To say that the UK is not a Rape Culture?

[PatriarchyPersonified]

So I have had an argument with a lady I work with today that has ended with her calling me the "Patriarchy Personified", hence the name.

She claimed that the UK was a Rape Culture. I completely disagree and it feels like this is more creeping 'third wave' bullshit.

If you look at the definition of Rape Culture which is:

a society or environment whose prevailing social attitudes have the effect of normalizing or trivializing sexual assault and abuse.

Then it's clear that she is wrong. I don't disagree that there are elements of UK society that I would argue probably are characterised in this way, but you can not describe the whole UK in those terms.

She was extremely unhappy to be challenged, I work with her on a weekly basis and I've got a feeling I'm not going to have heard the last of this!

It's not just men who think they have a right to have sex, some women actually have that mindset too. My DM's advice to me when struggling to cope with the idea of having sex with my DH because of traumatic flashbacks of being raped as a child: 'lie back and think of England.'

Yes, rape culture. It's ingrained, the idea that a wife has to give her husband sex even if she doesn't want to.

Stig analysing mobile phones to find out where someone was only applies to certain rapes. Again the 'stranger in a balaclava' rapes which really reflect only a tiny proportion of the problem.

Working in that environment how much exposure did you have to rapes where the man is admitting he was there, admitting penetration occurred but claiming it was consensual?

And I really would avoid using the word hysteria in the context of women's issues. A quick google on the history of the word will tell you why.

I think a lot of men fail to understand what the term rape culture is intended to describe. Additionally, a lot of them are also defensive about discussing rape as a class issue and shit at listening to women.

We can see on this thread that the male posters have only talked about rape whereas the women have talked about a whole spectrum of behaviors and phenomena. That is that the men have talked about rape whereas the women have talked about rape culture.

Women are, despite the minimization and normalizing of male sexualised violence and threats of male sexualised violence, unsurprisingly, quite sensitive to it. Because we have to be. We can never afford to turn our radar off and our spidey senses are constantly making assessments of everyday situations such as walking down the street, going on a date, being on a tightly packed train, being in a bar or a club, going to the doctor, at our work place, in our homes, etc. We are also, despite being constantly bombarded with them, sensitive to sexist images which display women as sex objects, prey, victims, enjoying sexualised violence or finding sexualised violence inevitable. These things are all propaganda for rape culture.

Rape culture is primarily about and reflective of socialization. It's about messages about sexualised violence as much as it is about the violence itself. The message is that women are the sex class and that sex is what we are for. Unless one gets one's head around this fundamental feminist analysis of society, one is unlikely to have a good understanding of what feminists mean by the term rape culture as it is built on the above analysis of girls and women as the sex class.

We have seen the dictionary definition a lot on this thread that describes rape culture as minimizing rape and sexual assault. It's a good enough definition but the male posters have failed to ask and or understand why rape culture minimizes sexualised violence and how it minimizes it.

Rape culture minimizes sexualised violence because otherwise there would be a fucking revolution and girls and women would be on the streets the world over protesting it and the female oppression that it is part and parcel of. Sexualised violence keeps girls and women in their place. It is, as feminists say, a tool of oppression.

As for the how rape culture minimizes sexualised violence, well that's been described by plenty of posters on this thread when we talk about the continuum of behaviors and society wide phenomena that teach women and men that sexualised violence and an atmosphere of sexualised violence is inevitable and normal (groping, cat calling, leering, flashing, rape jokes, pestering women and girls for sex, porn, prostitution, porny music videos, etc plus the massively high rates of rape and sexual assault).

The men on this thread seem fixated on the idea that rape culture is about rape when it is actually about culture (the clue being in the name).

But the reverse assertion - yours - is equally subjective, isn't it? You can no more objectively defend that the whole of the UK 'is a rape culture' than I can defend that rape culture is a subculture. I don't see how my view of it is any more ridiculous than yours. And I have already explained why I think it and don't care how clear you make your question.

Pengggwn, I can defend my own opinion though, and I have - to me, the stats we’ve endlessly quoted on this thread are enough to make me believe the uk has a culture of rape. I’ve already told you that.

The only answer you have given for your opinion of ‘sub-culture’ is ‘it doesn’t affect me’. I think I’ve asked you enough times with no further clarification from you, so I’d say your position is pretty clear now.

Brilliant post Beachcomber

Pengggwn, the thing is, you actually don't know how many of the people you know have been affected by rape. It's not something that's talked about. It makes people uncomfortable when we talk about it so we don't. That's how it was at my previous church (we don't go there now). It's as if we the victims have something to be ashamed about.

It could be that someone you know has a secret like that in her past, or has a family member who has been through it.

Rape culture is about whole picture that supports and enables rape.

There are 85,000 rapes in the U.K. every year. Well, there are a lot more, but many go unreported.

9/10 rapes are carried out by someone the woman knows.

This means the sexual violence has been minimised to the extent that rape is the “go to” behaviour within families and partnerships in. Thousands of cases.

If sexual violence was entirely an anathema to society as a whole, this wouldn’t be the case.

Equally, if there was no rape culture, it wouldn’t be the case that 1 in 5 women have experienced sexual assault.

It wouldn’t be the case that women are rountinely told how to not get raped, and that that advice tells us how to dress and behave and where we should go - and who with.

So yes, OP, there IS a rape culture.

Thanks pumper.

Lizzie48 - what you DM said is awful and yes it is rape culture in action. So sorry to hear what was done to you as a child and how you were expected to just get over it and get on with it (total minimization) 😞
Hope you are doing OK - very brave of you to talk about it.

Again, that is not what I have said. It isn't my fault that you are hard of listening/reading.

That’s rude.

That’s exactly what you’ve said.

It is. And you’ve had to resort to insults because you know it’s exactly what you said.

That’s fine, you’re allowed your opinion. But reading all the experiences and discussion on here, then classifying rape culture as a ‘sub-culture’ because it doesn’t directly affect you (or anybody in your family, friends, PiL or P5 class), then refusing to clarify further, does makes your argument a bit....goady? Pointless? Unnecessary?

Thank you, Beachcomber. Minimising is something my DM does a lot now I think about it. She herself was abused by her uncle (her guardian at the time) and when she told me, it was like it was nothing. 'I handled it, it was my cross to bear', that sort of thing.

I remember she had a hard time believing that rape could take place within marriage.

Pengggwyn, great that no one close to you has been affected by rape culture, as far as you know. But as has been explained, it's the attitudes that shape our culture that we're talking about here. The attitudes that minimise women's experiences, brush them under the carpet.

Beachcomber

Excellent post.

Every few lines you wrote, an image was popping into my head of exactly the sort of things you’re talking about. Real, animated images that I have seen and I know about. It’s utterly familiar and endemic. Would be to most women.

There were any number of articles after the #metoo campaign. Almost all of which focused on the various reactions of men. From disbelief, to minimisation, to outright denial. And cries of citations please.

They would write almost exactly what you have written. And then, would get further emails and comments from men minimising, disbelieving and denying!

Comments from men followed a pattern. Even the ‘good’ ones. Often a, yes I’m listening, okay I hear you followed by but, but, but..

Because they are hearing without listening.

They are utterly determined not to minimise what they imagine is rape. Without understanding, as you say, the culture that surrounds it and promotes it.

The long married woman. Whose husband rarely drinks. But when he does she dreads it, because he won’t take no for an answer. There is no violence, there is no shouting. But it’s sex she doesn’t want to have. That’s rape.

The numerous images of a man ‘seducing’ an unwilling woman into submission. That’s rape.

Scarlett O’Hara who is raped by Rhett Butler, and the next morning is shown having fallen in love with him. You know, because he’s a rugged, jack the lad so it’s fine. And anyway, he loves her, so it can’t be rape.

Took 15 years for rape with marriage to be made illegal. 15 years of obstruction and objection to that law.

That’s a mere 25 years ago. I don’t know how anyone can seriously think that a culture that thought sex on demand was a man’s right and should be legally enshrined, has changed their attitude in such a short space of time.

Pengggwyn, I’ve said twice now that your opinion is valid. I see I’m not the only one that you’ve accused of ‘misrepresenting’ your posts (AnotherEmma). I’ll say it again:

Your opinion that rape culture is a sub-culture because it doesn’t affect you directly is valid. You are entitled to that opinion.

I have a different opinion.

I think that’s as far as we can take this discussion, don’t you?

Pengggwyn, I have better things to do than argue about what you did or didn't mean. Ok, I interpreted what you said wrongly, I apologise, let's leave it at that.

Pengywwn you posted the following to me:

Beachcomber

I have certainly not said or suggested that rape affects some sort of negligible underclass. I said (if I remember rightly) that it is a significant issue. Don't put words in my mouth.

And you posted in in reply to me saying this:
The detail as to whether rape culture is a sub culture (by which I understand you to mean that it only affects some kind of negligible underclass) or whether it matters?

I didn't say that you think rape affects some sort of negligible underclass. I said that I understand that you think rape culture affects a negligible underclass.

What else do you expect people to understand from your insistence that rape culture exists only as a phenomenon of subculture? (A subculture that you have failed to describe despite a few of us asking what you mean by the term).

You have mentioned that you think MTV is a subculture - how can that be when it's piped into every television in the land?! You may not watch it but that doesn't make it obscure. Most people consider MTV to be a very mainstream popular culture commercial music channel. It's hardly edgy independent rocknroll being produced in basements by rebellious radicals!!

Datun, excellent post. A lot of films seem to describe relationships in this way.

Part of the problem with the rape culture idea is that it positions rape as a primarily female problem. This is because feminists tend to only look at certain narrow definitions of the offence.

Most people know that trans people actually suffer higher rates of both assault and sexual violence but that these often go unreported in a similar manner to many of the rapes mentioned above.

This is because trans people don't fit the demographics of the typical 'victim' and hence are less likely to be taken seriously. When discussing their experiences in court many trans people state that they feel as if they 'are on trial' for being trans and that there is often the unspoken suggestion that they were 'asking for it'.

This is exacerbated by the fact that they don't fit into the culturally dominant narrative - our world is even more hetero dominant than it is masculine dominant. Add to this the fact that men cannot be legally 'raped' by women in some countries as this definition requires the use of a penis (lady penises exempt).

Many trans people do not report the rapes they are subject to, but every policeman, transperson, court official knows that they are happening. I don't need to provide statistics to assert something that everyone already knows.

The problem with being trans is that you don't just face prejudice from men but also from women, and part of the reason that so many trans rapes go unreported is because the principal force that combats rape culture (feminism) does not recognise trans people and will attempt to silence their voices at every opportunity through a view that many trans people are just men (i.e. the oppressors of women).