Many victims in America are afraid to speak up when they’ve been raped out of fear that their assaulters will get off with little to no punishment— and they aren’t alone. Because of the stigma around rape and the way it’s treated in society, the court system has a tendency not to take rape cases seriously.
“What were you wearing?” We all know the weight our society puts on the way a woman chooses to dress herself and the value her appearance holds in the investigation of rape cases. I daresay it’s even one of the core issues of America’s rape culture. And it starts young.
In grade school, girls are given strict rules for their clothes. No shorts that don’t reach halfway down your thigh. No spaghetti-strapped tank-tops. No strapless dresses. Schools tell girls that they can’t show their shoulders because it may “distract a boy.” But his feelings are his handle. Thinking like that has led to a culture where women have to watch what they wear when they leave the house or walk around alone. We’ve taught boys that how they react to the clothing on a woman’s body isn’t their fault, it’s hers.
There’s a problem with that.
A woman’s appearance has no place in a court of law. You never hear of a lawyer asking a rapist what they were wearing because it doesn’t matter if they wore tight pants or shorts. They don’t need to dress a certain way to rape someone. So why do we put so much value in whether or not the victim's body was covered?
We also need to address the role of alcohol in rape cases and why it shouldn’t be playing a part. There’s often more emphasis placed on whether or not the victim had been drinking the night they were raped. Were they drunk? Did they blackout? Tactics like this try to prove that the victim may not remember giving consent.
But intoxication means that a victim can’t defend themselves or give proper consent. They can’t say yes if they don’t understand what they’re saying yes to. A rapist still rapes and a victim is still a victim, whether under the influence or not. It’s high time the legal system stops letting alcohol be used as a scapegoat.
Rape is not defined as “the victim gives consent but can’t remember.” It is the absence of consent, which, in and of itself, is an issue in our culture. A lot of people either don’t understand what it is or they turn a blind eye and ignore it.
Consent is saying yes, giving permission for what’s about to be done. It is not the absence of a “no.” It is not being coerced or guilted into sexual acts. Consent is not a kiss, nor is it the assumption that someone has a right to do something because they’ve done it in the past. You’re never entitled to touch someone else. You’re never entitled to someone else’s body.
Rape culture in America isn’t contained to the legal system, either. It extends, reaching as far as political leaders on one end and entertainment on the other. And while people deny the existence of rape culture in our country, entertainment uses it as a joke.
The popular show "Family Guy" has made countless numbers of rape jokes. One of the more recent being Peter getting “raped by a bug.” It was a punchline, as it is in many stand-up comedy routines. There was also a "Simpsons" and "Family Guy" crossover in 2014 where Stewie told another character that their “sister was being raped.” The Hollywood Reporter reported on the backlash, and one of the comments asked, “How can people not see the humor in a rape joke like this?”
The context of a joke doesn’t matter. Rape isn’t a punchline for a television crossover. It isn’t something you say when you’re doing well in a video game or when your sports team is winning. Every joke that’s made and every laugh it receives diminishes the severity of the crime. It has resulted in a culture that doesn’t take rape accusations or charges as seriously as they should. Victims get blamed. Rapists receive sympathy.
And we live in a country where the rape culture has gotten to a point that political leaders are using rape in their speeches to make a point. Republican candidate Donald Trump was quoted in a CNN article after referring to Mexican immigrants as “rapists” saying that, “Someone’s doing the raping.”
But rapists come from all walks of life— and that’s what America continuously brushes under the rug. The rapists we see getting sentences they deserve are ones that don’t come from a privileged white background. But you don’t need to be underprivileged to be a rapist. You don’t need to be a race that isn’t white.
A change needs to happen, and it starts with how we, as a country, define rape. It starts with breaking down the culture around rape and looking through privilege, through race, looking beyond what the victim wore and basing every case off of one definition. A definition that should be declared by the federal government so each state isn’t free to come up with its own idea of rape.
