Power, Sexism, and its Role in Rape Culture
I guess I should start off by admitting that I’ve always been quite naive when it came to inequalities regarding gender. I wanted to believe we were all equal, and in doing that, I had dismissed obvious signs of sexism and this sense of power everyone seems to hold over one another. I had seen this everywhere, but not wanting to accept the truth played a huge role in my denial. So, when did it happen? When did I acknowledge the very different roles that had already been decided for both women and men? It happened my first year of college when my boyfriend raped me.
Being raped forced me to see the world as it is. A cruel place where achieving power is the primary goal for many people. Power can be given and taken in various forms, mine happened to be taken away by our existing rape culture. To clarify, rape culture is the normalization of male violence; this is the definition that can be found on google. However, rape culture should not be limited to men holding this power over women but rather the power than woman can also hold when she assaults a man. To say the least, rape can happen to anyone, male or female, and both genders can commit the crime. It is not limited to only men assaulting women.
Rape Culture is not a term to be misconstrued through our sexist thinking. We have created this idea that men are strong, independent, and the protectors of their family and friends, while women are vulnerable, weak, and submissive. These sexist ideas create a greater problem for the victims and perpetrators because they invalidate what has happened to each person. On the standpoint of a woman being the victim, often, society asks what she could have done differently to prevent the rape, or we question her integrity; is she telling the truth? To the perpetrator however, who in this case is a man, we look at his past and assume this is a one-time mistake, who are we to ruin his future, how will he provide if he is proven guilty. Or, in the case of a man being assaulted, we look at the man and wonder how he could have ever been raped; men love having sex, don’t they? There is no way a man in this society would say no, so of course he is lying. Thus, the woman, is of course not lying when she pleads not guilty.
There is power that comes with the sexist thinking everyone has been molded into. The power lies with the person who is not being victimized by sexism but rather defended by it. Sexism is biased, and just as bell hooks believes that eliminating sexism will create a more feminist world (see bell_hooks-feminism_is_for_everybody.pdf), I believe it will also eliminate the toxic rape culture we have come to know and live with. By eliminating sexist thinking, we are forced to see all people as equal. We are unable to hold assumptions over a person based on gender. I would not be able to assume that because a man is a man, he is incapable of being raped. Sexism holds no validity. Yet despite this, we still choose to say and act on these thoughts instead of re-evaluating and reforming. Knowing that being sexist towards another can somehow leave you in a more powerful position is what prevents us from wanting to change these thoughts. It is the power found in sexism that has led to the rape culture we see daily. Is it possible to live in a sexist-free environment if we are all seeking power? If not, then will we ever learn to see rape culture as a serious problem, or will it always be a game of what the victim could have done differently?
