Shazneen Mistry
Rape culture is an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture. Rape culture is perpetuated through the use of misogynistic language, the objectification of women’s bodies, and the glamorization of sexual violence, thereby creating a society that disregards women’s rights and safety. It is a sociological theory of a setting in which rape is pervasive and normalized due to societal attitudes about gender and sexuality.
Rape culture affects every woman. The rape of one woman is a degradation, terror, and limitation to all women. Most women and girls limit their behaviour because of the existence of rape. Most women and girls live in fear of rape. Men, in general, do not. That’s how rape functions as a powerful means by which the whole female population is held in a subordinate position to the whole male population, even though many men don’t rape, and many women are never victims of rape. This cycle of fear is the legacy of rape culture.
Some of the examples of rape culture would include: Blaming the victim (“She asked for it!”); Trivializing sexual assault (“Boys will be boys!”); Sexually explicit jokes; Tolerance to sexual harassment; Inflating false rape report statistics; Publicly scrutinizing a victim’s dress, mental state, motives, and history; Gratuitous gendered violence in movies and television; Defining “manhood” as dominant and sexually aggressive; Defining “womanhood” as submissive and sexually passive; Pressure on men to “score”; Pressure on women to not appear “cold”; Assuming only promiscuous women get raped; Assuming that men don’t get raped or that only “weak” men get raped; Refusing to take rape accusations seriously; Teaching women to avoid getting raped instead of teaching men not to rape.
One of the recent examples of this would be the death of the nine-year-old girl who was allegedly raped, murdered, and cremated without her parents' consent. A medical board comprising of three doctors told Delhi Police that they were unable to ascertain the cause of death as the victim's mortal remains had been pulled off the funeral pyre midway through the cremation. The girl-child had gone to the crematorium to fetch water, not to get raped there and killed.
Other examples would be the Delhi rape case where the girl was brutally injured and thrown out of the running bus, or where a girl is walking home and some sexual predator rapes her in the middle of the road and then leaves her to die, and many other such examples where the woman is raped and then killed or brutally injured so that she is dead and no action or charges would be pressed against her oppressors. India recorded an average of 87 rape cases daily in 2019 and overall, 4,05,861 cases of crime against women during the year, a rise of over 7% from 2018, the latest government data released on September 29, 2020.
To combat the rape culture and make society a safer place for all, especially women, people should:
- Avoid using language that objectifies or degrades women.
- Speak out if you hear someone else making an offensive joke or trivializing rape.
- If a friend says she has been raped, take her seriously and be supportive.
- Think critically about the media’s messages about women, men, relationships, and violence.
- Be respectful of others’ physical space even in casual situations.
- Always communicate with sexual partners, and do not assume consent.
- Define your own manhood or womanhood. Do not let stereotypes shape your actions.
- Most important get involved! Join a student or community group working to end violence against women.
