Until around my senior year of high school, I had no idea what "rape culture" meant. I had never even heard the phrase before and I remember seeing it for the first time and staring at it in confusion, wondering what it could possibly mean. After all, it seemed so strange to think of a culture that would encourage rape. So, being the feminist nerd that I am, I looked it up and this is what I learned: "Rape Culture is a term that was coined by feminists in the United States in the 1970's. It was designed to show the ways in which society blamed victims of sexual assault and normalized male sexual violence." (WAVAW website) Recently, the term has been thrown around often, because of current events and the unfairness towards women, especially members of the younger generations. Here are a few of the biggest causes of modern day rape culture.
1. School Dress Codes
In complete honesty, an entire article could be dedicated to the unfairness of school dress codes and that wouldn't be enough. The biggest problem with these dress codes, however, isn't the strictness of what girls are allowed to wear to school. It's the argument for why certain outfits aren't deemed appropriate by the school administrators. It's not because it's not appropriate work attire. It's because the outfits are distracting when they broadcast a shoulder or too much leg. And this is implying that the it's not wrong for boys to easily be distracted by a few ounces of exposed skin. It's implying that it's wrong of the girls to be tempting boys, who are naturally wired to be horny pigs whenever they see a girl revealing the slightest bit of skin. And that's wrong because it tells girls that it's their fault if they are harassed, because they were clearly asking for it with what they were wearing and it shows boys that it's totally appropriate to harass a girl if she's dressed in shorts and a tank top, because she clearly wants the attention. Oh, and let's not get started on the fact that sending girls out of class to change or making them leave school for the day due to their "distracting" outfit tells girls that the education of their male counterparts is more important than their own education.
2. "Were You Drinking" 
The fact that that is one of the first questions asked of a rape victim speaks volumes. How could somebody possibly look at a clearly distressed person who was the victimof a violent assault and dare ask them if they had an alcoholic beverage. If drinking lowers the inhibitions of female drinkers, than it should also lower the inhibitions of males who are consuming alcohol. Girls don't have a special gene that makes them react to alcohol while males are totally fine. The guy is never asked if he was drinking, because it's only the fault of the girl and if she dared to go to a bar and pay for an over priced, fruity beverage with barely any liquor in it, she's blamed for any assault that may occur to her that night, because she wasn't in her proper state of mind. She may not even remember if she actually said yes or no. But, here's the thing-if you're going to argue that she's not in her right state of mind, than that means, even if she did say yes to the guy, she wasn't actually qualified to give consent. A person's state of sobriety should mean nothing when it comes to an assault case.
3. Victim Blaming
It doesn't matter what a person was wearing. It doesn't matter what they had to drink or how they came into contact with the other person. The only thing that matters is that a person forced contact onto another person who did not voice their consent. And here's the thing about consent. It needs to be verbal and undeniable. Just because the victim didn't push their attacker off or didn't actually say no. If they didn't say yes then they didn't give consent and that means that it was assault. Regardless of whether or not it is argued that the female gave consent or not, though, the fact that victims are interrogated, being asked what they were wearing or how much they had to drink or about their sex life prior to the attack shows that society has a tendency to blame the victim in the situation. But, none of those things are a crime and nobody is asking to be attacked. When a dog attacks a person, nobody tries to argue that the dog was provoked, after all. So, if we don't blame the victim in any other violent crime, why do we blame them here?
4. Consent Laws
When I first started college, I had to attend a seminar to learn about the consent laws for New Hampshire, because apparently the definition of consent varies from state to state. It was emphasized that, in New Hampshire, individuals need to be sober and give a verbal, definitive confirmation that they are consenting to the situation. The fact that those things had to be emphasized struck me as funny, because they seemed like things that should be obvious. When you drink, your inhibitions are lowered so you clearly aren't going to give the answer that you're truly thinking for every situation. Body language can be confusing, so a verbal answer is definitely necessary. Oh, and the one that struck me as the strangest one to be emphasized? The fact that if one party changed their mind, it meant that the consent was gone. The reason that was weird to me, was because I thought that it would be common sense that if somebody decided after a little while of kissing that they weren't having it anymore, their consent was taken away. Clearly, one universal definition of consent needs to be developed and it needs to be one that is going to actually protect the victim, rather than make it easier for the rapist to get away with a crime.
5. Boys Will Be Boys
This argument needs to stop immediately because it's not a defense. And, personally, if I were a boy, I would be insulted by this expression. After all, it's literally implying that boys are going to act like pigs because they don't know any better and they can't stop themselves. Because they have no self control. And I don't know about you, but I have plenty of guys in my life who are more than capable of controlling themselves around members of the opposite sex. What this expression is saying is that when a boy is tempted, they are going to act. Well, if a dog really wants a treat and you hold it out in front of their nose, but tell them to sit (and if they're well trained so that they understand what that means), they'll respect the fact that they were denied what they wanted and they will sit there, rather than taking what they want for force. So, for all of you boys that hear that expression and think of it as a "get out of jail free" card, remember that you're pretty much being told that you have less self control than a dog.
