American Rape Culture Essay

Every two minutes, an American is sexually assaulted. According to the U.S. Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey, there are an average of 237,868 victims of rape and sexual assault every year. 9 of every 10 rape victims were female in 2003, and 1 out of every 6 American women has been the victim of rape in her lifetime. The question people have to ask themselves is why rape is so common. It is time to accept that the rape epidemic is not just about the crimes themselves, but the cultural and political willful ignorance known as rape culture. Rape culture is an environment where rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture. Rape culture has

Open up any magazine and you will see the objectification of women. The female body is exploited by advertising, to make money for companies that sell not just a product, but a lifestyle to consumers. Advertisements with scantily clothed women, in sexualized positions, all objectify women in a sexual manner. Headless women, for example, make it easy to see them as only a body by erasing the individuality communicated through faces, eyes, and eye contact. Interchangeability is an advertising theme that reinforces the idea that women, like objects, are replaceable. But sexual objectification is only the tip of the iceberg. In society's narrative, subject and object status is heavily gendered, with men granted subject status most of the time, and women severely objectified. The difference between subject status and object status is simple; a subject is active, and an object is passive. These messages start early on. A study by Janice McCabe, a professor of sociology at Florida State University, showed that male characters in children's books far outnumber female ones, and that even when characters are

Every day, women are harassed in the street simply for being women. Every time a woman steps out the house, she runs the risk of being shouted at or assaulted, even in broad daylight. It is not only socially acceptable for men to catcall women, but when a woman feels uncomfortable from it, she is more often than not told to take it as a compliment. Even as children, when a girl comes home and complains about boys picking on her, the behavior is often dismissed as “boys just being boys,” or she is told he probably “has a crush on her.” Dismissing abusive behavior, simply because the abuser is male, is unacceptable. Not only does it put women in danger, and belittles their concerns, but it casts a bad light on men as well. Men are not animals, they are people and they have the ability to