Reality Mongering and Rape Culture

SOCIETY

When I was 18 and new to university, one of my fellow students (let’s call her A) was raped. She would never be the same. Neither would we.

When we first met, A was a good student. She spoke up in class, took part in university activities and was neither over nor under friendly. In part because of her faith, which she practiced quietly, she dressed modestly, didn’t do drugs, didn’t drink. She didn’t go to many parties.

A couple of months into the first term, someone raped her.

You could say she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The route to her student lodgings lay along a poorly lit path, making it easier for the rapist to hide.

But the lack of lighting is a distraction from the main issue: that a man decided to rape a defenseless young woman. Because rape is a decision that a man can back away from. This one didn’t.

I don’t know if the rapist was ever caught or punished, but A’s life imploded. She disappeared from campus for the rest of the school year. She came back sadder and quieter and had to repeat her first year after missing so many classes. She avoided attracting attention and became almost invisible. Eventually, she completed her studies, and that was the last I heard of her.

The Reality of Rape

Her story reflects a painful reality for many women, which the case of the Stanford rapist has brought to the fore again. I don’t believe in fear-mongering but how about a bit of reality-mongering?

• The reality is: around the world women are raped every day.

• The reality is: it’s usually by someone they know. (It later turned out that A wasn’t the only person I knew who’d been raped. Someone close to me was assaulted by someone running a course she was taking, ending in rape).

• The reality is: it’s never the woman’s fault, but some people find it convenient to make out that it is.

• The reality is: around the world, laws on rape vary and in most cases, they don’t favor the woman (I know this because I once had to proofread a report on this very subject).

• The reality is: even if the rapist is caught and convicted — a very rare happening — the punishment will almost never fit the crime. You only have to look at the “punishment” for the Stanford rapist to see that in action.

• The reality is: after being raped, women deal with the mental, physical and emotional trauma for the rest of their lives.

Talking to my Daughter about Rape

I think about men, women and rape (incidentally the subtitle of a powerful book about rape by Susan Brownmiller given to me by my own father in my teens) as I consider what to tell my own teenaged daughter about sexual politics and rape culture.

I believe she should be able to be herself and dress as she wishes without being a target, but that’s not the reality and she needs to know that. As a mother, you have to prepare your kids.

So I encouraged her to take a basic self-defense course at the age of 12, and will encourage her to take a more advanced one soon.

• I will tell her that playful touching games can easily turn into unwanted attention and the belief that she encouraged a boy’s advances, but she always has the right to say no.

• I will tell her that people who joke about rape (as has happened in my town a couple of times lately) are not worth knowing.

• I will encourage her to protect herself by all legal means. We don’t do guns in our house, but hairpins, pepper spray and kicks in the nuts are fine.

• I will encourage her to be vigilant without being paranoid.

My friends who have daughters no doubt have similar conversations with them. My friends who have sons raise those sons to treat women with respect.

They’re not the problem.

The problem is a society where women are often a target by virtue of their gender and men are often excused for their decisions by virtue of theirs. How else could you explain a three-month sentence for someone who was caught in the act of rape by two reliable witnesses?

Sex vs Rape

Sex is something an adult, mentally able woman has to freely consent to, free from duress or the influence of mind-altering substances. If that’s not the case, then it’s rape, and rape is a decision that a man is always free NOT to take.

I would love to see a big change in the way society treats rapists and the survivors of rape. When people commit murder, we are often happy to throw the book at them. The act of rape kills rape survivors’ previous lives — shouldn’t the punishment reflect that?