...) Rape Culture on College Campuses and Why it Prevails Rape has become a taboo topic. Sexual assault is sugar coated into something less disturbing and brutal than it actually is. But rape is rape: the act of male or female taking sexual control or dominance over a nonwilling participant. It does not matter whether or not people feels comfortable discussing the topic of rape. Uncomfortability does not make a problem disappear. It is possible that rape culture is ignored because no one knows a permanent solution for it. But not talking about it will not fix it. An environment where rape culture prevails is on college campuses. 1 in every 4 college students admit to being raped or sexually assaulted on campus, this number fails to include the thousands of rape victims whose stories are never heard. Rape culture prevails on college campus because only an estimated 35% of these victims’ abusers are dealt with. Of those, only an estimated 20 30% percent are dealt with severely. Colleges ignore the severity rape culture on campus because it is a problem that is extremely difficult to remedy, but ignoring a problem will not solve it. “Culture is vital to the human species, but some cultural patterns are destructive” (Herman 45). Rape culture occurs when a set of values or beliefs create an environment that is conducive to rape. Rape culture does not refer to an actual place or setting, but to a culture that directly and indirectly surrounds and supports rape. ...
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...murder, is rape (Byers 47). As defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary rape is unlawful sexual intercourse carried out by force. Despite rape being an abominable crime more than half of all victims do not report their rape to authority (Byers 47). Of those victims who do report ninety percent are women (“Scope of”). Among those women, one in five are victims of sexual assault in college (Kutner 31). However, colleges are not doing enough to protect their female student body. The Center for Public Integrity has reported that only ten to twenty-five percent of these campus rapist will be expelled from school in fear that the school's reputation would be tarnish...
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...that victim are four times greater for a college female student than for any other age group. The phenomenon of date rape is not new, however it has evolved into a communication phenomenon, in which communication about sex and rape, the negotiation of consent, the rape itself, the aftermath of rape and the reaction to date rape, are central to defining a rape culture on campus. Women have been muted in a multitude of ways, including the methods in which women tell stories, through male-controlled media, in ways women’s bodies are portrayed and analyzed, and through censorship of women’s voices. Rape is a horrible experience, so why would women keep quiet about it. Campus cultures perpetuate the `culture of silence` that exists among young men and women by fostering a culture of rape which silences experiences and advocates victim blaming (self blame) that is set ablaze by the social acceptance of rape myths, experiences not being defined as rape, secondary rape, and the absence of deterrence, all of which create an underlying tolerance towards rape. In this paper I will examine how women are affected by the rape supportive culture that exists on campuses and creates an internalization of self blame are muted before, during, and after the experience of date rape. Both male and female students contribute to muting women, thus perpetuating a rape culture in which rape becomes an expectation, or part of the social milieu. Only a male dominated society that trains men to use women as...
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...A prominent example of this issue was presented by the fraternity, Phi Kappa Tau, of Georgia Tech University. They were found singing lyrics to songs that described explicit ways to rape the women who were at their parties. Not only did these songs contribute to finding humor in a dehumanizing act towards women, but also to the normalization of rape. The actions of the fraternity went unchecked and the members did not face any consequences, which led to the sexual assault of at least two women (Chemaly Paragraph 2). Eventually, when emails sent between fraternity members instructed the men on how to sexually assault females at their parties, these songs were used to support the case against them. However, the Phi Kappa Tau’s lawyer claimed in their defense that the rape victims were “‘exploiting the hypersensitivity of today’s college campus environment toward sexual assault”’ (Chemaly Paragraph 2). While some people in modern society tend to overhype current issues in the world, sexual assault is a recurring and prevalent concern among college women who have triple the chance of getting raped than their male peers (Angelone 188). Desensitization of such songs leads to a greater proclivity for the incidence of rape or sexual assault. Furthermore, at an off-campus fraternity at Amherst College in Massachusetts, students were found with t-shirts depicting a woman clad in her bra and panties who was bruised and tied to a stick with a an apple in her mouth while being...
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...timely warning has been issued at University Park in regards to a rape or forceful sex offense on campus. We slide open our phones, check to see the details of the warning, and then close our screens to continue on with our day. However, although we may seem unaffected by the warning, someone’s life has become completely altered and turned upside down. In his powerful and tear-jerking narrative, Missoula, Jon Krakauer becomes the voice behind those involved in these tragic and nauseating cases that we are quick to bypass as just timely warnings. As a journalist, Krakauer’s main mission is to give a voice to the voiceless and shed light on the injustices...
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...a smaller minority population, demographers have shown between 1 in 3 Indigenous female youths aged 25 and under have encountered sexual violence. This number also means Native American Girls are 2.5 times more likely to suffer sexual violence than any other ethnic group. 34.1% of sexual assaults upon Indigenous female youths reportedly occurred on campus. According to National Institute of Justice Native male youths 27.5 % have encountered rape. That which occurred on campus is currently unaccounted for. As reported by Human Rights Campaign 65% of Indigenous transgender have also suffered at the hands of sexual violence, such as the case in the documentation of the sexual assaults on Indigenous boys there is no said data. The reasoning...
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...In Rape Culture Is... the video discuss the difference between consent and and coercion. Lynn Philips describe rape culture as people making fun of women who have been abused, the video further discusses how woman are usually taken advantage of, and how the word rape is often thrown around. In our society, when someone comes out saying they have been raped, there are always those questions asked, like what were you wearing, how were you acting, and even more. Those questions make a person feel like it was there fault but in reality it wasn't, no one is asked to be raped. In Campus Rape Victim: A Struggle for Justice, they discuss how rape victims first intent is to be quiet when they are first assaulted. They often blamed themselves and don't come forward when it happens. The text went into detail of the stories of those who were a victim of rape. They talked about the Jeanne Clery Act, that would make campus a safer place to be. In Valin and Auleb's Sexual Violence and Abuse, the slides covered facts and statistics about rape. One of the slides mentioned that silence means no, I feel like in most cases, the abusers think that it was ok because the person didn't say anything, when in reality it's not okay. In the Band Back Together, the text covers some myths regarding male sexual assault. The whole text talks about how males can be a victim of sexual assault, but society always sees men as people who can defend themselves, even though that is not true. And in...
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...From a sociological viewpoint, we comprehend the word “culture,” to be things that people frequently engage in simultaneously as a society. So when we talk about “rape culture”, we’re talking about cultural systems that we frequently participate in together as a society that excuses or tolerates sexual violence. This is widely seen on college campuses across the United States of America. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is a federal civil rights law that proscribes discrimination on the substratum of sex, which can includes sexual harassment, rape, and sexual assault in any educational program or activity that receives federal funding (ACLU, 2015). However this public policy is inconsistent in some ways. In order to make it more...
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...Sec A #1 – -One out of five female students on college campuses will experience sexual assault. If there was a university-wide reading of “S. A Novel About the Balkans” by Slakenka Drakulic, it would change campus culture for the better. The women affected by war essentially have no name, no life, and are nothing, but humiliated by male soldiers. This is the case in sexual assault on campus. In Reading S, it would allow for women to feel more comfortable about talking of rape, and bring light to the spectrum, instead of rape being the extreme. It would bring awareness to students on how going through war takes away a persons name, and life. On investingwest.org, many women at a campus explain their experiences after being sexually assaulted. “Both women say the schools’ handling of their cases compounded their trauma, and both point to insensitive handling that ranged from inappropriate questioning to being required to go through mediation sitting near the man they had accused” This is in issue among many campuses, and a sexual assault seminar should be apart of every school orientation, women should feel comfortable to talk about rape. Each character in the novel only has their first initial as their name besides two characters, Maj and Brit who were not apart of the war. “Were not human anymore, thinks S. the camp has stopped us from feeling human. How will we ever get used to living outside the camp again?” (Drakulic 130) from this quote alone we are able to understand...
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...The effects of alcohol on date rape on college campuses Jessica Lynch Tarleton State University Abstract College is usually thought of as a time for pushing boundaries, experimenting, coming into ones own, learning, making new friends, learning to be independent, and becoming an adult. Unfortunately date rape has also become a part of the college experience. It is a life shattering reality of many college students. Date rape does not conform to the normal idea of rape. The perpetrator is usually an acquaintance and the rape takes place in a semi-public place, like a party or dorm room. Alcohol is almost always involved in date rape. Rape is never the victim’s fault but there are steps that can be taken to help prevent it. The effects of alcohol on date rape on college campuses College is supposed to be a time of learning, fun, making new friends, discovering one’s self, partying, and dating. Unfortunately, college becomes a nightmare for some women when partying and dating are combined. Date rape has become very common amongst university students. It is important to understand what date rape is, how alcohol affects the rapist and the victim in date rape, and how it can be prevented. What is date rape? Rape is usually thought of as something that happens to other people, done by a stranger in a dark alley or during a home invasion; however, that is not usually the case. In fact, forty-seven percent of rapists are a friend or acquaintance of the victim. According to the Federal...
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...November 24, 2012 Culture in action can be described as the backbone of an organization. An organization’s culture can lead to its success or failure as it defines an organization’s perspective. Culture defines how an organization perceives membership, language, diversity, ritual and one’s identity within the organization. When these elements are combined into a culture that works for members, the organization will operate at peak performance. According to former Visa CEO Dee Hock, peak cultural performance is “In the field of group endeavor, you will see incredible events in which the group performs far beyond the sum of its individual talents. It is easy to recognize and impossible to define” (Schlesinger, Eccles, and Gabarro, 1983). When building a team or organization, the right individuals must be selected first. A culture is then built around those individuals. The sexual assault scandal at Amherst College is a perfect example of how culture can lead to the success or failure of an organization. The scandal occurred with the college’s callous treatment of female rape victims. Amherst did not treat the female victims properly because their culture was ill suited to do so. Amherst was a former all male school that included a culture of sports teams, fraternities, partying and heavy alcohol abuse. The female rape victims did not see themselves as a member of the Amherst community and culture. Many Amherst students and faculty members concluded their culture was the main reason...
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...The Impact of Acquaintance Rape for Female College Students Word Count: 3,027 Abstract Acquaintance rape, commonly referred to as "date rape," is sweeping across college campuses throughout the United States. Described as nonconsensual sexual contact achieved by force, manipulation or coercion between two people who know each other, it is a form of sexual violence that had been given little attention prior to the 1980’s. Recent studies indicate that one in four female college students will be the victim of acquaintance rape at some time during four years of college making it the fastest growing crime against females in college institutions. However, because there are widespread false impressions among all college students that acquaintance rape does not exist, is not “really rape” or is not a serious crime, many believe that it is not as traumatic to the victim as rape by someone unknown to them. These erroneous beliefs often leave the victims of acquaintance rape more devastated than the rape action itself. The purpose of this paper is to examine the facts surrounding female acquaintance rape on college campuses and the role that crisis intervention techniques play in the recovery from an experience that many experts describe as crippling. The Impact of Acquaintance Rape for Female College Students Every two minutes someone in the United States is raped, and the chance of the victim being a female college student is four times greater than that of any...
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...The Victorian notion of rape culture is not a strong viewpoint that universities should guide rape off of. The Victorian rape culture argues “the male is the guardian of female safety” in my opinion this is incorrect. By this logic, the term adult is loosely phrased and females should be subordinates of males. Females should be able to guide themselves and be able to distinguish right from wrong. Why else did women become strong figureheads in the corporate world? The arguments by Heath MacDonald in his article “Neo-Victorianism on Campus” demonstrate how false rape accusations are being justified and leading to males being punished for the females actions. Rape and sexual abuse on college campuses is unjust and bias towards females. In order for sex not to be considered rape “all parties must demonstrate a clear and mutual understanding of the nature and score of the act to which they are consenting”(2). By going into sex nobody knows what he or she is getting out of it, instead...
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...HORIZON– Brock Turner, 21, was released from prison after serving three out of his six-month sentence for sexually assaulting a woman on campus. The former Stanford swimmer was arrested in January after sexually assaulting a woman during a Fraternity Party. In June, Turner was sentenced to six months in prison according to CNN, he was charged with “assault with intent to commit rape of an intoxicated or unconscious person, penetration of an intoxicated person and penetration of an unconscious person.” When convicted, Turner blamed his actions on binge drinking and a party culture on campus, according to court records. In a letter to the judge, Turner’s mother wrote: “Your honor, I beg of you to show Brock mercy…I fear for his lifelong safety.”...
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...Rape culture, hysteria, epidemic, or whatever the currently preferred terminology be, is a feminis t myth that refuses to extinguish itself. The effect of social awareness of rape and general sensitivity in our culture has shifted our society into an anti-male, anti-free speech, and anti-American entity. In modern day, alternately “third wave” feminism, members propose a concept of “a rape culture”, suggesting that sexual assault is celebrated and a cultural norm in this society. “Third wave feminism” doesn’t have an exact definition, but can be best described as modern day feminists that believe women are being oppressed in the western world by a patriarchy. These misandristic groups blame men for rape with little evidence to support their...
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