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"The rape culture discourse is premised upon an entirely false view of women as innocent, defenceless victims and men as predatory, potentially violent rapists."

PierceHarlan

February 5, 2014

210 upvotes

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Post Information

Title	"The rape culture discourse is premised upon an entirely false view of women as innocent, defenceless victims and men as predatory, potentially violent rapists."
Author	PierceHarlan
Upvotes	210
Comments	110
Date	February 5, 2014 12:41 PM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/mensrights/comments/1x2t57/the-rape-culture-discourse-is-premised-upon-an-/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/the-rape-culture-discourse-is-premised-upon-an.1614408 https://theredarchive.com/post/1614408

Comments

[–]dustbunniesarevil18 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

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Different 'theorists' have different readings on what 'rape culture' is all about. It's the old sword-fighting a fart problem. It's so poorly-defined that it's impossible to argue against.

But, in any case, here is one influential (abridged) article on the topic by Dianne Herman. Go to p.49. Her essential idea is that a 'rape culture' is one in which sex is linked to violence, and men are 'performing' sexual aggression against women, who are 'performing' sexual passivity:

American culture produces rapists when it encourages the socialization of men to subscribe to the values of dominance, callousness and competitiveness, and anger and aggression, and when it discourages the expression by men of vulnerability, sharing, and cooperation.

She ends with:

Rape is the logical outcome if men act according to the "masculine mystique" and women act according to the "feminine mystique". But rape does not have to occur. Its presence is an indication of how widely held are traditional views of appropriate male and female behaviour, and of how strongly enforced those views are. Our society is a rape culture because it fosters and encourages rape by teaching males and females that it is natural and normal for sexual relations to involve aggressive behaviour on the part of males. To end rape, people must be able to envision a relationship between the sexes that involves sharing, warmth, and equality, and to bring about a social system in which those values are fostered.

[–]Zhangar4 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

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[–]TRPACC2 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

The evidence of support of rapists they cite goes something like this.

I'm just going to give one or two examples.

Rape victim feels overwhelmed by painful levels of shame and self blame for the rape and so will be reluctant to tell anyone.

People in the culture reinforce or create that by focusing on what rape victims do "wrong", and wanting to point out all their mistakes and how they are responsible.

Because the rape victim is less likely to tell anyone because there are some negative consequences, the rapist is then less likely to be identified and caught.

They might point to things like people saying "well she was drinking heavily and looking hot, thats like being a rich man flashing his cash in a bad area", suggesting that she brought it on herself and rape is just a normal outcome for women that let their guard down in the culture, which indirectly provides a little justification and excuse in the minds of some.

[–]TRPACC-2 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

They say its the antagonistic model of male female sexuality woman = gate keeper, man = he who must get around the gate to violent rape and everything in between with a focus on ways that rape might be indirectly supported or made more likely to happen.

Contrary to what mra's believe, it doesn't mean that american culture is literally, consciously supporting rape, that would be a ridiculous assertion. Contrary to what mra's will tell you, there is no such thing as a movement against personal safety, either.

A lot of the things they point to are no longer relevant, for example people have stopped saying things like "well she was wearing a short skirt, what did she expect" as if its just normal and expected for rapists to jump out when women look attractive and its their fault for wearing the wrong clothes, and that sort of thing.

edit - Look at what a circle jerk we are, as bad as the feminists for down voting facts.

[–]PierceHarlan3 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]pixelskeleton3 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

I don't have any problems with the thesis that this article is trying to make, but the statistics used here are dubious at best.

STATISTIC BREAKDOWN

22 recorded incidents of rape per 100,000 members of the adult population (remember that unreported rapes are still a huge issue)
This translares to just over 4 recorded rapes at a typical university... they got this statistic by dividing the adult population by the amount of people who attend university. This is why I say 'dubious'. Again, this only addresses reported rapes.
in 90 percent of rape cases women know their attackers (again, reported cases only. again, doesn't apply to the student population)
52 percent of women suffering serious sexual violence were attacked by their partners.
14 percent of students have experience physical or sexual assault. To me, this number seems HUGE.
48 percent say the perpetrator was not a student, the author kind of disregards the other half of cases where the perpetrators were students.
only 17 percent of the victims reported the attack (because it was not serious enough), which again, reinforces the idea that the vast majority of rape cases go unreported.

To me, these statistics don't make it very easy to draw any conclusions about "university rape culture"... except for the statistic that 14 percent of students have experienced physical or sexual assualt. That seems very high to me and I would be interested to know the breakdown between the 'physical' and 'sexual'.

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So if I make a documentary about murder and culture surrounding murder in the culture, I've rendered the term culture meaningless, I see.

No, you're just misusing the word. Attempting to use a highly specialised sociological term whist appealing to moral panic by implying the general meaning. This is dishonest at best and grossly misleading at worst.

You'll do well in journalism.

"Normalization" - the process in which a thing becomes common knowledge and seen as a normal part of culture.

Right, because rape is so commonplace and simply accepted it never makes national or international news whenever it occurs.. Oh wait that's not the case at all.

For example, people see rape as just what happens in prison, prison rape is normalized.

And now you're attempting to conflate real things "prison rape culture" with all the other things that you've tried to shoehorn into your little worldview.

Someone says, "they went to x place at y time and got mugged, what do they expect", mugging is normalized in X place.

"Someone" does not a culture make. At this point I'm genuinely unsure if you're just dishonest or flat out delusional about this subject.

[–]TRPACC-4 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]logic116 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]TRPACC-5 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]logic114 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

No, but it's common for the subject to come up. Every time it does, some men talk about ways to prevent rape... every time that happens someone accuses them of blaming the victim. That's the context I see the rich man in the bad neighbourhood argument trotted out. Then things devolve from there. Look, this is a classic case of an academic term (I accept that sociology might use the term normalization in this manner - I also think that makes it meaningless) being used in a non-academic context. It's a common issue in arguments between academics in a particular field (or even lay people who have studied the field to the point that they have adopted academic language) and general discussion. Outside of academia normalized has a specific meaning, as does the idea of a x culture. When one is speaking outside of an academic forum, one should use lay language, and if the issue becomes one of definitions define your terms. In this case, the term culture and normalization as you are using them (apparently the academic use) is so vague as to be detrimental to meaningful communication, so it's best not to use them for any real discussion.

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[–]murphtaf3 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

TRPACC, your problem, like a lot of radical feminists on Reddit, is you try to use words like rape culture, misogyny, victim shaming, and victim blaming to try and scare people into thinking something's a horrible issue. If I question the events that led up to someone getting raped, I'm not saying it's their fault or that they deserved it, but I'm just wondering why someone would do something that would put themselves in danger. Also, you try to use the word rape culture to scare people into thinking that it's some rampant issue and that every man feels it's okay to rape. Well if murder culture exists too, why isn't everyone going out killing each other? It's because there's probably only a really small percentage of people who commit terrible crimes. People can make a joke about murder without implying that they think it's an okay thing to do. And the same goes for rape. So this whole rape culture idea is just stupid. Yes, we're aware that rape appears in popular culture, but it doesn't mean people then think it's not a bad thing or that they should do it too.

[–]TRPACC-5 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]murphtaf3 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

Right, and according to the previous comments, apparently everything is a culture. So I guess we all understand that then. People talk about rapes, and make jokes about it, and it's present in popular culture. But as other people have pointed out, if everything in the world has its own culture, then saying there's a rape culture means nothing because all you're pointing out is that it exists. And then you throw out words like 'normalization' to try and say that, 'everyone knows what rape is, therefore everyone accepts that it's a part of our culture.' But at the same time you say it doesn't mean people accept it. So then what's even the point of talking about it? You're just giving run around arguments and saying that 'everyone knows what something is, but it doesn't mean we accept it'. What's even the point of saying that?

[–]TRPACC-5 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

[–]murphtaf5 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

You know, I get the distinct impression from you that you're either a high school student or worse a college student who's taking a sociology class, and now feel that the understand the world better than anyone else. By the way you're describing rape culture, yes, it means nothing to me. You're saying a culture is something that exists in popular culture and people are familiar with it. How is that possibly significant? All you're doing is acknowledging its existence.

'Even if there is no actual murder at the university and people are watching movies with murders in them, people know what murder is and references to murder are normal, "I'll kill you for saying that", murder culture is present in the university.' - TRPACC

We're also familiar with beastiality and some people make jokes about it. And by your logic, even if there's no beastiality occurring at a campus, I can say there's a beastiality culture at that specific school, and therefore that people should then worry about their pets being victimized.

You're also telling MRA's that they need to know what words mean before they use them. Well the Feminists on Reddit use the term 'rape culture' to describe a world where every woman should be worried about being victimized by the evil, violent, sex-obsessed men. But by your definition, 'rape culture' only means that people know what it is and that it exists. So how about you try telling them that they're wrong about how they define rape culture before they build an entire movement on it.

[–]TRPACC-5 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

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[–]murphtaf3 points 12 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

The way the Feminists on Reddit talk about 'rape culture' would imply that they believe every man in the world would rape them given the chance. Another article I responded to on there was a line of 'Feminist panties' with such slogans as ''no' doesn't mean convince me', and 'no means no'. That does give the clear impression that the person who designed those so-called 'Feminist panties' does believe that a man only wants sex from a woman and will do whatever it takes to get it, regardless of what she says.

As far as the victim blaming movement, in my opinion only, it is an argument against personal safety and responsibility. If you dare question a person on the events that led up to their rape, you're instantly assumed to be a rape sympathizer or a victim blamer. I do believe that if someone gets blackout drunk in a bar and then they get victimized, they were dumb to put themselves in a dangerous position like that. It doesn't mean I blame them or think that what happened is okay. Also, I've never personally heard anyone say that rich men are asking to be mugged. And I also don't think any real MRA believes that a rape victim is asking for it either.

What they're pointing out is that people need to take care of themselves, and that by completely ignoring the fact that there are bad and terrible people in the world for the sake of, 'well I shouldn't have to feel scared about getting victimized if I get blackout drunk and pass out in an alley at two in the morning', is just stupid and reckless.

And no one on here even spoke about 'normalization' until you tried to prove how much more educated and intellectual you were than everyone else.

Anyways, I've got to get going, but maybe there will be someone else as stupid as me to even try and argue with you.

EDIT: Also, thank you for changing your first statement from 'that all men are literally and consciously rapists' to what it is now without making note of it. Same thing with adding 'flashing his wealth'.

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