A Culture of Rape Acceptance
Rape culture is more than a term thrown around by feminists. It’s a serious issue that affects many college women. Studies show, “between one-fifth to one quarter of college women are raped during the course of their college careers”(Jozkowski 517) Rape culture is the thought that our culture has lead to a normalization or acceptance of rape and sexual assault. The thought of rape culture was first brought to light in the 1970’s. It often goes unrecognized due to the common thought that society would never view rape as acceptable. Although rape is viewed as an inexcusable crime rape culture has normalized rape. Since rape culture’s normalization of rape is an issue that mainly effects college students, society can address the problem by educating high school and college students of the characteristics of rape culture such as the lack of a clear definition of rape, rape myths, and a low conviction rate for rapists.
One way rape culture has normalized rape is through the lack of a clear definition of rape. Each person views rape and sexual assault differently. Since some view only certain forms of penetration as rape, rape tends to go unrecognized, In 2003, the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality states “rape is a term that refers to forced or attempted sexual intercourse with a male or female, by an offender that may be of the same sex or a different sex from the victim. Sexual assault is usually defined to encompass rape, attempted rape, forced oral and anal sex, penetration with objects, touching of intimate parts, and other types of threats or coercion in which unwanted sexual contact is attempted or occurs between the victim and offender.” (Kahlor 729-730) However in 2011, the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network defined sexual assault as “any vaginal, oral or anal penetration that is forced upon another regardless of sex and sexual orientation, using any object or body part.”(Aronowitz 1) Many view that if the...