While the contexts may differ, rape culture is always rooted in patriarchal beliefs, power, and control. Rape culture is the social environment that allows sexual violence to be normalized and justified, fueled by the persistent gender inequalities and attitudes about gender and sexuality. Naming it is the first step to dismantling rape culture.
Every day we have the opportunity to examine our behaviours and beliefs for biases that permit rape culture to continue. From the attitudes we have about gender identities to the policies we support in our communities, we can all take action to stand against rape culture.
Freely given consent is mandatory, every time. Adopt enthusiastic consent in your life and talk about it. It is also underpinned by victim-blaming—an attitude that suggests a victim rather than the perpetrator bears responsibility for an assault. Instead, counter the idea that men and boys must obtain power through violence and question the notion of sex as an entitlement.
Take a critical look at what masculinity means to you and how you embody it. Self-reflection, community conversations, and artistic expression are just some of the tools available for men and boys as well as women and girls to examine and redefine masculinities with feminist principles. Because language is deeply embedded in culture, we may forget that the words and phrases we use each day shape our reality.
You have the power to choose to leave behind language and lyrics that blame victims, objectify women and excuse sexual harassment. What a woman is wearing, what and how much she had to drink, and where she was at a certain time, is not an invitation to rape her. Establish policies of zero tolerance for sexual harassment and violence in the spaces in which you live, work, and play.
Indeed, I was not prepared for the time warp I would enter when in a United Nations humanitarian agency asked me to review how policies and programs for refugee women were being carried out in the field. I had been briefed about the harmful "cultural" practices of refugee women feeding their daughters less and keeping them out of school, for example but not about the out-of-date attitudes of male members of the agency's staff, which made implementation of the policies on equitable treatment of women at times impossible.
It should be underscored that refugee and internally displaced women are among the most vulnerable and marginalized groups in the world. Having been forced from their homes by armed conflict and serious human rights abuses, and in some cases with nothing but the clothes on their back, they turn to the United Nations for support.
How the staff responds to their needs for protection and assistance in large measure determines their well-being and sometimes even their survival. I saw this first hand at the Kenya-Somali border, where scores [End Page 73] of Somali refugee women were being raped in camps run by United Nations agencies. When night fell, Somali bandits with knives and spears would come over the border to raid the camps, targeting particular women--because they were from a certain clan, were known to have money or possessions, or simply because they had no one to protect them.
Other women were raped while they searched for firewood outside the camp. I assumed my job was to model survivorship, and to show readers how to speak up after being abused, molested or attacked. I thought I was supposed to talk to the girls. The girls heard me. The girls would come up to me after the bell rang, in tears, and whisper what had happened to them. My job, after listening, was to find an adult in the building they trusted, an educator who could help them find the support they needed.
But I have also seen something that, at first, surprised me: The boys want to talk, too. Some want a private conversation; others ask bold questions in front of their classmates. A few have been victims of sexual violence themselves. Many more have been targeted by bullies at school. We sit in a quiet corner. The boy, sweating, fidgeting, eyes downcast, tells me his story.
Sometimes he tells of a girl, a friend who has been raped. He wants to know the best way to help her because since it happened, she has been cutting herself, skipping school and getting high to avoid the pain.
He wants to kill the boy who hurt his friend. And then there are the half-confessions. They are not proud of themselves. Their confused shame is heart-breaking and infuriating. After my auditorium presentation, I typically visit a few classes for smaller group discussions about the themes of my book.
They argue that she drank beer, she danced with her attacker and, therefore, she wanted sex. Hamby, who is also founding editor of the American Psychological Association's journal Psychology of Violence, explained how toxic masculinity promotes rape culture. She believes that these kinds of peer pressure set men up to become sex offenders because "many are just in absolute panic they're going to be discovered as not sexually experienced by their peers. In other words, there are elements at work in some cultures, and often even in media, that suggest to these men that they should assert dominance over women as a form of fake masculinity and that stigmatize those who don't have a lot of sexual encounters.
It is necessary to first establish that rape is not a behavioral or mental disorder, but a criminal offense. Although some rapists may have a psychological disorder, there is no such disorder that compels people to rape. Evolutionary biologist Randy Thornhill and evolutionary anthropologist Craig Palmer believe, in contrast to Hamby, that the primary motive behind rape is indeed sex. They argue that rape is an adaptation — a result of Darwinian selection and are of the opinion that it evolved to increase the reproductive success of men.
They point out that most victims are women of childbearing age, saying this supports their hypothesis that rape derives from a desire to reproduce. It said that the pieces of evidence cited by the authors were misleading, biased or "equally support alternative explanations. In fact, most social scientists, psychologists and feminist activists are of the opinion that rape nearly exclusively has to do with issues of power and violence.
They say that rape is not about lust but motivated by the urge to control and dominate, and that it could also be driven by hatred and hostility towards women. Rapists often see women as sex objects who are there to fulfill men's sexual needs. They tend to hold false beliefs, often described as rape myths. For instance, a rapist can believe that if a woman says no, she really means yes, and that she is just playing around or challenging him.
Antonia Abbey, a social psychologist at Wayne State University in the US city of Detroit, wrote that one repeat assaulter believed the woman "was just being hard to get. A man has to persist to determine if she really means it.
Abbey quoted yet another repeat offender as saying: "I felt as if I had gotten something that I was entitled to, and I felt I was repaying her for sexually arousing me. Sherry Hamby told DW that in some cultures, patriarchy and dominance are expressed through a kind of "dehumanization" in which women are seen as inferior beings to men. This makes it much easier for women to become the targets of aggression. According to Hamby, for men in such cultures, "part of their cultural training is for them to lose touch with their emotions.
The link between narcissism and rape seems to be especially strong when repeat offenders are concerned.
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