This is a hard topic, and not hard because it’s murky, but more that it makes my eyes swell and my heart ache because it exists. That it’s a problem. That it was ever a thing. So pick up a coffee (or tea) and take a seat because this isn’t going to be easy and it’s not going to be short.

Rape culture. The normalization of sexual violence. It’s bad when you think about it, but even worse when you think about how rife it is in modern society. It’s considered okay to shame girls as long as they’re “asking for it.” If you wear a short skirt and high heels, you’re a “slut,” and you probably wanted to be cat-called. If you wear a short dress you deserve to be sexually harassed.

Now, this may seem dramatic, but this is how rape culture works. It justifies sexual assault and minimizes the gravity of it.

Rape culture tells me that I need to be careful about how I dress, what I wear, where I wear it, where I am, and what I’m doing. It tells me to always be on my guard, trust no one, and to always be aware and suspicious. It tells me that if I didn’t keep these thoughts always racing through my mind, then it simply is my fault. It's saying that I asked for it or I wasn’t careful. It saying that it is all on me.

But it’s not. It’s never the victim’s fault.

But that’s what rape culture implies. It teaches young boys and girls that it doesn’t matter who you are, because if you aren’t careful and aren't always reserved, you are at fault for the actions of another.

I’m Indian and take great pride in my heritage, but the land has its flaws just like my homeland America and it’s tragic and needs to change. An Indian Parliament member even called women who were raped “dented and painted.”

Women are shunned if they speak out on their assault. Politicians impose their views on citizens and that dramatically influences how people treat victims of sexual assault. This is a problem in a developing nation like India, but it’s just as prevalent in this progressive land of opportunities.

Girls are so afraid to report their assault cases to their college because they’re afraid that they’ll be attacked for what they were wearing or how much they drank. It shouldn’t be that way. On college campuses — where one in five women are assaulted — only one in eight report it. And that’s scary. It’s scary because it could happen to my peers, my friends, or even me.

And it's sad that people still pressure and harass victims. You shouldn’t be afraid to report a crime. You shouldn’t be fearful for seeking justice.

That’s not how justice should work... But that’s the way it seems to be.

Colleges are so caught up in keeping their crime rates low to save face that they are willing to hurt victims. Victims often feel like they’re broken goods or they deserved what happened because justice isn’t served for them. This isn’t only psychologically damaging to victims, but it completely negates these principles of justice we have.

A sexual assault criminal shouldn’t be given a lesser sentence because it might damage their future. They committed their crime and they damaged their future.

What about the victim?

What about her future?

What about the mental damage that assault had on her?

What about her?

I don’t think most people can even comprehend empathy or put themselves in the shoes of actual victims. If they did, they might understand this mindset that says victims deserve what happened is disgusting and completely wrong.

More robbers are convicted than rapists by approximately 15%. That’s not just appalling, but that’s gut-wrenching. If this simple statistic doesn’t show how normalized rape and sexual assault is, I don’t know what could. We are facing an epidemic and we need to acknowledge and work to stop it. Violence is surely a more drastic and serious crime than robbery, yet we treat it as far more insignificant.

Is it that we value materialistic things more than humans?

Perhaps. I don’t have hope for that kind of world and I want a better world than that for me, but most importantly for the people I care about in my life.

We need to fix this. We need to be supporting victims and actually being concerned about justice. We don’t harass victims of other crimes like we do with sexual assault, so why is it justified in instances of sexual harassment and rape?

Victims should never be attacked, but instead, they should be supported.

Every victim of a crime deserves respect and every victim deserves justice. Every victim deserves to not be harassed. People aren’t taught to not rape and this among many other problematic social issues that perpetuate this horrific mentality.

A woman can run around naked in the streets and if she is raped it is not because of what she is wearing, but the mindset of who committed the crime. Clothes or lack thereof, aren’t a form of consent. One must realize that this can happen to anybody and that no victim deserves to be berated and treated this way.

And rape culture puts individuals into the mindset that only women are victims, but that’s far from the truth.

As of 1998, 2.78 million men in the U.S. had been victims of attempted or completed rape.

Emma Watson’s He For She campaign is a really powerful movement in the right direction for diminishing rape culture and notions of justifying gender inequality.

And when it comes to the stigma derived from rape culture that suggested that “false rape” is so frequent and we must not take rape cases seriously is heartbreaking but also unfounded. Victims lying to authorities on their assault is infrequent and the range of false report rates found by rigorous and reliable research most consistently falls within a range of 2 to 10%.

I’m privileged. I’ve been privileged my whole life, but that reminds me others are not and that I should be doing something with my privilege and that is speaking up.

I’m so thankful for this wonderful life I’ve been given, but that also reminds me every day that there are others not as fortunate as me. We live in a world where politicians run on the platform of victim blaming and supporting rape culture, high school boys joke about assault, and victims lying about their sexual assault.

And on top of that there are little boys and girls who may never learn that a person’s worth is not defined by the articles that decorate your body, but by the words your mind and heart speak.

Ultimately, it’s up to citizens to overcome the ignorance.

And that’s an immense pressure put on them but if we want a better world we have to make sacrifices and work for it. Ignorance is the most violent element in society and it drives a great deal of problems and conflicts in our world. This culture needs to change and people need to be more educated. If people are educated, then we can solve these issues as ignorance is the root of these kinds of problems.

And this education and ending of this twisted culture needs to happen soon, because countless lives are already being damaged by this backwards way of thinking.