HOW RAPE CULTURE AFFECTS EVERY PARENT
*Originally published June 8th, 2016
For nearly a week, my social media feeds were littered with reactions to the sentencing of Brock Allen Turner, a twenty-year-old Stanford student who was convicted on three separate counts of sexual assault. If you’re unfamiliar, here’s a summary of the case and legal proceedings, and here is the powerful letter written by the survivor of Turner’s assault.
His crimes: assault with intent to rape an intoxicated woman, sexually penetrating an intoxicated person with a foreign object and sexually penetrating an unconscious person with a foreign object.
His sentence: 6 months, with the possibility of parole after just 3 months.
This is a man who was found atop an unconscious woman behind a dumpster, who was chased from the scene by two students who happened to see him while riding their bicycles, who doesn’t deny the charges. His sentence sparked outrage from many. For my part, I tried to avoid reading about or discussing the case, not because I believe it’s unimportant but because I’m simply exhausted by the constant reminders that my daughters’ bodies are not their own.
By way of an introduction to this internal struggle, here’s a poem I wrote shortly after my daughters were born. In it, I try to make sense of rape culture and the impact it will have on their experiences. Suffice to say that, even before they were born, I was well aware that my daughters would face enormous challenges in our society.
The thing about rape culture is that it’s so pervasive that our children internalize it before they reach high school. By the time my female students have my class in tenth grade, they routinely communicate their frustration about the double standards of dress code, the continuous reminders about attending parties or walking to cars in groups, and the overwhelming likelihood that even if they report an assault, they will incur public scrutiny.
My daughters will turn 4 in August. Already, I’m constantly assessing the television shows and movies they watch, the music they listen to, the language used in our home. Obviously they are too young to understand what is happening in California, but this most recent rape case only highlights the inevitability of conversations about protecting themselves. Why?
Because in this country, we teach women to prevent rape, rather than teach men not to rape. Yes, men can be raped. Yes, women can be rapists. The fact remains, though, that we are a culture which focuses on defending the body, rather than respecting it. Nothing disheartens me more than that statement.
The reality that a woman in California has to argue in court that she was incapable of consent while unconscious is infuriating. The reality that a friend of mine feared for her life while walking to get sushi last night is horrifying. The reality that more than half my students back in Oklahoma had been raped by age 16 is nauseating.
Where do I start? How do I explain to my daughters that they are five times more likely to be sexually assaulted than to get into a top tier college? What words do I use to tell them that there are more than four hundred laws governing the female body and not one governing the male body?
These are the questions that plague me every single day. Questions I can’t answer.
One year ago, my son was born. Because I am surrounded by some of the most insightful, humbling and patient human beings imaginable, I know exactly how to teach him. Rape culture does not end with the protection of women’s bodies. It ends when parents accept the responsibility that we must teach our sons not to rape.
This sounds so simple that most parents probably take it for granted. Why would I have to teach my son not to rape? He’s a good person. He’s never been violent. I mean, he’s only twelve months old.
Therein lies the problem with the phrase sexual predator. It convinces us that all rapists are actively seeking victims. The Stanford rape case is but one example of how misguided that idea is. It’s unlikely that Brock Allen Turner went to that party looking for someone to assault. His testimony suggests that he still does not understand that what he did was rape.
His confusion lies in how we discuss rape, and who we leave out of the conversation. Growing up, my mother never told me not to sexually assault others. It was a given. Or at least she, like so many parents, assumed that it was. My mother also never talked to me about what consent means.
In fact, I don’t think I encountered a single conversation about the meaning of consent until I was near the end of my twenties. Looking back, that seems so bizarre. Why didn’t anyone mention it in the various sex education classes? Why wasn’t it a part of freshman orientation when I started college?
Consent is a simple concept, yet it’s presented as an abstract ideal with a lot of gray area. This puts women at risk, and it confuses men who legitimately want to do the right thing. My high school students present viable, low-cost solutions to rape culture and the question of consent during their research unit every year, so why have we failed to provide the proper resources on a national scale?
What will I teach my son? I’ll teach him that consent means “yes.” That it’s absolutely not weird to ask for consent. That potential partners cannot consent while intoxicated or otherwise out of sorts. That if he is ever unclear about a sexual encounter, he has a responsibility to stop and get clarity.
What will I teach my daughters? That’s a more complicated question. I don’t want to teach them that they must protect themselves from predators, that they must be constantly and vigilantly aware of potential assault. And still, I know that I will because I have no other choice.
When they are old enough to hear the stories, I will tell them that Turner was given less than a year of jail time after being caught in the act of rape. I will tell them that if there are no witnesses, they will be chastised and presumed liars. I will tell them that their bodies are war grounds, and they must be warriors. I will tell them that none of this is fair. That I can’t fix it.
The Stanford rape case means that I must open conversations about rape culture and body colonization well before my children enter middle school, where the dangers already surround students.
It means that I cannot assume my son will understand consent or that my daughters will be safe when they walk across campus.
It means that I must explain the way things should be, but also the way things are.
