Hello again, are you ready for round two? As you may have remembered, I have a passion for discussing rape culture and victim blaming. Here is some previous insight into my research on the topic. To recap, rape culture is a society that tries to justify rape, as well as other forms of sexual assault. Whereas victim blaming is putting blame on the victim as if rape is their fault.

Before I get into my personal research, I also did more online research to get more and more insight into what the internet has on my topic. What I found was a site that showed me common myths about sexual assault. Some included myths about how sexual assault cannot be performed by a spouse,  how people with disabilities are not common to be sexually assaulted, that men are not victims of sexual assault, that if you stay away from strangers you are less likely to be raped. This source showed me common ideas about sexual assault in the world, and it also showed me some statistics to break those myths. For instance, I learned that 60% of child sexual abuse cases are performed by someone the child knows outside the family, and 30% are assaulted by family members. I also learned that a person is sexually assaulted every 107 seconds, which is about a minute and a half.

In my first post, I talked more about examples of rape culture and victim blaming. In the beginning of this post, before my survey results, I am going to share some sad and shocking statistics. In my source, I read statistics that ranged from 2012-2015. Furthermore, I found that 91% of sexual assault are female, and 9% are male. I was also a little surprised to learn that eight out of ten of rape cases, the victim knew their attacker. I found these facts, and more, believably heartbreaking.

Onto my survey. After doing my research on my topic, I was really excited to get my real life research. Get to know what the people thought. Those “people” being my fellow peers in the SLA community. And in order to get the information I wanted, and the information I wanted to get was whether there were examples of rape culture and victim blaming in my own school community. So to get this information, I crafted a survey with five central questions. There was the basic question of what gender people identified with, and then I got into more heavier questions.

This picture above shows the results from one of my questions. I asked this because I knew it would be a sneaky way of tricking my survey subjects without pressuring them into the answers I wanted. These results show how 15/44 people believe flirtatious behavior is a possible cause of rape, and 13/44 believe that revealing clothing is another cause of rape. These percentages are just to name a few.

This was another one of my big questions I wanted answered. You might ask why. Why is this question so important? It is so important because results and percentages like are examples of rape culture. Are examples of victim blaming. People that believe modest clothing, less selfies, and ladylike behavior are the people that are representing rape culture in the SLA community.

My survey helped and taught me more about my topic. I mean, I had people I know, my own age, represent rape culture and victim blaming. And that really disappointed, upset, and saddened me. If you would like to view my full survey results, here it is.  

I am still wondering on how I can make a change in rape culture and victim blaming. Whether it be going around school and doing something, or going to a sexual assault crisis center, I am still figuring out what I want to do. What change I want to make on this issue.

When the media talks about rape, what comes to mind for you? Do you think blame the rapist, or unknowingly blame the victim? Rape culture and victim blaming for women. It’s a huge part of our society, and is shyed away for being taboo. There are two parts to this unpopular topic. But before I discuss that, I want to tell you my own feelings for choosing this topic. My goal in learning about this topic is so I can inform others in my own life exactly what rape culture is, and what they can do to prevent it, as well as victim blaming. This topic matters to me because I see behavior of rape culture in my own community, and hear victim blaming on the news and in the media all the time. Also, I believe that it important for others to know about because it is a topic that people don’t really recognize that much.

Now most people don’t know what exactly rape culture. The true definition of rape culture is society normalizing or trivializing rape of sexual abuse. There are so many examples and instances of rape culture, but to cover all would take at least a week. However, to name a few, rape culture is when people trivialize rape, saying things like “boys will be boys,” defending manhood as dominant and sexually aggressive, as well as putting pressure on men to “score.” Furthermore, assuming that men that are raped are “weak,” teaching women how to not “get” raped, pop music promoted messages such as “she wanted it.” To go on, women being called liars if they report rape is another example of rape culture. Further examples of rape culture include asking a rape victim how short her outfit was, how much she was drinking, or if she was flirting. The list goes on and on. All of these examples are real instances of rape culture.

This image depicts an example of a woman that was told this when she came forward about being raped. This another example of victim blaming in society.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/powerful-pictures-show-how-rape-8310169

On to part two, victim blaming. In society, there are two types of victim blaming. The people that intentionally blame the victim for the cause of the rape, and the people that don’t fully believe it was the victim's fault, but normalize her actions for being raped. For instance, victim blaming would count as the victim being flirtatious, wearing revealing clothing, making eye contact, and drinking. Sayings that are often associated with victim blaming include “she asked for it,” and “she didn’t say no.”

This picture is yet another example of victim blaming. Words like this is how society puts blame on the victim of rape. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/powerful-pictures-show-how-rape-8310169

There are ways to prevent victim blaming and rape culture within your community. Some examples include avoiding comments that degrades or objectifies women, let survivors know it is not their fault, not putting pressure on men to “score” with women, as well as supporting survivors. From learning about the topic, I know that I want to further educate my peers and community on the matter so they can educate others. Society has problems facing hard topics like this, because we all want to admit we would never trivialize such a horrible thing, but we do. Lastly, there are ways to prevent victim blaming and rape culture, as long as we are educated about it.