The Pros And Cons Of Rape Culture

Imagine you are six years old and wearing your favorite pajamas. You are lounging listlessly when your mother calls you. The first thing she says when she sees you is, “You shouldn’t be dressing like that in the presence of men.” At first, you look at her in disbelief-- you couldn’t fathom that your mother would say something like this. She demands that you change into “proper clothes.” You stand there and wonder why was today so especially strange? Instead of wasting the day, you choose to change clothes and go downstairs to be around your family. Later in the day, you ask your mother what it was that she meant when she said that “you shouldn’t be dressing like that in the presence of men” and she replies, almost as if

sexual violence is normalized and excused” (Marshall.edu). Statistics show that one in six boys will be raped before they turn eighteen years old and that rape happened every five minutes in the United States (Southernct.edu). When rape happens so many times that it is almost expected for someone to be raped, that 's rape culture. A study done by RAINN proved that 97% of rapists will never spend a single day in jail for their crimes. When someone reports a rapist and even the statistics tell her that he won 't get any jail time or his jail time will be little to none, that 's rape culture. When you claim that a man can 't be raped because he is supposed to “like it”, that 's rape culture. When you comment on a girl’s body without her permission, that’s rape culture. To put simply, rape culture is when you turn people into objects that have no true value, so you do not care for what happens to them. You can find examples of rape culture all around you, especially if you are a girl. Examples of rape culture include victim blaming; saying boys will be boys; condoning sexual harassment; scrutinizing a victim’s dress, mental state, motives, and history; not taking someone seriously when they are reporting a rape; or teaching women to avoid being raped