What the Profitability of Rape Culture Looks Like

[ismnotwasm]

Last week, The Lancet published a groundbreaking UN study addressing the void in ‘rape perpetration’ research. The study surveyed 10,178 men aged 18-49 in six Southeast Asian countries and found that one in four had raped someone. ThinkProgress‘ Tara Culp-Ressler broke down the results, noting that “rape typically goes unpunished in Southeast Asia.”

Also in the news last week were reports that Jaborian McKenzie, one of the four Vanderbilt University football players accused of raping a 21-year-old female student was continuing his football career at Alcorn State University in Mississippi. He has since been kicked off the team, but the initial decision to include him on the roster should not be dismissed.

How do we process this information?

Well, we can start with deconstructing the profitability of rape culture. But let’s define ‘rape culture’ and what I mean when I say it’s ‘profitable.’

FORCE defines rape culture as involving “jokes, TV, music, advertising, legal jargon, laws, words and imagery, that make violence against women and sexual coercion seem so normal that people believe that rape is inevitable,” and explains that “media imagery perpetuates rape by excusing it, validating myths about rape, and/or sexualizing rape.” When rape goes unpunished and is celebrated in songs, TV shows and movies, it becomes normalized and as FORCE notes, it can be dismissed as “just the way things are.” Tara Culp-Ressler writes that another dimension of rape culture “is the idea that rape is inevitable, men can’t help themselves, and women must therefore work to protect themselves against it.”

http://onwardandfword.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/what-the-profitability-of-rape-culture-looks-like/

[gopiscrap]

1. Yes and it's so pervasive that we don't even make note of it anymore

[redqueen]

2. Actually that's not quite right...

It used to be so normalized that only very few women and even fewer men bothered mentioning it at all. And hardly anyone even noticed it.

Now, more people than ever are noticing and calling it out.

That's why the backlash against those calling it out keeps escalating.

[gopiscrap]

3. Ok maybe you're right

it just seems to me that I hear a lot of stuff and nobody ever gets called out on it.

[ismnotwasm]

4. ..

[Squinch]

5. Nicely spelled out. How long do you think it will be before someone

posts in this thread to the effect that there is no rape culture?

[redqueen]

6. Something tells me the few that still want to deny it exists will stop saying so openly.

It used to be that many would say so. Then fewer, and fewer still.

Soon it will become yet another thing that certain types people whine and pout about, bellyaching cause they can't say some things here without risking getting a post hidden.

They'll have to save their desire to minimize/deny rape culture, too, for those places where others are tolerant of such views - PUA sites, MRA sites, certain subgroups on reddit, etc.