In recent months, the
topic of rape has begun to acquire more public attention and debate than ever. At
times I feel as though our culture is becoming more intolerant of rape and
misogyny due to our intolerance of inequality and injustice. But unfortunately,
that is an incorrect assumption. It may be because of our increasing access to
instantaneous information, but recently I have become more and more aware of
incidence of rape. Our culture of demeaning women and treating them as objects
or toys made for the personal gratification and enjoyment of men is causing a
rape culture.
In my own, rather conservative
culture, the women are always expected to clear the table while the men
literally sit around it and wait for the dessert to be laid out in front of
them. Growing up, when I would refuse to help clean and rather choose to sit
with the men in defiance of these sexist and demeaning cultural norms, I was
made to feel guilty and disrespectful.
No, we're not making a
"big deal" out of this. We are fighting for gender and sex equality.
I'm not fighting for female rights because I'm a female; I'm fighting because I
believe in the equality of all people. It is not okay to brush me off
because I’m a woman. It is absolutely archaic to believe that a woman is
beneath a man. Women have the capability to create a human being inside of them
and bring them into the world. A woman gave birth to you, and literally pushed
you out of their insides. That is the most powerful and important task on this
earth and it is women who have been given the 'job'. It is our bodies that are capable
of such strength and endurance. Women have been given the single most important
duty of all and yet they are belittled, abused, and stripped of authority or
significance. They are made interchangeable. We have all been labeled as
"bitches".
Recently I heard about
an incident of rape within my own community. I was disgusted and appalled to
hear that people so similar to me were capable of such an atrocious act. I was
rather sheltered growing up, so I never realized that people I actually knew and
associated with were capable of committing rape or even of being raped. It was
always a distant threat, something that happened to people with “bad” parents
or “bad” friends. I could not have been more mislead. One in four college women
report surviving rape or attempted rape. ONE IN FOUR. That means I, or one out
of three of my female friends will fall prey to this statistic. This cannot be
the norm. This is not okay. WE NEED TO CHANGE OUR CULTURAL AND SOCIAL NORMS IN
ORDER TO STOP HARMFUL ACTS TOWARDS WOMEN. We must do something about the
fact that male entitlement kills people. How many more wake-up calls do we
need? How many more innocent women must fall victim?
Rape culture is directly
correlated with misogynistic societal norms. Boys who don’t receive romantic or
sexual attention from women blame women, while women who don’t receive such
attention from boys blame themselves. We live in a society where a man feels
entitled to murder women because they refuse to sleep with him. I realize that
not all men are like this, of course. But that does not take away from the fact
that we live in a society and a culture of male dominance. We often use
mental illness as a justification of mass murder when women are actually more
likely to develop mental illness, but how often do we hear about women going on
shooting sprees because men won’t love them or have sex with them?
I don’t “owe” anyone my
body. My body is my own. It does not belong to anyone but me. It doesn't belong
to a man and it certainly does not belong to the government. Yet, in 2013
alone, there were 700 bills proposed to regulate a woman's body. The number of
bills to regulate a man’s body however, was the rightful number: zero. The
political entity making these decisions that affect MY body are composed of
over 80% males.
During my first semester
in college, I witnessed a girl crying while hiding in bushes in the night
trying to escape from two men as they searched for her in rage. Their
aggressive expressions were enough to make even me feel uncomfortable and
threatened just by passing by them as I gripped my pepper spray. Do you
realize the absurdity of the fact that when girls go to college they buy pepper
spray and rape whistles while boys buy condoms? This is the culture we are
breeding. I, myself, am disgusted of the sheer reality of this. Is this a
society we want to live in and be a part of and raise our children in?
When a man is in charge
and tells people what to do, it’s normal. But when a woman is in charge, they
are called “bossy” or a “bitch”. Speaking up about these causes and these
issues makes me an “angry feminist” or a “crazy liberal”. Why is it that a when
a boy tweets in favor of women's rights issues, it gives the statement more
validity and power? I am not "hating on men". I am trying to show that our society
is flawed and WE HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE IT. We are continuously
breading a culture of demeaning our fellow human beings based on gender, sexual
orientation, race, and so forth. It is never okay to make someone feel as
though they are inferior to you for any reason. We are all equal and deserve to
be treated as such. The only thing that makes one person superior to another is
their ability to show compassion towards their fellow human beings.
