We have all heard the term rape culture. A lingering look is a part of rape culture. A comment on a woman’s body she doesn’t appreciate is rape culture. Saying hi to an attractive woman you see on the street is rape culture, etc.
Our society is constantly exposed to someone or another talking about how only men can stop rape—that we, as men, are all really just potential rapists (see Schrödinger’s Rapist). As a society, we seem preoccupied with it.
I decided to look into the statistical prevalence of rape and sexual assault in our society and compare it with the prevalence of other crimes to see if there is, indeed, an actual rape culture.
I started by looking at the U.S. Criminal Victimization Survey by type of crime. I found that rape and sexual assault in 2007 was fairly high, with 248,300 cases reported in the survey. (This is a self-reported study that is not related to complaints to authorities about the crime). I did, however, also look at other serious crimes for the same time period. Robbery was more than twice as prevalent as rape/sexual assault, with 597,300 cases in the same time period. So why not call us a robbery culture? How about the prevalence of assault? It’s almost 20 times as prevalent in our society, with 4,331,500 cases in the same time period. This makes assault culture or violence culture much more accurate than rape culture.
So then I asked: What is the rape culture narrative doing? Couldn’t it be seen as taking our cultural focus and narrowing it down to the point that we really don’t see the larger picture? The fact that violent crimes happen constantly and are all serious problems for society. I do understand that sexual assault is a hot-button topic for a lot of us. As a kid I was sexually assaulted once and I know it is serious. I, however, have also been robbed as well as seriously assaulted on several occasions over the course of my life so far.
Is the rape culture narrative causing our society to attack a small portion of the huge violent-crime pie? Why would we do this?
I am guessing it’s due to the victim narrative—the victims of these crimes are what’s important here, not so much the crime.
So I started to look into what the rape culture narrative was doing to help the victims of these awful attacks. I found that the narrative has led to tons of foundations, homes, shelters, etc. The belief that these people need help seems ingrained and acted upon by our culture. As I was reviewing these services and how they might apply to me, I realized that I don’t fit the victim narrative. Within 50 kilometres of my house, there are nine shelters for women/children. They aren’t all specifically rape shelters, but they are violence shelters. That seems fair. It makes more sense to have a house that could serve more than such a specific niche.
The problem I have is that I am not a woman or a child. Really, I personally have no need for a shelter; and it’s a good thing too because I couldn’t find any within 50 kilometres of me. So I expanded the search and realized that here in Canada there isn’t one. Not one. As I googled “men’s shelters,” the only result I got was an article on a man, Earl Silverman, who tried to start one but after years of struggle and strife killed himself. Don’t get me wrong, there are several homeless shelters that men can go to, just no violence shelters. (Can you imagine bringing a child into a homeless shelter? You’d most likely lose custody almost immediately.)
So it looks to me that the rape culture narrative is helping those it sees fit to help: in short, women and children—and why not? They are who we have deemed to be the powerless in our society, those that most need help.
So if rape culture is about helping the victims and making society aware, they have done a great job. The victims are women and their children.
However, it leads me to ask another question: If rape culture is about women and their children, isn’t it a women’s culture? or a children’s culture? It looks to me, as an outsider (that is, not one of the people who can qualify as a victim anymore), that the rape culture narrative is about ensuring that the approved people learn the approved narrative.
It seems to follow that rape culture is actually victim culture, and that victim culture is inclusive of a wide variety of people, including women, children, people with disabilities, etc. It’s no wonder that that poor terrified woman wrote that post about Schrödinger’s Rapist mentioned above. She is terrified! Who can blame her? She’s a victim and there’s nothing she can do about it. Luckily, there are shelters and foundations out there just waiting to take her in and tell her: “We told you so.”
Now, there are other things we could do as a society to help those people who need it. We could educate them on high-risk behaviours and high-risk situations. We could teach them about safety in numbers or make them feel empowered by teaching them self-defence or other strategies to help them in a crisis situation. We could do those things, but we aren’t allowed. We’re not allowed because it’s wrong to expect these victims to have to prepare for the worst. So we as a society decided that the best way to deal with these issues is to tell the criminals that they shouldn’t break the law. After all, since it’s the criminals who are causing this mess, it should be the criminals’ responsibility to fix it, right? I personally agree that criminals should stop being criminals, that they should fall in line with our laws and values. Imagine the society we would have if that happened. It would be a step toward paradise.
If everyone did what they should be doing, we wouldn’t need a lot of things in our society. We could stop spending all this money on police and security guards. We wouldn’t need seatbelts, tanks, fighter jets, sniper rifles, or grenades. It would be trillions of dollars we could re-invest into health care and education. It would be truly amazing!
The fact that the dream is not likely to become a reality any time soon means I still drive with my seatbelt on and I lock my doors at night. I am still acutely aware of my surroundings in a dark, empty parking lot. I do these things even though I can’t really be a victim. Not really.
Maybe—until we are able to realize the dream that we teach these terrified people how to feel safer in their communities—just maybe let’s allow them to learn a common sense approach that tells them they can affect the outcome. It may not stop the victimization of people, it may have no measurable effect at all. It could, however, make those people who are able to be victims feel a bit more in control. Feel a bit more secure. Allow them to see themselves as strong and capable members of our society. True or not, it’s got to feel better than waiting in terror until the inevitable happens.
Since I can’t truly be a “victim,” I can’t really know for sure—but it makes sense to me.
