A Voice worth listening to
http://hellogiggles.com/this-is-rape-culture
I read the above article on hello giggles blog but I think it's well worth a read, hidden among articles about what nail varnish is hot right now and what guy we should be looking at shirtless there are some interesting articles but the site is difficult to navigate so it is only by chance I came across this piece which looks at how attitudes in society are permitting a rape culture. This is an issue that has been discussed a lot over the last few years with the slamming of victim blaming, 'it's her fault for dressing that way' or 'if she had been drinking less' but it's recently come under the spot light again with the Steubenville rape case. Admittedly as someone who does not read much in the way of newspapers what I actually know about this case is fairly sketchy but from what I gather its about a 16 year old girl who was raped and assaulted while drunk at a party while several of her peers stood by doing nothing to help but did manage to take photos they swapped among themselves. (this all sounds fairly horrific to me) The media coverage seems to focus mainly on the fact that teenager perpetrators and how their lives will be ruined by their time in juvenile detention but forgive me If I'm a little disgusted by that take on it as it doesn't bother to take into account the fact that they actively chose to behave the way they did and speaks nothing for the poor girl whose life is ruined through no fault of her own. I guess you could say this whole attitude towards sexual assault and rape and anything that borders on it makes me angry and the author of this blog post mentions how previously people have stood up and talked about how maybe we should talk less about what women should do to avoid being sexually assaulted as this implies that the victims of sexual assault are the ones who are held accountable but what about the men who go out objectifying women, assaulting them, raping them or just taking photos/video of their friends doing the same, what is being done for them? why is it considered so laughable that their attitudes are the ones we need to work on to prevent rape from happening in the first place instead of placing this burden in the laps of women. Wearing a short skirt or low cut top is not asking for it, getting far too drunk while out is fairly stupid ( I know as I have surpassed my limit on more than one occasion ) but by no means does permit sexual assault. I for one believe no woman is 'asking for it' and no woman deserves to be assaulted and it sickens me to think that we are living in a society that says different.
You read about statistics that state many victims of abuse/assault/rape never come forward and report it and many of those that do never make it to court and part of the reason for that is that in many cases its difficult to prove, if alcohol is involved the exact details can be sketchy, obviously having to relive an encounter like that in open court would be horrific and that's before you take into account the fact that defense teams are notorious for victim blaming as their strongest defence. as though if a woman puts herself in a situation that makes her vulnerable enough then she should accept the consequences and just know better next time. Admittedly my knowledge of the criminal justice system is mostly cobbled together from numerous episodes of shows like law and order's special victim unit, some fictional crime novels and a basic understanding of the law as we covered it in college. I am relying perhaps a little too heavily on the assumption that writers behind these sorts of shows/books do a certain amount of research to make their covering of assault cases factually accurate but I could be wrong and if that's the case I hold my hand up accordingly. At the end of the day this is only my opinion which may be neither right nor wrong however strongly I feel about it but I am against a rape culture, are you ?
I read the above article on hello giggles blog but I think it's well worth a read, hidden among articles about what nail varnish is hot right now and what guy we should be looking at shirtless there are some interesting articles but the site is difficult to navigate so it is only by chance I came across this piece which looks at how attitudes in society are permitting a rape culture. This is an issue that has been discussed a lot over the last few years with the slamming of victim blaming, 'it's her fault for dressing that way' or 'if she had been drinking less' but it's recently come under the spot light again with the Steubenville rape case. Admittedly as someone who does not read much in the way of newspapers what I actually know about this case is fairly sketchy but from what I gather its about a 16 year old girl who was raped and assaulted while drunk at a party while several of her peers stood by doing nothing to help but did manage to take photos they swapped among themselves. (this all sounds fairly horrific to me) The media coverage seems to focus mainly on the fact that teenager perpetrators and how their lives will be ruined by their time in juvenile detention but forgive me If I'm a little disgusted by that take on it as it doesn't bother to take into account the fact that they actively chose to behave the way they did and speaks nothing for the poor girl whose life is ruined through no fault of her own. I guess you could say this whole attitude towards sexual assault and rape and anything that borders on it makes me angry and the author of this blog post mentions how previously people have stood up and talked about how maybe we should talk less about what women should do to avoid being sexually assaulted as this implies that the victims of sexual assault are the ones who are held accountable but what about the men who go out objectifying women, assaulting them, raping them or just taking photos/video of their friends doing the same, what is being done for them? why is it considered so laughable that their attitudes are the ones we need to work on to prevent rape from happening in the first place instead of placing this burden in the laps of women. Wearing a short skirt or low cut top is not asking for it, getting far too drunk while out is fairly stupid ( I know as I have surpassed my limit on more than one occasion ) but by no means does permit sexual assault. I for one believe no woman is 'asking for it' and no woman deserves to be assaulted and it sickens me to think that we are living in a society that says different.
You read about statistics that state many victims of abuse/assault/rape never come forward and report it and many of those that do never make it to court and part of the reason for that is that in many cases its difficult to prove, if alcohol is involved the exact details can be sketchy, obviously having to relive an encounter like that in open court would be horrific and that's before you take into account the fact that defense teams are notorious for victim blaming as their strongest defence. as though if a woman puts herself in a situation that makes her vulnerable enough then she should accept the consequences and just know better next time. Admittedly my knowledge of the criminal justice system is mostly cobbled together from numerous episodes of shows like law and order's special victim unit, some fictional crime novels and a basic understanding of the law as we covered it in college. I am relying perhaps a little too heavily on the assumption that writers behind these sorts of shows/books do a certain amount of research to make their covering of assault cases factually accurate but I could be wrong and if that's the case I hold my hand up accordingly. At the end of the day this is only my opinion which may be neither right nor wrong however strongly I feel about it but I am against a rape culture, are you ?
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