Today I decided to take a break during my GRE study time/crying hour to browse the Facebook; sometimes it cracks me up, most of the time it bores me, but other times, it pisses me off so intensely that I have to quite literally take a break and go count to ten because I am continually amazed by how ignorant people are. While I enjoy talking to friends on social media, I also have to endure the cesspool of misinformation, ignorance, and other spammy shit that is impossible not to encounter.
But just as I was discussing with someone earlier today, I'm never really going to ever be able to avoid it entirely, so I better deal with it. And gotdamn, I'm gonna. It's tea time, bitches.
The issue that surfaced in the Twittersphere today was that of collegiate date rape, or just date rape in general, from an article which detailed the author's experience confronting her rapist. Date rape's definition, specifically, is rape by an acquaintance or someone you may have a relationship with, romantic or platonic. I'm not going to lie to you, I didn't know that specifically until I looked it up, I just assumed it meant a situation where you've been taken advantage of when alcohol or a GHB is involved. It includes that, for sure. 90% of campus rapes occur under the influence of alcohol. The true definition is much broader.
The comments on this article got me FUCKED UP.
What really got me flustered was people denying that rape couldn't be classified as such if alcohol was involved. Commenters on the article further maintain that most instances of girls being raped when alcohol was involved are really just cases of bad judgement and "regretting it later." "This bitch was just drunk, woke up, felt slutty and made up a rape story."
OH MY GOD.
I'll list some not-so-fun facts for you. Men are more likely than women to assume that a woman who drinks alcohol on a date is a willing sex partner. 43% of men believe it's okay to force sex on an intoxicated woman, and 43% admit to using coercive behavior, ignoring protest, using physical aggression, etc.
"You didn't try to stop him or try to get up? You didn't fight back? Rape, my ass."
I don't expect many men to understand this, but if you're, say, a 5'4" woman and heavily intoxicated, it's not that hard for a 6'0" man to overpower you. Even if you try to get this guy off you, if you're drunk enough, it's extremely hard to fight back. Trust me. You might eventually give up, because there's nothing left you can do.
You might be too scared to say no, let alone fight back. There are definitely situations where you might be afraid of this person, and that can be a factor. You might know this person pretty well, and if you know what they're capable of; you might not feel that you are in a position to do anything in this situation. RAINN cites a study which says that 80-90% of victims and assailants know each other, and the more intimate the relationship, the more likely the rape is to be completed.
Going off that, you might be worried about saying no because you want to save yourself from some sort of conflict that you know will happen if you do. Even if you succeed in getting them to stop, they might turn it around on you and try to make you feel like it's your fault.
Women are made to feel pretty guilty when discussing rape. Victim-blaming is a horrible problem. "She was wearing the wrong skirt, she was drunk, she had it coming. She waited to report it, so it wasn't really rape." When rape apologists make any of these claims, or ones I've mentioned earlier, they don't take into account the statistics and scenarios that I've just talked about.
What it all comes down to is that you have might no idea what a situation is surrounding a rape unless you're directly involved in it. It is no one's place to question the validity of someone's accusation of rape without a valid reason. Only about 2% of sexual assault or rape accusations turn out to be false, which is consistent with the rate of false reporting for all other crimes. Rape isn't just some stranger ambushing you in the parking lot after class and dragging you into the bushes. You don't have to stumble home with bruises and your face busted open for it to be rape. 1 in 12 college-age men admit to having fulfilled the prevailing definition of rape or attempted rape, yet virtually none of them identify themselves as rapists. Probably because they envision the stereotypical image of a violent rapist, and they don't identify with that.
Additionally, only 5% of college women report their experience with rape and sexual assault [compared with the national average of 40%]. Compare this with the fact that 20-25% of women will experience a completed or attempted rape during their college career. That's 1 in 4 women. That's people you know. That might be your sister, your mom, your best friend. But the discussion surrounding this issue is fraught with so much sexism, victim-blaming, stereotyping, and repercussions from the community that women's reports of rape are effectively silenced.
The statistics I referenced are troubling, and those are really only the ones relevant to things occurring in universities. I'm not in college anymore, but that doesn't mean I'm home safe. If you're a woman, your risk of being raped doesn't go away once you're outside the student ghetto, once you enter the real world. That's something I don't think most men really understand. Rape's not really ever right around the corner for them, which is probably why the majority of problematic comments come from their side of the spectrum. [INB4: NotAllMen Are Sexist/Rapists/Etc. THAT'S NOT THE POINT]
People's denial of the facts I've talked about and the failure to take a step outside of their own shoes and consider what other people are going through are what bother me the most. When people perpetuate ideas of sexism, victim-blaming, etc, that is damaging to the progression of society and allows rape to be generally accepted. That might sound erroneous, that rape could possibly be something that's accepted, but when you consider everything I've just discussed, it's really not. These things are being allowed to happen, and people's reactions to them are honestly just insane.
We need to effectively teach people to respect one another, to look out for one another, and to be kind and understanding towards each other. Structural violence happens at an alarming level, but let's get real. It doesn't need to.
Sources:
RAINN
US Department of Justice
National College Women Against Sexual Victimization
Journal of Research In Personality
National College Health Risk Behavior Society
Social Contexts and Social Learning in Sexual Coercion and Aggression: Assessing the Contribution of Fraternity Membership
Crisis Connection
