Khaila+H’s+2015+OpEd+Article

Why is it that I’m told that I need to be careful about what I wear when I go out? Why does it matter how late I’m staying out? Why is it that I need to check my drinks for date rape drugs at a party? Why do I have to be responsible for someone else’s actions? Why, if I were to be a victim of sexual assault, would I have to jump through hoops to prove it actually happened? Why do we teach girls not get raped, instead of teaching boys not to rape? The answer to all if these questions is rape culture. Rape culture, for those of you that don’t know, is the way our society collectively thinks about rape and sexual assault. Frequently situations involving sexual assault, rape, and general violence are ignored, trivialized, normalized, or made into jokes. Examples*:

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 * 1)  [|Pop music] that tells women “you know you want it” because of these “blurred lines” (of consent).
 * 1)  People who believe that [|girls] “allow themselves to be raped.”
 * 1)  Victims [|not being taken seriously] when they report rapes to their university campuses.
 * 1)  [|Rape jokes – and people who defend them.]
 * 1)  Sexual assault prevention education programs that focus on women being told to take measures to prevent rape instead of men being told not to rape.
 * 1)  The fact that one of the first questions that is asked when someone reports sexual assault is '”what were you wearing/did you encourage it?”
 * 1)  1-in-5 women reported experiencing rape, while only 3% of rapist spend a day in jail.

These are just some of the few issues that are perpetuating rape culture and unless people begin to stand up and fight it, the problem will continue. I’d like to leave you with a parting scenario from an article I read on the internet. A teacher is presenting a case of a girl getting raped after a guy saw her sitting on her front porch topless. When the teacher asks the class if she deserves to get raped most of the guys in the class said yes, while most girls said no. Ask yourself this: do you think she deserves to get raped? After the question is answered the teacher provides a little more information to the case. The girl who got raped was five years old. When the teacher asks again if the class thinks she deserves to get raped, the response is a unanimous no. Ask yourself this: did your answer change with the new information? For the people whose answer changed, I hope you now realize that nobody deserves to be raped and nobody is asking for it. I also hope you realize that rape culture is a real problem that everyone has to deal with on a daily basis and pretending it doesn’t exist doesn’t make it go away.

*Examples taken from this article: [|__http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/03/examples-of-rape-culture/__]