Rape Culture

In the United States, rape has become one of the most underreported crimes each year (“Reporting Rape” 1). The term rape culture refers to how our society has taught women how not to be raped instead of teaching men not to rape. Through jokes and the sexualization of women we are more likely to believe rape is not a big crisis in our nation. Rape culture leads to the acceptance of rape as a natural occurrence through images that objectify women, media, and the stigmatization of rape victims. In our culture we are made to believe that victims should be blamed for their own abuse according to their state of mind or what they were wearing at the time. Rape culture has become such a major part of own lives that we don’t know its even happening. In todays society, women have become such a “sex” object from the media, movies, and advertisement, or even jokes. Through images that dehumanize women, they turn them into objects, leading to the increase of violence towards women. In a Stop Violence Against Women event students face the issue face on and said:
When the media objectifies women, it also creates an analogous definition of masculinity. She added that the media imposes these societal roles, causing people to ignore complex human personalities and identities (Turmam 1).
The over-sexualization of women in today’s media gives women the wrong hopes. At one-angle women see sex as a necessity to be in todays “norms” but not to put themselves out enough to be sexually assaulted. The word “slut” has oppressed women by telling them to dress a certain way, where to go or not go, who to talk to and who not to talk to. “Slut” shaming is an act of shaming a person based on how much they flaunt their sexuality. Taking the word too lightly can have awful consequences on how rape will be justified. Women who show too much skin or dress provocative are labeled as “sluts” and are tormented as well as looked at with less respect. Women should be able to