Rape Culture

Rape Culture Photographer: Cassandra Schroeder 2015

The above photographic series, Rape Culture, I was compelled to create after being raped and experiencing many examples of victim blaming--in both the judicial system and public.  After much research on the topic of rape culture and it's prevalence in our society I aim to bring awareness in hopes that we can start to make a change.

Rape Culture Artist Statement

Rape Culture, the environment in which rape is normalized and inescapable due to societal attitudes about gender and sexuality, is a controversial and conceptual body of work that exploits victim blaming, gender roles, sexual objectification, media desensitization, and rape jokes.  By using images of everyday moments such as a provocatively dressed woman, advertisements, and porn stills and juxtaposing these images to common phrases that are used in our everyday language, I hope to entice the viewer to question the validity and the implications if such a culture exists.

This theory is highly controversial and I've heard both sides: the side that argues against the idea of rape culture, blaming and slandering feminists for this theory--because obviously we don't live in a culture that promotes rape--and I've heard the side that agrees beyond any possible shred of doubt that we absolutely live in a world that rape culture thrives.

It seems as though we need to focus on the women that are speaking and on the men, too, as they share their stories and listen to the theorists and believers of rape culture and figure out what is being said to us.   This post isn't to convince anybody whether or not it exists, but rather to show what it actually is, because if we accept the definitions that have been posed we can stop arguing about its existence and move towards understanding it.  I invite you to listen, openly, in hopes that by hearing what is happening we can hear why it is so important to stop rape culture.

The limits of creating this photographic series was that I could not include statistics nor text to further explain what rape culture is, rather it was instead a visual series to show what it looks like when we put these common sayings (rape culture examples) to the images rather than speaking/hearing them in passing.  For the information that I wasn't able to include in the project I am now incorporating here, in this space to help explain more fully the details of such a culture.

Appropriation of a Cigarette Advertisement

While scouring the internet for advertisements that sexualize women I came across an anti-cigarette campaign that used blow-job symbolism.  In the original add the girl is a teenager and the man is at least middle-aged.  It is not necessary to make sexual innuendos to create advertisements, yet there are many ads out there using the objectification of women to sell their product.  Having such a polluted and saturated media creates a normalcy towards the sexualization and objectification of women.

I am a mother of a ten year old boy who is constantly exposed to women being demeaned in media (and not by choice because I don't even have television, but it's everywhere: billboards, flyers, etc.).  Our children are impressionable and this desensitizing him to objectification concerns me, greatly.  As a parent and certainly as a mother, I do my best to have conversations with him, but it's appalling the vastness of sexualized women that he is exposed to.

This video is just a few examples in a saturated pool I could have chose from that depict violence against women, sexualize them, demean them.  This expression often seen in the media suggest a power dichotomy between genders that have the ability to help influence a lack of respect for women; therefore, resulting in a trivializing of behavior associated with rape culture.  This leads me right into the topic of Porn and it's place for normalizing violence to women.  I watched the pornography documentary Hot Girls Wanted a couple of years ago and in it they stated that nearly 50% of porn videos explicit violence towards women.

Appropriation of a Porn Still

What does this saturation of violent porn movies instill in the minds of the viewers?

Quotes like the one from Tanya Burleson, a former porn actress, bring to question the effects that the normalization of women as objects have on the population, she states:

“Guys are punching you in the face. You get ripped. Your insides can come out of you. It’s never ending. You’re viewed as an object — not as a human with a spirit. People do drugs because they can’t deal with the way they’re being treated.” 

If a porn star has to drug themselves to numb their minds from the treatments they are experiencing, a reality that needs to be escaped because of the in-humaneness then what kind of message is being sent to the viewers.  When we see something over and over and over again it becomes normal: violence against women, objectification of women, trivialization of rape should never become expected or normal.

That quote was found in the 2015 Edition of Pornography Statistics created by Covenant Eyes.  They have compiled over 250 facts, quotes, and statistics about pornography use including the following:

In 2008, more than 560 college student responded to an online survey: 

18% of boys and 10% of girls have seen rape or sexual violence online.

In a meta-analysis of 46 studies published from 1962 to 1995, comprising a total sample of 12,323 people, researchers concluded pornographic material puts one at increased risk of:

1) developing sexually deviant tendencies (31% increase in risk) 

2) committing sexual offenses (22% increase in risk) 

3) accepting rape myths (31% increase in risk) 

Among perpetrators of sex crimes, adolescent exposure to pornography is a significant predictor of elevated violence and victim humiliation.

In a study of 187 female university students, researchers concluded early exposure to pornography was related to subsequent “rape fantasies” and attitudes supportive of sexual violence against women. Researchers believe pornography consumed at a young age contributes to women being socialized to accept sexual aggression as a sexual/romantic event.

The persistent pornographic experience that a large percentage of the population encounters delimits the view of woman and confines them to this idea of an object the message that is repeated over and over and over again is that woman are objects to be sexually assaulted and violated and that it is okay. These videos and images are easily accessible via phone, computer, television, magazines, advertisements, music, etc.  Every moment of the day the porn industry is throwing fuel on rape culture.

Appropriation of a Social Media Rape Joke

Rape is never a joke, nor should it ever be used as a topic of a joke.  This trivialization of rape so blatantly as a joke that can be laughed at also fuels rape culture, instilling it's acceptable to laugh at rape and trivialize it.  

The appropriation that I created above was a meme that went out across social media: suggesting that if a man cannot find a date in a traditional manner that it's acceptable to use a date rape drug to get what he wants.  

I've heard it many times walking down the road with a friend and a woman passes by, or standing in a bar near a provocatively dressed lady and I hear the muttered "she's asking for it" terms.  Nobody is ever asking for "it" and let's use the real word in it's place....Nobody is asking to be "raped".  This phrase that has been acceptable and manipulating on the mind to believe that somebody asks to be raped based on their clothing choice is just absurd.  This language that blames the victim normalizes rape.  "Of course he raped her, look what she was wearing, she was asking for it."

"She's a Liar", this one pulls at my heart strings.  I have dealt with friends of my rapist or family members of his that have doubted me.  I can say that being raped is difficult enough.  The addition of the call to question is a whole is a suffocation beyond no other that a victim should never encounter, should never feel.  The wound is deep, psychologically and physically deep, from being raped.

Our constitution--our judicial system-- perpetuates this "call to question" as it is set up for the offender and consists of nothing in it to protect our victims.  What there seems to be is a divide between listening to the victim and believing the process they are going through and the effects it has on them. Victim blaming and victimization happens repetitively throughout the court process while the rapist remains protected and free from accusations. It seems as though there is much concern from the jury who have the responsibility of this person's life at their hands, while the victim is accused again and again until the verdict is declared.

More times than not the jury finds the rapist not guilty, and I would suggest it is not because they aren't guilty-- only 2-6% percent of cases are false-- but the fractured system in which we have in place that has more concern for the rapist than the victim. What does the power of a legal system that has shown us it repetitively blames the victim do to the minds of the public.  This expands into society and gives people the idea that rape victims lie, they are more convinced that a rapist didn't rape that a victim was raped.  Our very own judicial system FUELS rape culture.

"In a survey by the National Center for the Prosecution of Violence Against Women, it's estimated that only 2-8 percent of rape accusations are false."  

And still people assume against these odds and accuse women of lying often, nearly every time a woman comes forward there is resistance towards believing her.  This is something I feel strongly that we must end!

Rape culture is when a judge blames a 10-year-old victim for her own rape.

When I was a fourteen going through the judicial process of charging my step-father with rape, the prosecutor asked me, "what were you wearing?" and told me "do you realize what you could do to his life (by going forward with the trial)?"  He blamed years of sexual abuse that started when I was nine years old on my clothes.  No amount or lack of clothing provokes a person to rape.

SlutWalk is a transnational movement of protest marches calling for an end to rape culture cofounded by Sonya JF Barnett in April 2011 who says, "We want Police Services to truly get behind the idea that victim-blaming, slut-shaming, and sexual profiling are never acceptable....media also has to get behind this idea." 

It's a freedom of expression to have the ability to adorn our bodies with whatever clothing one pleases.  It does not give a person the right to rape somebody or take advantage of a child, adult, woman, or man because of the what they wear and no judge should ever accuse a victim of their own rape.

"The idea that there is some aesthetic that attracts sexual assault or even keeps you safe from sexual assault is inaccurate, ineffective and even dangerous."

Rape Culture is when it's acceptable to slut-shame, victim-blame, and even worse to suggest a woman deserves to be raped because she was asking for it with the clothes that she was wearing rather than placing blame on the rapist.

Women on left is from the 2012 Chicago Slutwalk and I haven't found where the photo on the right was taken.

While I have struggled with the provocative dressing and what that does for the image of women and how the representation effects how the person is perceived, whether it is rightly so or not, there isn't ever a time when a woman asks to be raped because the clothes she wears nor does her psyche need to be broken down through language that dehumanizes her.

Victimization and victim blaming are pervasive in the judicial systems and among social contexts. Resulting in neglecting the victim of the compassion and sensitivity they need and deserve.

Rape Culture is when the rapist's career is valued before victim.  Often times celebrities, athletes, or people in high power have been noted this.  This is expressed through media, as seen in the case of Brock Turner, the rapist who was given a lenient sentence--a disgraceful 6 month--and released for good behavior half way through--he only served 3 months for raping an unconscious girl!!!--- The media often mentioned him as an athlete at Stanford rather than a rapist.  I would also like to mention that his father was quoted saying, "steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action", well surely, this must account for most criminals currently in jail.

"All over the world, women are constantly made to feel like victims, told they should not look a certain way, should not go out at night, should not go into certain areas, should not get drunk, should not wear high heels or make-up, should not be alone with someone they don't know.  Not only does this divert attention away from the real cause of the crime-- the perpetrator-- but it creates a culture where rape is OK, where it's allowed to happen."

“Rape culture is victim-blaming… Rape culture is tasking victims with the burden of rape prevention. Rape culture is encouraging women to take self-defense as though that is the only solution required to preventing rape. Rape culture is admonishing women to ‘learn common sense’ or ‘be more responsible’ or ‘be aware of barroom risks’ or ‘avoid these places’ or ‘don’t dress this way,’ and failing to admonish men to not rape.” McEwan

Statistics show that people are more inclined to blame a victim if she had been drinking yet alcohol is considered the number one date rape drug.  Judge Males blamed rape victim for drinking too much and he isn't the first.  He says, "she had been "extremely foolish for getting so drunk she was left vulnerable and defenseless.

The controversy is valid.  What if a woman was drinking and gave consent and then regrets it later. This is a separate issue and not rape.  Rape culture is assuming that because a woman was drinking she is at fault.  It's when a judge like Mr Justice Males convicts the two men accused for rape and then still blames the victim for drinking and becoming vulnerable.

The theory of rape culture is highly controversial with a large resistance against the idea that our culture promotes rape.  I question the validity of this and wonder if it just another aversion that actually adds to the idea of rape culture because now we have the public questioning whether the girl was just drinking and asking for it.

This visual series is a representation that I see between the actions, the people, the truth in light of rape culture to show what it looks.  I will actively speak against this until rape culture ends.