Rape Culture

Maya Everts

It isn’t a secret. Everyone knows that it is happening, but putting a stop to it seems like a lost cause. People trivialize rape every day by joking about it and blaming the victims.

Although someone’s words may be “just a joke” or someone’s advertisement be “just a piece of paper,” victim blaming, denial of widespread rape, and sexual objectification contributes to a large monster that hurts victims everywhere. Rape culture is an unfortunate reality, and people need to work to put an end to it.

Victim blaming is a large part of rape culture, and our society. According to a recent study in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, 50% of the assaulters blame their victims, saying that the victims are “completely responsible.” Blaming the victim for the assault is a way for the perpetrator to see the victim as different from themselves. The assaulters are not the only ones who put the victims at fault for their abuse. The mainstream media often claims that women specifically need to avoid provoking predators by wearing modest clothing. No person ever “asks” to be sexually abused. No matter the clothes one wears, the relationship with the abuser, and any previous sexual acts, no one deserves to be sexually abused.

A large misconception people tend to have about rape is that widespread cases of rape do not exist. In reality, hundreds of thousands of people in the United States alone are victims of rape and sexual assault each year. According to the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network, 293,666 individuals over 12 years old are sexually assaulted each year in America. Every 107 seconds, another American is assaulted. Keep in mind that these numbers are only for the United States, not even North America. The Rape Abuse and Incest National Network also says that one in every six women in the United States have been victims of attempted or completed rape. The unfortunate reality is that sexual abuse is extremely extensive, and everyone is at risk.

The third tier of rape culture is sexual objectification. The practice is so imminent in the media and people everywhere that it seems almost useless to give statistics. The European Journal of Social Psychology states that women are likely to viewed as individual parts, whereas men are more likely to be seen as a whole. The negative consequences of this truth are infinite, from numerous studies stating that women can do worse on math tests when being “checked out,” to the studies that prove this objectification is linked to eating disorders. A simple Google search can prove that sexual objectification is not some type of trick ladies came up with to gain attention.

There are many people, including more than just men, who claim that rape culture is a joke. According to a man coined as “Phil from Utah” at avoiceformen.com, rape culture is a way for feminists to “strip men of their constitutional rights.” Although the thought is quite creative, the point of spreading information about rape culture is far from stripping men of their constitutional rights. In fact, 1 in 6 men are victims of sexual violence, according to Sexual Abuse of Males by Jim Hopper, Ph.D. Educating the public about rape culture and how to stop it would not only be a benefit to women, but also to men and all other genders.

Rape culture is prominent in the American Society. It is real, and can be stopped by informing the public about rape culture and the consequences of rape culture. In order to stop rape culture, the people as a whole need to break gender norms, which includes to stop victim blaming, repression of the facts, and the sexual objectification of all genders.

Now is the time to educate our society, and put a stop to rape culture.