Rape culture, the story behind the "myth".

TW: mentions of rape and sexual assault

When hearing the words “rape culture” for the first time, it is not uncommon for many to think of the phrase as unimportant, just another made-up issue that holds no significance in the real world. What is more, as the fight against this problem becomes mainstream, the amount of people assuring rape culture is nothing but a myth is alarmingly rising. However, this culture is present in nearly every part of our media, our language and basically our lives. It affects us and our surroundings so much we often fail to acknowledge the real consequences it has.

Rape culture may not be tangible, but it’s far from being a myth. We define this culture as the societal attitude in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture. In other words, rape culture forces women to take responsibility for their own safety and then blames them for any harassment they suffer. It makes women take exaggerated measures to stay safe, often causing them to lose professional and social opportunities, and, if despite all these measures they are still assaulted, judges and doubts the victim for the actions of their abuser. This creates a toxic and unsafe environment for women (especially those that have suffered sexual harassment) and protects their rapists or abusers by pinning the blame on the victim. This attitude is known as victim-blaming.

It isn’t rare to find articles, tweets… of people trying to prove why rape culture and sexism in society simply don’t exist. However, the number of times unimportant factors such as clothing and alcohol have been blamed for sexual assaults or rape can simply not be ignored.

"If a woman is wearing provocative clothing, the change needs to come from her.”- a Cairo police officer, 2014.

“There was no record of the victim protesting or resisting it was common for her to go home with men each night”- jury on a Spanish sexual assault case, 2017.

These are just two examples of the thousands of cases in which instead of judging the abusers, people judge the victims. It is these situations that cause many victims of sexual harassment to never come forward, fearing their stories will be questions and their abusers won’t be sentenced.

Even outside the courtroom, rape culture often plays a bigger role in our lives than we notice. Many of the attitudes mentioned previously often manifest in the media: over-sexualizing women and their clothing, portraying men as incapable of controlling their impulses, etc. Furthermore, another prime example of rape culture would be rape “jokes”. Commonly described as dark humor, these “jokes” continue to promote sexist attitudes, suggesting that rape is anything but a serious issue. Although many may argue that, since it’s humor, these “jokes” aren’t doing any real harm, in reality, they are normalizing rape, transforming this incredibly serious issue into the punchline for a joke. Other’s trauma is never yours to joke about.

It is important to understand that, although most of its consequences are commonly associated with women, rape culture affects everyone regardless of gender. With men, for instance, they are not only questioned when they come forward with their stories of sexual harassment but shamed for doing so. This is due to the hyper-masculine role that society often forces men to play, therefore shaming them for any trait that they stereotype as feminine. These attitudes deeply harm men’s and more specifically male victims’ phycological health because, as with female victims, they believe they can’t come forward with their stories.

Finally, I believe that one of the biggest problems with rape culture is the disinformation that often accompanies it. When one is unaware of (or unwilling to see) the problem, they are blind to its consequences. To truly improve our current society we must be aware of what rape culture is and call out any attitudes that perpetuate it. It is crucial we create a safe environment for victims of sexual harassment to come forward and listen to their stories if they do. It is also extremely important we stop teaching young girls how to avoid being assaulted because, as useful as these measures may or may not be, it is not their responsibility to take drastic measures to stay safe. Overall, even if the problem does not affect you directly, no one can deny that rape culture is not only real but worryingly prevalent in our lives.

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