Paper 2 Rough Draft

Dear Austin,     

As we have previously discussed, the world sucks for ladies. They make less money than men for the same jobs, they’re appreciated for being pretty rather than for being smart, their access to abortion and birth control are repeatedly threatened, they get less promotions and raises than men, they get stupid parts in movies where their presence only serves to further the plotline of the male protagonist, blah blah blah feminism. But beyond these tangible points of contention, there are broader social ills which befall us. I am speaking, of course, of the cultural mores which sanction and even encourage violence against women. We have all read statistics which should be alarming, like “The rate of sexual assault in the United States is the highest of any industrialized nation in the world” (Kilbourne, Par 25) and “One in five (U.S. women) has been the victim of rape or attempted rape”(Kilbourne, Par 25), but we fail to be alarmed. We are able to ignore these statistics because this outrageous level of violence against women is expected and entrenched in our culture.

Rape culture doesn’t mean all women are getting raped all of the time by all of the men; it means women are living under a constant and expected threat of some level of sexual violence. This includes cat-calling, street harassment, groping, flashing, unwanted sexual comments and jokes, unwanted sexual advances, sexual assault and rape. This threat can come from friends, neighbors, teachers, police officers, or family members, virtually anyone.  

Rape culture is evident in how we tell women to modify their behavior to avoid rape, placing the responsibility on women. My mom neurotically reminded me hundreds of thousands of times about the tips ‘n tricks of not getting raped. We also receive advice about acceptable behaviors from our peers and our community. Advice such as don’t look like a slut! (And if another girl looks like a slut, you better call her one so you can psychologically distance yourself from her and remain safe in your rape-free-good-girl-bubble (good girls don’t get raped, dur)) Don’t walk alone at night! Keep an eye on your drink! Don’t get too drunk! Use the buddy system! Don’t flirt too much! (Or too little, it might aggravate him; an article published by the National Organization for Women suggests that "Because women are frequently perceived as inferior to men, a presumed insult from, rejection by or upstaging from a woman can damage a fragile ego. In that case, a boy or man looking to reassert his authority may well look to threats or acts of violence as his next course of action.") The truth is that none of the measures that we are told time and time again will protect us from rape are effective. Women can get raped at bars or parties, but they also get raped at home. In fact four in ten rapes/sexual assaults take place at the victims home, and two in ten take place at the home of a friend, neighbor or relative (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-offenders). Women get raped when they’re drunk, but they also get raped when they’re sober. Women can get raped when they look cute or when they are wearing sweat pants. Having a code of conduct to avoid rape makes women feel like they have control over their safety, but it also makes it easy to blame the victim of rape if she doesn’t follow ‘the rules’ and absolves the rapist of responsibility.

Rape culture is also evident in our jocular treatment of the subject. Like all those hilarious YouTube comments that are like “I totally raped the replay button” and “RE: raping the replay button; More like gang banged cause I got in on it too LOLOLOL”.  HAHA. Minimizing a violent attack that affects so many women is not only distasteful, it’s deeply troubling. One in five American women have been victims of rape or attempted rape and most women are constantly modifying their behavior to avoid rape. Rape jokes are a callous and unnecessary reminder of the threat of violence that we live under, and to women who have experienced rape they can trigger unwanted recollections. Perhaps to the person making the jokes they are funny because they are so removed from the comedian’s reality. Daniel Tosh, popular straight white male comedian, has a storied history of making unabashedly insensitive and tactless jokes. In one well publicized incident, a female audience member objected to his assertion that rape jokes are funny, to which Tosh retorted (as told by the audience member) “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now?” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/10/daniel-tosh-rape-joke-laugh-factory_n_1662882.html) Tosh has a different version of the story and has since offered an apology, but the tale is far from unbelievable. Many people will invoke their first amendment rights when being held accountable for making hateful statements. I would argue that although Tosh has the right to act like a jerk, he doesn’t have the right to go un-criticized and silence dissent with threats of violence, flippant or otherwise.

We are constantly exposed to advertising which reduces women to body parts and dehumanizes them. Jean Kilbourne discusses at length how advertising is harmful to women in her essay “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt”. In the essay Kilbourne asserts that “Turning a human being into a thing, an object, is almost always the first step towards justifying violence against that person” (Kilbourne, P 585) and argues that the step of objectification is already taken with women, and violence is only the logical result (Kilbourne, p 585). Advertising presents unattainable ideals, presents people as objects, and uses sex and violence to sell us products. This is especially dangerous for the women because they are already at a power disadvantage in society. The threat of violence is palpable for the objectified woman in a way that it is not for the objectified man because of the existing inequality.

The ‘ideal’ of masculinity in U.S. society is for men to be aggressive, unemotional and independent. Although most men aren’t actively trying to fulfill this hyper-manly ideal, it still informs our notions of what is acceptable behavior for men. Many young men associate this ‘manly’ gender role with categorical rejection of homosexuality and anything feminine. As author Michael Kimmel put it in his essay “Guy Code”, “Homophobia – the fear that people might misperceive you as gay – is the animating fear of American guy’s masculinity.” (Kimmel, p. 613) One problematic feature of this ’guy code’ is the conflation of weakness, femininity and homosexuality. Among teenagers and the interminably immature ‘gay’ means bad, ‘pussy’ means weak, and ‘bitch’ means subordinate. This language shows us how the hierarchy is arranged in the world of the masculine ideal, with homosexual individuals and women being seen as inferior to heterosexual men. The encouragement of ‘manly’ violence and an indifferent ‘boys will be boys’ attitude opens the doors to anti-gay bullying and harassment of women.

Rape culture is a pervasive element of our society which often goes unnoticed. The first step to correcting this malevolent aspect of our culture is to recognize and challenge it. Instead of holding ladies responsible for not getting raped, we should hold rapists responsible for not raping. We should create a dialogue in schools and in the media about what rape is and what consent is. We should not belittle, blame or shame victims of sexual violence or minimize their experiences. We should call out advertisers for using women’s body parts to sell their products and be conscious of the affect that this has on our psyches. We should encourage a more positive masculine ideal that doesn’t focus on aggression and not hold ourselves to such strict standards of gender performance.