Seminar on rape culture

[MadamFolly]

I'm a semi-regular on Mumsnet, namechanged a few times and have been a major lurker and sometime poster on this topic for about 2 years. I therefore know how knowledgable and great you all are and thought I'd ask for some advice.

I'm running a lecture/seminar for year 12 students in a couple of weeks and would like to run it on the topic of rape culture to compliment someone else who is doing sex trafficking.

I thought I might start with a slideshow of media images that glorify sexual abuse, like <a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=rape+culture&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&rls=com.microsoft:en-gb:IE-SearchBox&tbm=isch&tbnid=EwGkS-P90wqGvM:&imgrefurl=www.straightuplove.com/rape-culture/&docid=8xP8guAGt6FZNM&imgurl=www.straightuplove.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/dolce.jpg&w=700&h=450&ei=doyrT7HuBOmQ0AXl1PTeBg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=697&vpy=149&dur=265&hovh=180&hovw=280&tx=228&ty=106&sig=103915921984611488089&page=1&tbnh=124&tbnw=186&start=0&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:0,i:80&biw=1024&bih=600&surl=1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this maybe.

Then I thought I'd go on to talk about social interactions, 'banter' and how they contribute before moving on to some ficticious court cases where the victim is not believed or said to have been 'asking for it'.

I then thought I'd speak about advice for rape prevention which focusses on the woman like 'don't get drunk and walk home alone' and talk about victim blaming and the slutwalk.

After that I though to open the floor for questions and discussion.

What do you think? Too much? Am I missing anything major? I really want to get it right and make it both as informative and interesting as I can.

Also definitely worth discussing that all the rules around rape, were made by rapists. In no other crime, does the criminal get to set the terms of the debate.

Good point Basil - particularly in reference to questioning of rape victim's sexual history in criminal trials. How we can on one hand enshrine in law that it is possible for a husband to rape a wife (consent even many times previously does not mean consent this time) and on the other hand allow rape victims to be questioned on their previous sexual history (as if having sex at all previously implies consent at any time) is completely illogical. Still goes on in courts despite various attempts by the Bar Council/CPS etc to educate the judiciary and the barristers.

Under criminal evidence rules a defendant is not allowed to be questioned about previous convictions, even in face of huge similarity (some exceptions like particularly distinctive M.O. of previous crimes but prosecutor will have to argue to introduce this as evidence) unless the defendant asserts his/her good character (thereby bringing it into play and allowing it to be disputed in cross-examination). Rape victims don't even have be asserting 'good' character (whatever that would mean in the context of sexual history ) to be up for a character assassination.

Thank you Wheezo, yes that's exactly what I mean.

I also love Basil's comment that the rules were made by rapists, I wonder if in someway if you could link this to the phrase that history is written by the victors?

Not in any way assuming that rape is some sort of war to be won, God no but more to impress than the person 'in power' is more likely to believed but is not necessary the truth. .

For example: slavery was seen as a 'good' thing for so long, church, law etc saw it as true. . .white man knows best, so a slave was never believed.

I'm not expressing this very well am I?

Or from my background, Irish RC, to the majority of my friends parents what the priests or brothers said was LAW, not to Ma & Da, I have no idea if they ever experienced anything wrong but I knew when my spidey alarm rang with one of my teachers, who was a monk, they backed me to the hilt, and complained about him to everyone.

And he wasnt teaching the next term, what happened further I really don't know as a 12 year old I was just happy he was gone.

Sorry I have wandered off point here.

But Nyac, consent is a is central to any court hearing so it's really important that everyone is educated about it. A rape usually takes place between 2 people in private so there are no witnesses. The rapist will choose the victim for his or her vulnerability - whether its jumping on a stranger or DV at home and victims don't always fight back, through fear, misplaced 'politeness' (yes, lots of females are not able to be assertive) or just that the rapist has overpoered the victim, - and so the defence will be that she/he consented. Although it's now agreed that in law a drunken person cannot give consent, a rapist can say he didn't know she was drunk and so get away with it.

I believe its all about how the rapist puts his case across and how he presents himself in court. If he is reasonably intelligent and apears well groomed and articulate and says this woman came on to me, I had no reason to think she was drunk, we had consensual sex and i'm really surprised that she has accused me of rape, the jury has to balance this up with the victim's story which would be- I was really so drunk i didn't know what I was doing and this man forced himself on me and I too drunk and frightened to fight him off or even to shout out. The jury are told that if there is a shadow of doubt in their mind, they should acquit him plus what they will be thinking about the woman would be either that she was to blame because of her behaviour, thus excusing the rapist, or that she was lying because she hadn't said no.

added to this, the victim is not given any opportunity to defend herself in court against the allegations-she is a witness who must just answer the questions

Sorry for this long post - but what I'm trying to say is that much more education is needed about this so that the general public understand the complexities of consent, that most victims do not agree to prosecutions because it is very traumatic to be in court being judged by the jury after such dreadful violation, and that once the rapist has been acquitted that victim has to live with the worry that people will think that because the rapist has been acquited, he must be innocent and she must be lying.

www.rapecrisis.org.uk/mythsampfacts2.php

this should help

Yes I know someone who was anally raped but reported it as an
assault to the police as she didn't know this constituted rape - and this, plus the rapist saying she consented, was twisted by the defence as meaning she hadn't been raped and the rapist was set free. Everyone should be educated that rape is unwanted penetration.

If you're talking about rape culture then the clear link to wider society needs to be made. There is a tendency for people to individualise everything at the moment. Rape culture is about how society legitimates rape. It's massively important to communicate that. Some other stuff mentioned, whilst it is also important, can individualise the issue. So individual perpetrators, individual victims and if you don't identify with either of those positions it seems irrelevant. Rape as a societal problem, which legitimates myths, is a really important thing to make sure gets highlighted.

Not sure if I'm making sense, but it's like the consent thing, important but easily become individualised. Rape culture goes much beyond this.

I agree about the rape culture thing.

On the other thread, someone made the point that most rapists don't think they are rapists - they just don't think they're doing anything wrong. It's really important to point out that rapists aren't some other, special kind of man who can be easily spotted - they're just like a lot of other men, the only difference being that they act on their entitled beliefs.

I think they take advantage of vulnerable women. Whether they think they're dong wrong or not is a moot point. A man who rapes his wife may have a greater sense of entitlement than a stranger rape because he sees her as a possession. But then a stranger rape may also have a warped ideas that the woman is there for the taking.

You could discuss the idea (pretty prominant in teen culture) that men need sex and can't be expected to go without it for any length of time. This idea puts pressure on girls in opposite-sex relationships to have sex before they're ready in order to keep their boyfriends, and puts pressure on boys who don't fit the stereotype. Relatedly, you could talk about rape being about power rather than being the victim's 'fault' for being irresistable.

Try to give some thought to making sure you don't exclude gay teens. I know with time constraints it's easier to focus on opposite-sex relationships, but sex-ed often completely ignores the possibility of same-sex relationships, and that's very marginalising and harmful.

This sex-ed website scarleteen is quite good.

Domestic violence and abuse is equally common in same-sex relationships as in opposite-sex relationships, but in same-sex relationships the victim is less likely to report it to the police. www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/jan/08/socialcare.comment