Looking at the news over the last year, I wonder how people can still deny that there is a stigma against rape victims or that rape culture even exists. I don't know if it's because they aren't women or maybe they just believe that rape isn't as common as media says it is; I don't know. I do know some people who believe that women just over react to certain things and should take catcalling or lewd comments as a compliment; but I think they believe that because they are guys who have never been on the receiving end, the reality is sometimes it can be terrifying. They have never been followed and had to pass their destination numerous times and call someone to come get them. They have never someone slow down their car and try to get them to get inside it. It isn't just catcalling, some people reject the idea of consent in general.
I did a group advocate project with nine other people for my women's studies course, we called it 'Cookies For Consent,' which was about bringing awareness to rape culture. The course project was simple but required a lot of work: we put together a campaign for a cause, organized an event, brought an awareness to our chosen cause. We met up around 11:00 p.m. walked downtown together then divided into two groups. We sold individual cookies to people that had facts about rape myth and culture and all the proceeds went to our local women's shelter. It was right after a girl at our school was raped and there was a lack of response, so we thought it would be a good cause. We sold a lot of our cookies and made a decent amount of money for the women's shelter.
We had a quite a few people who were extremely supportive. Some donated money without even taking a cookie and some bought a single cookie for $10-$20. One girl bought a cookie because she said she knows how important our campaign was from personal experience. But as supportive as some people were others were degrading and rude. At one point we asked a group of people if they wanted to buy a cookie and they responded with "I don't believe in consent." Then later another group of guys told us that "Consent is optional." The sad part is we were told both of these things more than once throughout the night.
Not everyone buys into rape myths and culture, not everyone blames the victim. But to say that rape culture doesn't exist is just ignorant. Just because one person says rape culture doesn't exist doesn't mean there isn't another person who in the world denying its existence. Ignoring an issue does not make it go away, the only way to make things better is to acknowledge there is an issue and then talk about it to try to do what you can.
