Rape Culture

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Rape rate according to police statistics per 100,000 inhabitants, 2010–2012

Rape culture (from English rape "rape" and culture "culture") describes social milieus or societies in which rape and other forms of sexual violence are widespread and largely tolerated or tolerated.

Such a “rape culture” transfers the precaution and prevention of and even the responsibility for rape partly or entirely to the victims (usually women), for example by accusing them of having been provoked by their choice of clothing, their behavior or otherwise have ( victim blaming ). This goes hand in hand with the trivialization of rape and the degradation of those affected or potential victims to sexual objects.

term

The term rape culture is used in feminist , political and social science discourses. In the German-language literature, both the Anglicism rape culture and, less often, the direct translation of rape culture can be found .

Sexual assault and other forms of sexualised violence are primarily crimes of individual individuals, but can be promoted by a large number of social factors. As a Rape Culture such cultures are referred to, where this is the case. However, there is no generally accepted definition of which social factors promote sexual violence.

Origin and use of the term

In the early 1970s, feminists began attempts to raise the general public's awareness of the incidence of rape. Until then, rape was rarely discussed or admitted:

"Until the 1970s, most Americans assumed that rape, incest, and wife-beating rarely happened."

"Up until the 1970s, most Americans assumed that rape, incest, and spanking wives were rare."

Part of the efforts to raise awareness was the establishment of the term rape culture .

According to the Encyclopedia of Rape , the English term originated during the second wave of feminism in the United States , was widely used in various media in the 1970s, and is widely used by feminists to describe contemporary American culture as a whole.

One of the first books to use the term rape culture was Rape: The First Sourcebook for Women, published in 1974. It contained first-hand accounts of rape and was a major contributor to public awareness. The goal postulated in the book is "the elimination of rape, and this goal cannot be achieved without a revolutionary transformation of our society."

However, while the idea of ​​a rape culture is generally accepted in feminist discourse, there is disagreement about what defines such a “culture” in detail and to what extent a society meets the chosen criteria. Rape culture correlates with numerous other social factors such as racism , homophobia , age discrimination , classism (the systematic discrimination of one group by another based on economic differences), religious intolerance and other forms of discrimination .

US controversy and action

In 2013, female students protested against sexual violence on campus with the slogan “ Blame the system, not the victim ”. Caroline Kitchens, research assistant at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute , countered that statistics from the US Department of Justice did not prove a ubiquitous rape culture . On the news magazine Time , she argued that there was no evidence that rape was considered a cultural norm. America of the 21st century has no rape culture . In 2014, feminist writer and columnist Jessica Valenti wrote in the Washington Post that America has a rape problem that, beyond crime, suggests a culture that thrives on rape. Every two minutes someone is raped. She also criticized the largest American organization against sexual violence, RAINN ( Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network ). This advised the White House task force, which is supposed to protect female students from sexual assault, not to hold rape culture responsible for sexual violence. According to RAINN, rape is not caused by cultural factors, but by conscious choices made by a small segment of the community that commits crimes. A study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health in February 2015 found that sexual assault and rape of college students had reached epidemic proportions and that interventions against sexual violence on campus were urgently needed.

In a study by the Association of American Universities among 80,000 students in September 2015, 26 percent of women reported forced sexual contact and seven percent reported penetration. Among the men, seven percent reported forced sexual contact. According to the US Department of Justice , only 15 to 35 percent of acts of violence are reported to the police.

With the It's on Us campaign, the Obama administration initiated a compulsory training program at universities as well as a change in the evidence: According to an order from the United States Department of Education, a 50.1 percent probability is sufficient for a guilty verdict in a campus trial that there has been sexual assault. This approach is classified by a number of lawyers as problematic because it practically abolishes the presumption of innocence.

Other countries

The accusation of having a rape culture is made against the USA as well as against other countries. These include primarily Pakistan and India , but also South Africa , Great Britain , Australia , Canada and Germany .

Face or full body veils ( burqas ) that women in Arab countries have to wear are often motivated to avoid rape. According to a study by the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights (ECWR) from 2008, however, wearing a veil does not offer any protection against such attacks. The study found that 83 percent of Egyptian women are sexually molested.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See: George Ritzer, J. Michael Ryan (Eds.): The Concise Encyclopedia of Sociology. Blackwell Publishing, 2011, ISBN 978-1-4051-8353-6 , pp. 493f.
  2. ↑ Alex Thio, Jim Taylor: The Rape Culture. In: dies .: Social Problems. Jones & Bartlett Publishing, 2011, ISBN 978-0-7637-9309-8 , pp. 162f.
  3. ↑ Sujata Moorti, Lisa M Cuklanz: Local Violence, Global Media. Feminist Analyzes of Gendered Representations. 2nd Edition. Peter Lang Verlag, New York 2009, ISBN 978-1-4331-0277-6 , p. 164 f.
  4. ↑ Slut Shaming
  5. ↑ Rozee, Patricia: Resisting a Rape Culture . Rape Resistance. Archived from the original on January 13, 2013. Retrieved January 11, 2012.
  6. ↑ Steffes, Micah: The American Rape Culture . High Plains Reader. January 2008. Retrieved January 11, 2012.
  7. ↑ Teboho Maitse: Political change, rape, pornography and in post-apartheid South Africa . In: Gender & Development . 6, No. 3, 1998, pp. 55-59. doi : 10.1080 / 741922834 .
  8. ^ Upendra Baxi: THE SECOND GUJARAT CATASTROPHE . In: Economic and Political Weekly . 37, No. 34, August 2002, pp. 3519-3531. Retrieved May 22, 2012.
  9. ↑ The Rape Culture , Herman, Dianne F.
  10. ^ Review of Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape , quoted from Rutherford, Alexandra: Sexual Violence Against Women: Putting Rape Research in Context . In: Psychology of Women Quarterly . 35, No. 2, June 2011, pp. 342-347. doi : 10.1177 / 0361684311404307 . Retrieved June 15, 2012.
  11. ^ Merril D. Smith: Encyclopedia of Rape , 1st. Edition, Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn. 2004, ISBN 0-313-32687-8 , p. 174.
  12. ↑ Noreen Connell, Cassandra Wilson: Rape: the first sourcebook for women New American Library 1974, ISBN 978-0-452-25086-4 , Chapter 3, accessed May 14, 2012
  13. ^ Helen Benedict : Letters to the Editor: Speaking Out . In: New York Times , October 11, 1998. Retrieved June 15, 2012. 
  14. ↑ Freada Klein: Book Review: Rape: The First Sourcebook for Women (New York Radical Feminists) . In: Feminist Alliance Against Rape Newsletter . Feminist Alliance Against Rape Newsletter. November / December 1974. Retrieved June 15, 2012.
  15. ↑ Allison C. Aosved, Long, Patricia J .: Co-occurrence of Rape Myth Acceptance, Sexism, Racism, Homophobia, ageism, Classism, and Religious Intolerance . In: Sex Roles . 55, No. 7-8, November 28, 2006, pp. 481-492. doi : 10.1007 / s11199-006-9101-4 .
  16. ↑ E. Suarez, Gadalla, TM: Stop Blaming the Victim: A Meta-Analysis on Rape Myths . In: Journal of Interpersonal Violence . 25, No. 11, January 11, 2010, pp. 2010-2035. doi : 10.1177 / 0886260509354503 .
  17. ↑ Caroline Kitchens: The Rape 'Epidemic' Doesn't Actually Exist , US News & World Report , October 24, 2013.
  18. ↑ Caroline Kitchens: It's Time to End 'Rape Culture' Hysteria , Time , March 20, 2014.
  19. ↑ Jessica Valenti: Why we need to keep talking about 'rape culture' , The Washington Post, March 28, 2014
  20. ↑ Kate B. Carey, Sarah E. Durney, Robyn L. Shepardson, Michael P. Carey: Incapacitated and Forcible Rape of College Women: Prevalence Across the First Year , Journal of Adolescent Health, February 2015, doi: 10.1016 / j.jadohealth .2015.02.018 . Quoted by Jessica Valenti: Sexual assault is an epidemic. Only the most committed apologist can deny it , The Guardian, May 21, 2015
  21. ↑ David Cantor Westat: Report on the AAU Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct . September 21, 2015.
  22. ↑ Reporting Sexual Assault: Why Survivors Often Don't . Archived from the original on December 23, 2015.
  23. ↑ Andrea Köhler: Do America's elite universities have a “rape culture” ?: Between violence and a catalog of rules . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . ( nzz.ch [accessed on February 14, 2017]).
  24. ^ Sabine Sielke: Reading Rape: The Rhetoric of Sexual Violence in American Literature and Culture, 1790-1990 . Princeton University Press, New Jersey 2002, ISBN 0-691-00500-1 , p. 190.
  25. ↑ Taha Kehar: Rape in Pakistan - The how and why . In: The Express Tribune , July 6, 2013. Retrieved January 1, 2015. 
  26. ↑ Thenmozhi Soundararajan: India's Caste Culture is a Rape Culture . Archived from the original on October 30, 2014. Retrieved January 10, 2016.
  27. ↑ Ludovica Iaccino: India Rape Culture: Video Experiment Shows Shocking Apathy to Violence Against Women .
  28. ↑ Mandakini Gahlot: Despite tougher laws, India can't shake rape culture .
  29. ↑ Reinhard Eher: International Perspectives on the Assessment and Treatment of Sexual Offenders: Theory, Practice and Research . Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, ISBN 0-470-74925-3 .
  30. ↑ Laura Bates: Sites like Uni Lad only act to support our everyday rape culture .
  31. ↑ Patricia Easteal: Real Rape, Real Pain . ReadHowYouWant, 2009, ISBN 1-4587-2283-X , p. 148.
  32. ^ Diana Mehta: Ottawa student leader blasts 'rape culture' on Canadian campuses .
  33. ↑ The rape culture was not imported to Germany - it has always been there. Germany . In: VICE . January 6, 2016 ( vice.com [accessed October 17, 2016]).
  34. ^ Report in DIE ZEIT of February 3, 2013