"Rape culture is a setting, studied by several sociological theories, in which rape is pervasive and normalized due to societal attitudes about gender and sexuality."
The normalization of sexual violence and the blaming of victims instead of holding perpetrators accountable.
Definition of Rape Culture: This topic covers the meaning, origins, and characteristics of rape culture, which defines a social environment that normalizes sexual violence and blames victims/survivors for their own assault.
Patriarchy and Power Dynamics: This topic explores how societal norms and structures perpetuate patriarchal power and males' dominance, resulting in sexual violence, oppression, and systematic inequalities.
Gender and Sexuality: This topic examines how gender and sexuality shape the ways in which rape culture operates, with a focus on gender roles, toxic masculinity, and heteronormativity.
Intersectionality: This topic considers how multiple identities and social categories simultaneously interact to shape one's experiences, such as gender, race, class, and sexual orientation.
Consent and Healthy Relationships: This topic covers the fundamental importance of consent, mutual respect, and communication in all forms of relationships, including romantic, sexual, and platonic.
Victim-Blaming and Rape Myths: This topic explores the pervasive and harmful attitudes and beliefs that blame victims/survivors for their trauma, such as slut-shaming, trivialization, and disbelief.
Media and Pop Culture: This topic discusses the ways in which media and popular culture perpetuate and normalize rape culture, with a focus on harmful representation, objectification, and misogyny.
Activism and Advocacy: This topic highlights the importance of taking action to combat rape culture and support survivors, including education, prevention, and support initiatives.
Legal and Policy Frameworks: This topic examines the legal and policy frameworks that shape how rape culture is addressed and combated, including criminal justice systems, advocacy policies, and international conventions.
Healing and Recovery: This topic provides resources and strategies for survivors who are healing from trauma and seeking support, including therapy, self-care, and community services.
Victim blaming: This occurs when the survivor of a sexual assault or harassment is blamed for the assault because of their behavior or appearance rather than holding the perpetrator accountable for their actions.
Rape jokes and language: This includes the use of jokes and language that promote or trivialize sexual assault and rape.
Rape myths: These are false beliefs and attitudes about sexual assault, such as the idea that women lie about being assaulted or that rape is a result of uncontrollable lust.
Objectification: This is the dehumanization of individuals, usually women, into mere sexual objects to be acted upon.
Rape culture in media: This includes the portrayal of sexual assault and harassment in media, such as movies, TV shows, and music, that normalize and glamorize this type of behavior.
Toxic masculinity: The culture of toxic masculinity in which men are encouraged to be dominant, aggressive, and sexually aggressive which perpetuates violence against women.
Street Harassment: Catcalling, sexual remarks, and explicit and unwanted advances on women on the streets that make women feel uneasy and unsafe.
Systemic harm and institutional injustice: This includes how institutions such as governments, schools, and workplaces have systems in place that often enable perpetrators and dismiss stories of survivors, imposing more harm rather than helping them.
Lack of consent education: This shows the lack of education about consent and the normalization of behaviors that can lead to sexual assault.
Family/society pressure to be silent about sexual assault: In some cultures, sexual assault survivors are pressured to be silent about their experience to avoid bringing shame on themselves and their families. This can lead them to keep the experience bottled up inside and suffer in silence.
"Behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming, slut-shaming, sexual objectification, trivializing rape, denial of widespread rape, refusing to acknowledge the harm caused by sexual violence, or some combination of these."
"It has been used to describe and explain behavior within social groups, including prison rape and in conflict areas where war rape is used as psychological warfare."
"Entire societies have been alleged to be rape cultures."
"It is associated with rape fantasy and rape pornography."
"The notion of rape culture was developed by second-wave feminists, primarily in the United States, beginning in the 1960s."
"Critics of the concept dispute its existence or extent, arguing that the concept is too narrow or that although there are cultures where rape is pervasive, the very idea of rape culture can imply that it is not the rapist who is somehow at fault, but rather society as a whole that enables rape."
"Critics of that line of criticism have disputed the notion that only one party needs to be at fault, noting that the perpetrator can be the primary wrongdoer, those who help cover it up or harass the victim acting as accomplices, and that thus, also according to them, the wider society and culture can still be blamed for its collective influence on these individuals."
"Two movements have addressed what they either fully or partially perceive as being rape culture or a role being played by rape culture, i.e. SlutWalk and Me Too."
"Though their rationale for claiming and including that the role of rape culture as being party to the particular social blights and crimes that they're fighting can vary, these movements have helped spread people's stories through hashtags."
"these movements... provide an online space where victims of different types of sexual violence can confide in each other."