Liveblogging WAM: Sunday Afternoon Session

I’m at “Pulling the Plug on Rape Culture One Word at a Time: Using Accuracy to Undermine Dangerous Attitudes and Injustice,” with Cara Kulwicki, Ashley Burczak, Marcella Chester, and Ashwini Hardikar. Below are some (largely paraphrased) thoughts from the presenters:

Cara: The words we use are important — words mean things. One of the most common is using “sex” instead of “rape.” Time and time again we see rape referred to as “sex” — even when the victim is a child who could not have consented. It’s even worse when it comes to adult women who are capable of consent. The kind of language we use has consequences — it sways public opinion about whether we believe rape survivors, which impacts a survivor’s ability to have support from her community.

The status of being unrapeable: A word that describes a certain rape apologist mindset, wherein a given person is construed by various means as living in a permanent state of consent, and therefore completely unable to be a victim. For example: A sex worker in Pennsylvania was raped at gunpoint, but a judge deemed the crime “theft of services” instead of rape.

“Grey rape”: A term created by virginity crusader Laura Sessions Step. Sessions Step: “[Grey rape] refers to sex that falls somewhere between consent and denial and is even more confusing than date rape because often both parties are unsure of who wanted want.” What becomes clear, though, is that in these “grey rape” cases, the women said no — making it actual rape.

Ashwini: “Rape Culture” in the US and South Asia: A Comparative Perspective

In both Hollywood and Bollywood, consensual sex is given a higher rating (R or NC-17) than depictions of violent sexual acts. In American media, violent sexual acts are normalized. For example, in “Boys Don’t Cry,” a consensual lesbian sex act had to be changed in order to prevent it from being rated NC-17; but horrific gang rape and murder scenes didn’t risk increasing the rating and stayed in the film. “The Last House on the Left” has “one of the most upsetting rape scenes committed to film,” but is still rated R. In India, there’s a similar pattern of consensual intimate behavior vs. violent sexual acts; a french kiss will cause riots on the street, but you can have all the rape scenes you want. Depictions of coercion and violence from to hero to woo the heroine are routine. One study found that 41% of sexual scenes in Bollywood movies contained some type of violence — and it wasn’t always depicted in a negative way.

Sexual violence amongst youth in India is widespread. There’s an epidemic of “eve-teasing,” which is street sexual harassment. The majority of harassers are youths (30% college students). In public space, consensual intimacy is targeted by police, while sexual harassment is ignored or condoned — often police are the culprits. The Blank Noise Project documents and confronts street harassment in India.

Youth and sexual violence in the U.S.: Sexual violence disproportionately affects youth. Youth have the highest levels of dating violence among all demographics; and there’s a normalization of violence in the family. The Chris Brown/Rihanna situation provides a good case study for how youth look at violence: In one study, 46% of teenagers said Rihanna was responsible for what happened; 52% said both bore responsibility. For young women of color, sexual violence within communities is often silenced for many reasons — historical racism, white supremacy — but the consequence of that is that women don’t speak out, and that we’re encouraged to “stand by our men.”

Marcella: Rape culture is the cumulative effect of toxic personal attitudes and toxic systems related to sex, consent and sexual violence. Because rape culture is rooted in each of us, we can each help to pull the blog. Rape culture keeps running by claiming to be objective, interested in protecting the innocent, and opposed to sex crimes.

My messages from rape culture: We don’t talk about consent; girls are responsible for enforcing limits; normal boys ignore limits; and rapists are strangers. So even though I was forcibly raped, I took the message that the rape was my fault.

My rapist’s messages from rape culture: Mixed signals can be ignored even when “no” is present; girls are responsible for enforcing limits; normal boys ignore limits; rapists are strangers. The result was that forcing me wasn’t rape.

Rapists need positive motives — that’s how they can rationalize what they do. That’s how a “nice guy” can justify committing an act of violence. They spin reality — they tell themselves that women want to be forced.

For years after I was raped, I took the blame. I was lectured on morality by my rapist, because acting out after I was raped did not meet his approval.

Rape culture was designed for those who feel entitled.

Ashley: Now that we’ve discussed what some of the problems are, I want to discuss some of the ways we can make change. People are indoctrinated into rape culture; we aren’t born that way. The narratives of rape culture are repeated to us through authority figures until we internalize them. The media is a primary source here, but it’s not the only one — it’s your daycare center, your church group, your peer group, your college, your parents. If we want to stop this process of indoctrination, we need to stop the institutions from repeating the narratives of rape culture, and pull the resources away from those institutions in order to spread our counter-narrative.

One of the counternarratives that we use comes in the form of sexual assault prevention programs. There are good and bad programs out there. Effective sexual assault prevention programs focus on the behavior of the perpetrator and the bystanders and not the victim. What the victim does is irrelevant; the person who can prevent rape is the rapist. Effective programs focus on the rapist and on the people who can intervene. Those programs work to break down all forms of oppression, because those oppressions are the root causes of sexual violence.

Probably what a lot of you have gotten if you’ve ever gone to a prevention program, it was something like, “All right guys, lock your doors, lock your windows, watch out for vans, watch your drink, use the buddy system… basically, if you lock yourself in your room and don’t go out, you’ll be safe.” All victim-focused.

If men are supposed to be dominant, and if they aren’t supposed to be empathetic or sensitive, and if they are empathetic or sensitive they’ll be considered feminine — which is the worst thing a man can be — it’s a pretty clear line into rape culture.

Prevention programs are most effective when they’re long-termed and sustained, as opposed to a one-shot deal. Awareness-raising doesn’t challenge anything, and is not effective when it comes to prevention.

So how do we get these programs incorporated into the various structures of indoctrination that we have in our culture? Basically, we have to convince those in power to remove the elements of rape culture, and to institute programs that challenge rape culture. Power structures change because they are forced to. So if we want to make power-holders make changes to the structures they control, we need to create a situation where it’s easier for them to give us what we want than to keep doing what they’re doing. First, you figure out a concrete, measurable structural change that would challenge rape culture — maybe getting the MPAA to label any films that contain sexual violence, or getting your Sunday school to bring in a rape prevention program. It needs to be a specific goal that someone can give you. Once you have that concrete goal, you figure out who can give you what you want.

We’ve heard some bad news today: It’s that rape culture exists. The good news is that rape culture will end. And the best news is that we’re all going to be part of that.

Cara: For me, it’s not primarily about convictions. I’m pissed off about convictions and I’m pissed off at low rates of reporting and I’m pissed off about low sentences, but I don’t think that’s going to be what solves rape culture. It’s about education and prevention. I think victims services are amazing and they need more funding and support, but people need to not be raped in the first place.

Ashley: One thing I always thought would be a great prevention program for a college campus would be a group of male college students to mentor boys in the community, so that you’re extending the circle of people you’re working with — you work with men, and men work with boys.