kitchens).
This leads to the issue of false-accusations of rape against men by women, especially on college campuses. In recent years there has been a large number of student activists across college campuses coming together to bring attention to the issue of rape culture, as well as persuade college officials to alter the way sexual assault cases are being handled. Some colleges including Duke, Emerson, Swathmore, and others have changed their policies in order to protect victims of sexual assault on campus. While these policies are supposedly making campuses safer for women, many claim that they are making campuses bad places to be for men falsely accused of rape. Kitchens goes on to explain how beginning in April 2011, the Department of Education changed policies so it requires institutions to consider cases of sexual assault and violence under what is called a "preponderance of evidence" standard. What this means is that if a majority of committee members believe that a sexual assault occurred, even if it just by a slight amount, they have to side with the accuser. Those opposed to these policy changes feel that using such a low standard of proof and evidence to convict sexual assault crimes is extremely dangerous and will lead to numerous falsely accused and convicted men.
and societally accepted issue. A shockingly high number of rapes are committed in America every day, and those who believe rape culture exists feel that we simply cannot expect the amount of rapes to decrease in while American culture itself is not doing enough to reinforce that the concept of rape as bad and should be look at with extreme severity.
On the opposite hand, there is a large following of people who believe that a culture of rape in America in fact does not exist, and that the term was made up by feminists as a way to pin men as being dangerous, as well as shift the focus away from the people committing sexual assault crimes. According to them, in order to make any progress against sexual assault and violence, the term “rape culture” needs to be shelved. Of course, the issue of rape is one that should not be taken lightly, but to decide if a “rape culture” exists, we must look at both sides. Here are some facts on rape to set the stage for the debate: According to RAINN (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network), 54% of sexual assaults are not reported to police while 97% of rapists will never spend a day in jail. More than half (54%) of all rapes of females happen before age 18, and the perpetrator is twice as likely to be an adult (National Institute of Justice, US Department of
Justice). Recently, an op-ed article published in Time Magazine caused quite a stir on the issue. In the article, titled “It’s Time to End Rape Culture Hysteria” author Caroline Kitchens argues that rape culture does not exist and extensively explains why we need to stop shifting the blame of rape onto rape culture. One main argument that Kitchen’s focuses on in her debate of rape culture is that it paints all men as dangerous and potential rapists. Kitchens writes, “By blaming so-called rape culture, we implicate all men in a social atrocity, trivialize the experiences of survivors, and deflect blame from the rapists truly responsible for sexual violence” (Kitchens). Along with that, she argues that rape culture vilifies the “average guy” and does not put appropriate focus on the very small population that actually commits acts of rape and sexual assault. In response to this article, thousands of enraged victims of sexual assault began using the twitter hashtag #rapecultureiswhen, leaving furious and chilling evidence and stories of how they feel they have alienated by hyper-sexualized life. Alana Prochuk, author of an article published in WAVAW (Women Against Violence Against Women) titled “Rape Culture is Real- And Yes, We’ve Had Enough” responds to this argument. She speaks for many believers of rape cultures existence when she disagrees that rape culture vilifies all men, and states that no true believer in rape culture would ever claim that all men were rapists. She furthers this claim by providing statistics, “…30% of American college men surveyed admitted they would commit rape if they were sure they could get away with it” (Prochuk). Prochuk, along with all other believers of rape culture, claim that rape culture is not about painting all men as dangerous, but rather it’s about pointing out how many men have adopted normalized behaviors of rape and sexual violence through mainstream American culture. This bring us to a second point of debate: victim blaming. Victim blaming is when the victims of the attack or aggressions are blamed, rather than the aggressor. Examples of victim blaming include calling a survivor a liar, pointing to their past sexual deviances, alcohol levels, or style of dress to shift blame, or any other form of insinuation that they were “asking for it.” It is argued that those who don’t believe in rape culture often use victim blaming as a way to justify sexually aggressive behavior. Victim blaming exemplifies rape culture’s existence and teaches women that they should learn how to shelter and protect themselves against anything that is considered “dangerous.” Along with that, women should not dress or act in a manner that is sexually inviting, or drink too much at parties and social events, because it could be perceived by an aggressor as them “asking for it.” The frequent cry of rape culture believers is this: we should not being focusing on telling victims how not to get raped, but instead on teaching men not to rape. Prochuk states that 80% of rape is committed by someone the victim knew, “by making rapists out to be random wacko deviants, rape culture deflects attention from itself—that is, from our society’s insidious normalization of sexualized violence” (Prochuk). Author Janet Bloomfield, writer of the article published in A Voice For Men titled, “Sick of Rape Culture BS,” makes an enraged response to the claim of victim blaming. However, one quote in particular sums up her belief: “Every adult person can behave in certain ways to avoid being victimized. Why is rape such a special crime? There are things every adult can do to avoid being mugged, which we heartily encourage, and no one for one second thinks we are victim-blaming. Rape is a terrible crime. But it’s not special” (Bloomfield). Those who do not believe in rape culture claim that women need to understand that it is common sense watch their drinking, to dress less provocatively, and to take other precautions, all in the name of not getting raped. A provided example is this: you would take precautions to avoid your house from getting robbed, your identity getting stolen, and other unfortunate events, so why not take precaution to avoid getting raped? A third major argument in the debate of rape culture is how the media and legal systems handle cases of reported sexual assault. In a dated, but still culturally and socially relevant journal titled “The Rape Culture,” author Dianna Hermann discusses how poorly the court systems handle cases of rape and sexual assault. She argues that in numerous cases, the women who reported the assaults felt as though they were the ones on trial, not the defendants. Along with that, often times women are looked at as liars, and their stories of assault are not believed-or believed to be exaggerated (hence victim blaming). This can head to harassment and public scrutiny for the victim. A recent case that has been referenced quite heavily to show mishandling of sexual assault cases happened in Steubenville, Ohio in 2012. What happened is this: two popular high school football stars were found guilty of committing rape against a 16 year-old girl at a party. The boys videotaped the crime, which showed them ridiculing the victim and joking about “how raped” the she was. Along with the video tape, they also spread pictures of her naked to several peers and classmates. The case did not immediately get national media attention, and only got picked up after an online blogger refused to let it get swept under the rug. Both boys had to register as Tier II sex offenders, and one of the boys was sentenced to serve two years in juvenile hall. The other got sentenced to one year in the juvenile court system, was released after just 9 months, and was back on the football team the following year. Those who would look to rape culture as a cause for this crime would pose this question: Why is this boy getting let back onto the football team, let alone back into the school after getting convicted of such an atrocious crime? For the opposing side, we will look back to Caroline Kitchens’ article. Kitchens disagrees with the claim that our legal systems handle cases of sexual assault extremely well and do not take the issues lightly. In fact, statistics show evidence that back up Kitchens’ claim. A statistic found by the Department of Justice finds that the overall rate of rape has declined sharply by 60% since 1995. SOURCE USNEWS She speaks for several others when she states that, “Twenty-first century America does not have a rape culture; what we have is an out-of-control lobby leading the public and our educational and political leaders down the wrong path” (Kitchens).
This leads to the issue of false-accusations of rape against men by women, especially on college campuses. In recent years there has been a large number of student activists across college campuses coming together to bring attention to the issue of rape culture, as well as persuade college officials to alter the way sexual assault cases are being handled. Some colleges including Duke, Emerson, Swathmore, and others have changed their policies in order to protect victims of sexual assault on campus. While these policies are supposedly making campuses safer for women, many claim that they are making campuses bad places to be for men falsely accused of rape. Kitchens goes on to explain how beginning in April 2011, the Department of Education changed policies so it requires institutions to consider cases of sexual assault and violence under what is called a "preponderance of evidence" standard. What this means is that if a majority of committee members believe that a sexual assault occurred, even if it just by a slight amount, they have to side with the accuser. Those opposed to these policy changes feel that using such a low standard of proof and evidence to convict sexual assault crimes is extremely dangerous and will lead to numerous falsely accused and convicted men.