http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/vio.2014.0022?journalCode=vio
http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1748355
http://www.cluteinstitute.com/ojs/index.php/CIER/article/viewFile/1201/1185
I think you’d have a hard time finding even subcultures where rape is acceptable.
The reference to fraternities is revealing, because two of the most famous (or infamous) false allegations of rape in recent years were made against fraternity members.
The rush to judgment in the absence of facts in those two cases was perhaps facilitated by the prejudice that fraternities are full of rapists. I, personally suspect they’re not.
But nobody “widely presumes” that most people are “into rape”, which the “sports culture” metaphor would tend to suggest, if taken seriously as a parallel.
Rather, rape is something universally detested - in theory.
The better view is that “rape culture” is more a set of cultural and legal characteristics that, added together, arguably normailize sexual violence despite the fact that most people would, of course, claim they are against rape.
Better would be parallels to a “culture of violence” or a “culture of greed”. The occasional Gordon Gekko aside, most people would claim, superficially, that violence and greed are bad things - but in many ways our culture tends to glorify both.
The real issue, of course, is whether our society could rid itself of, or minimize, things like rape, violence and greed via the proper education and cultural manipulation. People who find “rape culture” a useful analysis would of course argue that it can, and should (at least with respect to sexual violence).
Of course there is such a thing as date rape. Sometimes a guy forces himself on his date. Sometimes it involves getting her drunk or drugged, other times it involves simply physically forcing her.
If true then I’d say we don’t have a rape culture in the US. People don’t go to stadiums to see people raped; they don’t wear t-shirts with their favorite rapists; rapists don’t make $millions for being good rapists. One might be able to make a case that we pay to watch rapes online (e.g. GoT).
When I have seen people use the term “rape culture”, it has always seemed to me they were saying our (American) culture as a whole is a rape culture. To those who think it only means there exist pockets of idiots who don’t object to rape, fine, we agree those pockets exist. Chitwood’s definition supports the idea that the whole culture can called a rape culture if “some” amount of sexual violence is tolerated, and I think that definition is bad for the reasons others have stated: “some” Nazis doesn’t imply a Nazi culture. Some people with quality X doesn’t imply the culture has quality X. Most, or a substantial minority might qualify, but that isn’t the case here.
I object to this terminology because I support feminism and this makes feminists look like idiots. It is what happens when we let a cause be defined by radical zealots instead of thoughtful proponents. To call our culture a “rape culture” is a ridiculous distortion of the actual situation. It is inflammatory rhetoric. It is fear mongering. It encourages paranoia among women when feminism should be telling them to be strong and take the world by storm. It is “victim feminism”.
Radicals are less interested in solving problems based on a clear understanding of the situation than they are in motivating followers using fear and anger. Fear and anger is what gets people to read their blogs and articles and books and come to their speaking engagements. Thoughtful people on the SDMB should know better than to take this seriously.
1/3 of all Americans tune in to watch the Super Bowl every year.
Show me anything related to rape that comes one iota close to that and maybe you have something.
That being said, sports is legal and largely respected in our society. Rape is the exact opposite. Who gets paid millions of dollars to rape people on television?
(Besides Ronda Rousey of course)
Haven’t seen it, but maybe whoever starred in 50 Shades of Grey?
It’s not horseshit ( it’s also not a fire-proof system), but it’s a solid rule of thumb, that proves to be right on the money more often than not.
When a news story just breaks out (and when not all of the facts are clear and might not be clear for months to come), I found it to be extremely helpful to see who is on what side of the issue.
As an example, remember the recent case, where a violent criminal was shot, while assaulting a police officer, shortly after committing a robbery?
In the first few days, not all the facts were known, but the usual suspects assembled: you had your noted anti-Semite, former Democratic presidential candidate taking a firm stand on the side of a criminal, you had another anti-Semite, homophobe, bigot, racist hate-mongerer, tax-evader and another Democratic operative also firmly being on the side of the criminal, and of course we had the President of the United States siding with the criminal as well.
This immediately indicated to me that the whole case was most likely just a hoax, a collection of lies. It wasn’t 100% certainty, but all the indicators pointed very strongly in one direction.
When it later turned out that the police officer was fully justified and acted in self-defense and in the defense of the community he was sworn to protect, and the whole “Hands up, don’t shoot” hoax was exposed, a lot of people were surprised.
I wasn’t.
What do you think date rape is?
It seems to me that people are expecting too much from a couple little words. As if the term “rape culture” is meant to be an all encompassing theory of everything.
It’s not. It’s just a term people use to talk about the little unexpected places that not-particularly-critical references to sexual violence pop up in. On billboards, in jokes, on the first day of school, in fashion magazines, in the story your uncle tells at dinner, chatting over beers at a party, etc. These are not normally places that one associates with rape, and yet sometimes it is there- often in a lighthearted and joking way. This is what people talk about when they talk about rape culture. And you are right that it’s not the end of the world, but it is pretty annoying, especially if you have a personal experience with the kind of assault that is being treated so lightly.
But it’s not like the term “rape culture” magically explains the entire universe. It’s just a phrase people have come up with to describe a pattern they’ve observed. Maybe it’s not the most obvious way to phrase it, but it seems to have stuck.
Its also things like the rape scene in Gone with the Wind - raped by her husband, purring like a cat the next morning. That sort of imagery is really prevalent in our film, television and literature. Game of Thrones and Outlander are two more current examples of some disturbing RAPE and some disturbing rapey sorts of things that are portrayed as positive, but are downright creepy.
And frankly, the thread right below this is LinusK trying to defend an 18 year old guy who had sex with a fifteen year old girl and is getting seven years in jail - and being joined in the defense by several other Dopers that think this is OK. But no, no rape culture.
Here is a comprehensive study of Rape Culture from the Shakesville blog. It is thought provoking, raw and certainly my truth.
Er, absolutely nothing on that page addresses any of the criticisms made in this thread. Feminism remains a rape culture per that page’s definition. You can’t not have a culture that’s a rape culture. Hell, per that page, several effective anti-rape methods are part of rape culture.
When come back, bring metrics for what make a culture a rape culture versus not, and what makes a culture a rape culture vs., for example, a rape culture culture.
The thing is, I don’t actually believe your issue with rape culture is a semantic one, as much as you innocently protest that you just think the word is imprecise. You aren’t stupid, and you aren’t incapable of understanding how the term is being used.
One of the reasons why these threads are so difficult is that for every person who genuinely doesn’t “get” the concept or has a genuine issue with the phrasing, there are two more people who know perfectly well what people are talking about, but don’t think rape is such a big problem and want women to just shut up about it already. And these people seize on every discussion to try to claim that most rape claims are false, rape is extremely rare, women are responsible for getting attacked, rape isn’t really that traumatic, getting groped or forced by a date or whatever doesn’t “count” as assault, it’s just a part of nature, etc.
I can’t for the life of me figure out what drives the rape apologists. But I can’t help but feel they probably haven’t had a good discussion with the women they are close to about the subject (well, that’s probably no surprise.) If a whole lot of women are saying over and over and over again that they are sick of rape being a part of their daily life, I suspect they probably know a thing or two about it.
Metrics? For cultures? The only cultures that are amenable to that kind of quantification grow in petri dishes.
I’m not sure you’ve read the thread, but that’s certainly not an accurate description.
In any case, do you seriously think that 8 years in prison is a reasonable sentence for consensual sex between a 15 year old and an 18 year old?
If you’re thinking of the scene I’m thinking of in GOT, there was a crying third party in the room and it was in no way shown as positive.
Rape exists in reality, why should fiction shy away from it?
His battered victim insists it wasn’t consensual.
How I think the term is used is as a rhetorical bludgeon, meant to instill shame and guilt in a specific audience, and rally another audience behind a worthy-but-ambiguous cause. Rape happens in the U.S., and there are a lot of cases, both individual and systemic, where it goes overlooked and unprosecuted, but rape is by no means unique as a crime for which this happens, and attracts much more outrage than other crimes which happen more and are overlooked more often.
And conversely, for every two people who claim that every reported rape is obviously false (or the victim’s fault), we have another three people rushing to judgement as in the Duke and UVA cases, and claiming that false rape accusations are statistically irrelevant and don’t cause the important kind of harm to people that actually deserve to be cared about anyway.
This isn’t to make any comment on the many, many feminists and allies who don’t do this. They are out there, underrepresented in the community of people shouting angrily at the Internet, doing good work. But the side of people claiming rape culture has its own contingent of wackos. And because feminism is true and supported, it has a much larger pool to draw potential wackos from.
Protip: calling your debate apologists ‘rape apologists’ does not incline them to treat your positions with care and nuance, and treat your principles and arguments with consideration and charity.
Also…that’s a little projecty, don’t you think? You assume that your debate opponents aren’t arguing in good faith from a base of supported knowledge because…you’re willing to make bad-faith assumptions about them?
Have you considered that many of the people you charmingly term ‘rape apologists’ are arguing in good faith, from the reality-based position, and you’re just paying more attention to the loud wingnuts because they’re loud and nutty?