Is American Culture a Rape Culture?

Is American culture a rape culture?

I was raised to fear rape. Not by my mom, but by my teachers, my pastors, and advice columns in teen magazines. As a high schooler, I was certain that when I left the safety of the suburbs for the wilderness of a big state school, I would be surrounded by serial killers, rapists, or at least predatory frat boys. But when I actually arrived on campus at the University of Oklahoma, I discovered neither legions of threatening men nor groups of cowering women. In fact, my girlfriends and I had been educated and empowered to within an inch of our lives. We took our drinks with us to the bathroom, but we didn't take trash from guys. We knew that no meant no, you never blame the victim, and there's no such thing as asking for it.  And we knew the guys knew, too. William Golding's contemporaries may have had good reason to fear the men around them, but not us. SafeWalk was there if anyone was afraid to walk home at night, but we weren't.

After four years of feeling very, very safe in an environment that is supposed to be festering with sexual violence, I was startled by this video about "rape culture." The filmmakers seem to believe that women are routinely victimized by men and most people are pretty okay with that. The Chicago teens who put together the video explain that during the course of their research, it "was made clear to us how common rape is" and "we finally came to the conclusion that everything was connected under a bigger concept called rape culture," which includes everything from society's attitudes to its advertising.

While I understand that assaults happen, I was surprised by the assertion that we live in a rape culture. My own experience suggests that we live in an anything-but-rape culture, where some men are more likely to fret about their flirtatiousness being perceived as harassment than they are to actually flirt. But are these the impressions of a sheltered young woman from the South, the product of a specific social milieu that most women wouldn't recognize? What do you think, DoubleXers? Do we live in a rape culture, an overly-politically-correct culture, or some contradictory combination of the two? And if we don't live in the kind of culture we want to live in, what can we do about it?

Photograph is a screenshot from the "Hidden Culture" video.

Comments

Transforming a rape culture by Emily Buchwald

By: llwillis | Tue, 08/18/2009 - 16:21

I read this when it came out in 1993. The analysis is compelling.

http://www.amazon.com/Transforming-Rape-Culture-Emilie-Buchwald/dp/15713...

I submit the following

By: you know it is | Tue, 08/18/2009 - 16:02

I submit the following questions in the hope that considering them would be of value:

1) How does the extent to which the US is a rape culture compare with other cultures in the world today and throughout human history?

2) If the extent to which the US is a rape culture were decreased, what would the new US culture look like? In what ways would it be different?

3) Is the extent to which the US is a rape culture increasing or decreasing over time? How does the US of 2009 compare to the US of 1999, 1989, 1959, 1909, etc.?

BTW, the trend to force men

By: Usama3 | Tue, 08/18/2009 - 13:49

BTW, the trend to force men to behave in a submissive, acceptable way while women are "given more freedom" - meaning, men cannot even talk to a woman in an unpleasant or suggestive way eventhough the woman be dressed provocatively, publicly act suggestive and seductive, and otherwise flaunting her sexual attributes- is resulting in more young men "checking out" of society. More young men are no longer participating in merit based society- less than 50% of black and hispanic males graduate from high school. Black and hispanic males now are the lowest number in college. White males graduation rate and college attendance rates are dropping each year. More males of all kinds are engaging in criminal activity and a younger age. Meanwhile, divorce rates are increasing while porn and adultery committed by husbands are seen by lawyers as leading causes. Porn addiction is becoming the more prevalent as a cause for loosing a job and divorce. And these are connected to intermixing of genders and the suppression and redirection of sexual urges in males.

In fact, the intermixing of genders, the uninhibited behavior of young women, and the increase in porn and the 'checking out' from normal social behavior in males are all connected to the prevalence of rape and sexual violence in America.

Not enough attention is given

By: Usama3 | Tue, 08/18/2009 - 12:34

Not enough attention is given to 1)the decriminalization of sex outside of marriage, 2) free consumption of intoxicants and hallucingens, and 3) the desgregation and intermixing of the genders. These factors contribute to rape wherein acquaintances intermingle, become intoxicated so their inhibitions are broken, and there are no legal standards which inhibit them except for the consent of a smaller, intoxicated, perhaps naive and impressionable young woman.
As I stated, the majority of rapes occur between acquaintances at her home or the home of an acquaintance/relative/or even the assailants' residence, and the majority of rapes occur for victims who are NOT in stable relationships between the ages of 18- 34.

Simply talking about how men should change their social habit is unrealistic in many ways. Young men notoriously lack fear when sex outside of marriage has no criminal repercussions or moral consequences.

Yes, we are

By: Shallot | Tue, 08/18/2009 - 13:26

Yes, we are a rape culture. I mean that American culture is a culture that condones rape in many ways. This is definitely not the same thing as being a burgler-culture or carjacking culture. Most women who are raped do not report it, for fear they won't be believed or other reasons. Not the case with other crimes. No one says, "That person who was carjacked was asking for it -- what did he expect driving a fancy Lexus around?" The prosecution and conviction rates for rape are incredibly low -- much lower than for other crimes. People often speculate about an accused rape against a popular or powerful person that the woman is making it up, even though studies show the percentage of false accusations of rape is the same as false claims of other crimes. But it is only with rape where there is often wide suspicion that the woman is making it up. Women who report rape in a school setting often report they are ostracized and others are angry with them for harming a male's life. If we really cared about rape as a society and wanted to prevent it, we could do much more.

We live in a society with all these myths. No means maybe, maybe means yes. Women really want it. Women who dress a certain way ask for it. Well, he bought her dinner. She was a slut. We may learn these are wrong ways of thinking in high school and college, but it doesn't mean people don't think this way all the time. The media often buys into these myths and they certainly play a role in court cases. The typical gender roles that people learn through socialization in our society don't help the problem. Men are supposed to want sex, their sex drive is supposed to be uncontrollable, men are supposed to be strong and dominant. Women are socialized in ways that can make it difficult to fight back, to assert themselves. Women are told through magazines, movies, TV, that they should look nice and sexy, that their worth as a woman depends on this. But god forbid they look too sexy, or they could have "asked for it." We live in a society that sexualizes violence and dominance over women in movies and magazines.

This question of rape culture has been much more fully elaborated by women's studies scholars. I think the evidence is pretty convincing.

More Cold Data on Rape

By: Usama3 | Tue, 08/18/2009 - 11:06

It should be known that the DOJ reported that almost 40% of rapes occurred in the residence of the victim, almost 20% in the residence of a friend, relative, or neighbor. 91% of rapists are single assailants (as opposed to multiple assailants 9%), 40% are over 30 years old, 31% are between the ages of 21- 29, 11% younger than 18 years old.

7 in 10 victims took self protective measures and 50% of them felt that it helped them in some way. 20% felt that their measure made it worse. According to the DOJ, the rate of rape per 100,000 women was 72, which amounts to .72 per 1000 women. Rates of rape have increased in suburban areas (up 70%) and rural areas (up 40%) but rural areas tend to have fewer rapes. One should note that the DOJ classified rape as distinct from sexual violence, which has higher rates in all forms. For example, sexual violence can measure to be 3 to 5 times greater in numbers than forcible rape. in 1995, law enforcement reported 30,000 arrests for rape and 130,000 arrests for sexual violence.

A 2005 report showed that 70% of female victims of sexual violence said they knew the assailant as an intimate, friend, relative, acquaintance.

According to a 2006 report, there were 272,350 reported cases of rape/sexual assault in America for victims over 12 years of age. Only 42% of rapes/sexual assaults were reported to police.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cv06.pdf

Compared with the rates of other nations, America is indeed saturated with sexual violence. But it also has the highest numbers of violent crime in the world too. So for a young person to emerge from his or her enclave and proclaim 'things aren't so bad' without actually examining the data and comparing it with other nations with comparable circumstances (excluding war torn nations since they are presumed to contain more violence and sexual violence), such a provincialist should be relegated to sophmoric and unaware of the world.

No, not at all.

By: Mark | Tue, 08/18/2009 - 10:49

Anyone that believes that we live in any kind of "rape culture" should go spend a few years living in South Africa for some perspective.

Cold Hard Data on Rape

By: Usama3 | Tue, 08/18/2009 - 10:32

To dispel the doubts of the insular and naive and their subsequent provincialism, one must examine the cold, hard data.

According to nationmaster.com, there are 95,136 confirmed rapes in America annually. That's the most of any nation in the world. The second ranked nation is South Africa which has 52,425. Canada is third with 24,350 and Australia is fourth with 15,630. India is fifth with 15,468 followed by Mexico (14,373), United Kingdom (13,395), Germany (8,615), France (8,458), Russia (6,978), South Korea (6,139).
The rates of rape per capita reveal that of these numbers, South Africa has the highest rate of rapes per capita with 1.195 per 1000. Australia is third with .778, Canada is fifth with .773, and the USA is ninth with .301 (the second: Seychelles, fourth: Montserrat, sixth: Jamaica, and eighth: Dominica, are tiny island nations that were all former British colonies).

The common sociological traits of these nations that I can determine are that sexual relations outside of marriage have been decriminalized, free intermixing of genders is the norm throughout the society with no distinctions, and as what was mentioned, consent is all that's needed for lawful sex. One of the most common trait of rape cases throughout the world, according to most studies, is that in the majority of cases, the victim and the assailant have some acquaintance with each other: a boyfriend, a friend of a friend, met at a party, work colleague, nieghbor, relative, etc. Moreover, women between the ages of 18 and 34 are the most likely to be the victim of sexual violence. Experts observe that after a woman establishes a permanent relationship with a man, she is far less likely to suffer from rape. As well, girls between 14 and 18 are also more likely to suffer from sexual violence than woman in permanent relationships, but less so than women 18-34.
There are over 234,000 sexual offenders in the custody, supervision, or care of the government for their crimes. According to one study, 44% of rape victims are under 18. According to the DOJ, 99% of rapists are male, 6 in 10 are white, and the average age is mid 30s.

Well...

By: littlecynicism | Tue, 08/18/2009 - 08:59

I don't know if I'd call it a rape culture, but I know more than a couple girls/ladies who have been assaulted - often in a professional context.

And I know a lot of teenage girls who feel compelled to let boys do sexual things with them "to be nice". They often seem surprised or uncomfortable when I tell them that saying no is an option.

What is a "rape culture" anyway?

By: fsilber | Tue, 08/18/2009 - 07:23

I don't think we're a "rape culture" any more than we're a mugging culture, a burglary culture, a car-jacking culture, or a bicycle-stealing culture.

We have some people who don't respect other people's person and/or property. They're called criminals. What else is new?