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Lorena Wright
Composition I
Pamela Reed
14 September 2015
Rape Culture
Rape culture is believed to be a long ingrained system of sexism in society. It is a
complex belief system that encourages aggression and sexual violence on, usually, nonman identified people and young adolescents. It objectifies the victims in question and
condones the sexual and abusive violence as a norm. Rape culture norm is a taught
behavior and is usually taught at a young age and is carried into adulthood. As it is taught
at a young age, it is instilled to society in various ways such as the education system and
in the work place.
At an adolescent age, society has taught youth abusive behaviors. We teach them
that if you dangle meat in front of a dog, you cannot expect it to not eat. Victims are
expected to not have been in the situation in the first place. We teach people that you
should avoid getting raped instead of to not rape. We are taught that rape is a humorous
subject. Culture conditions youth who challenge rape as a joking matter into thinking that
they are too sensitive or too politically correct. We teach youth of the United States
that it is bad to be aware of the rape culture. We teach them that caring about rape culture
is just a femi-Nazi view. In reality, rape culture affects victims a lot more than just
women. It affects anyone whos ever been sexually assaulted. In the U.S., rape culture is
taught from young adolescent ages until adulthood. Children are forced into silence and

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begin to develop anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder; PTSD, and
regression at a young age due to sexual abuse like rape or molestation. Often, children are
not taught what is right and what is wrong about sexual abuse. They are not often taught
what is a consensual touch and what is innapropriate. Children are taken advantage of
from those they see as an authority. With the silence that comes after the sexual abuse,
comes the assimilation in the education system with body shaming.
A very controversial topic is dress codes in schools and how they play into rape
culture. While some clothing may deem to rule out as unacceptable, some dress code
rules do play a part in the victimization in rape culture. One example is the equalization
of minors. Based on only a notion, policies put in place at secondary education institutes
teaches that men are inherently sexually aggressive and that the victims, which are
usually women or female-bodied, must tolerate it by avoiding to make the aggressor
aggressive. (Crittenden) By avoiding that, victims are controlled on what they wear and
are forced to cover up body parts such as shoulders, thighs, and a bit of back. Even when
victims are covered, they are still question if they are covered enough: are their pants too
tight? Are their shirts too tight or long enough? Is the outfit too sexually appealing? What
were they doing? What actions did the victim do to cause this upon themselves.
Rape culture doesnt stop at school dress codes either. It also goes on to high
education institutes like college universities. This is where the statistic for woman being
raped at 1/5 goes up to 1/4. (Chemaly) Date rape drugs and alcohol are the most used
substance for date rape on college campuses to rape victims without much aggressive
physical action. (Chemaly) While universities do have a process in helping out victims
with support and counseling, they often do not take further action due to the victimizing

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questions: what were they wearing? What were they doing? What were they drinking?
Why were they drinking, and so on. Rape culture in the education institutes go even as far
as dismissing men or male-bodied people when they experience sexual assault or rape.
Many of the victims that are men or male-bodied do not seek help from the support
programs in universities.

It is taught that men are powerful and must not experience any emotional trauma
or sensitive emotions. With all of the health and support systems to help against rape,
men are least likely to attend them or get help because they are afraid to admit emotional
weakness. (Statistics) Secondary institutes, society, and the judicial system undermine the
male rape victims, which contributes to rape culture in that it is dismissing the victim and
again, victimizing. Victimization delves into not only blaming the victim, but also it goes
into undermining the victim, and disregarding the whole situation. This puts the victim in
a place where they are forced to be silent or are reprehended or punished if they are not.
This is seen in the work place. Often reported sexual assault, coercion into sex to get a
high position or to keep a secret, and not speaking up in fear of losing a job or ruining the
predators reputation, all play a part in rape culture.
While the workplace is a field where one gains experience and cooperation on a
corporate field, it too is a place for rape culture. A little over 1/4 of women are sexually
assaulted or raped in the work place, and a little over 1/5 of those victims dont report it,
rape culture creates a negative environment for the victims. (Sexual Violence) The
questions are raised again: what was the victim wearing, what was the victim doing, was
the victim even doing their job and so on. These repeated questions are also almost

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always answered and follow punishment for the victim. Victims are blackmailed into not
reporting the incident. The victim is forced to not report it due to possibly ruining either
their, their aggressors, or their companys reputation, or the victims have a possibility of
losing their job if reported. Sexual assault and rape looks bad on companies, which makes
it easy for them to shut it down by either forcing the victim to stay quiet or just get rid of
the victim entirely by firing them. (Sexual Violence) Unfortunately in the current society
in the United States, rape culture does not go away. It is experienced through childhood
adolescent, through school, and even through the work place.
Rape culture pushes victims to feel guilt and blame themselves. It pushes the
further silence of sexual abuse and assault. Silence and the lack of teaching of what is
deemed as inappropriate behavior contribute to rape culture in a wide scale society
starting from early childhood development until adulthood. It affects everyone from the
start of early education and follows all the way to the work force. Rape culture is a
societal norm taught through either internalized or blatant behaviors described as
shaming, disregarding, guilt, and other behaviors that can be labeled as negative.

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Bibliography

Chemaly, Soraya. "50 Actual Facts About Rape." The Huffington Post.
TheHuffingtonPost.com, 26 Oct. 2012. Web. 17 Sept. 2015.

Crittenden, Anna Beth. "Viking Fusion :: How Dress Codes Play into Rape
Culture." Viking Fusion :: How Dress Codes Play into Rape Culture. Campus Carrier
Assistant Features Editors, 9 Oct. 2014. Web. 17 Sept. 2015

"Sexual Violence & the Workplace." NSVRC. National Sexual Violence Resource,
2013. Web. 17 Sept. 2015.

"Statistics | RAINN | Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network." Statistics |

RAINN | Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. Web. 17 Sept. 2015.