Thursday, November 19, 2015

Rape Culture intertwined with American Culture

I was planning on blogging about Robin Thicke’s song Blurred Lines, because of its highly controversial status because of a seemingly dark theme of rape. I then stumbled across this article talking about Rape Culture and how it has become integrated into our society. We are exposed to Rape Culture in movies, video games, T.V., pornography, and the internet; but the scary part is that because it is so much a part of our society we have become desensitized to it. This poem stresses “Rape no longer knows closed doors or dark alleyways, it’s assimilated into our daily routines”. When I stumbled upon this article there was a poem written about it that talks about Rape Culture in American society and I can honestly say this was one of the most powerful poems I have ever listened to.
The women behind this piece of powerful poetry do not sugarcoat the situation. They give extremely alarming statistics such as, 1 in 5 women will be a victim of rape or sexual assault. The statistic that hit the hardest was; that nationwide there are over 400,000 unprocessed rape kits in police storage units. How can such a horrific crime be just pushed to the side as if it is irrelevant? 
“From birth American culture teaches children which gender they will be, the perpetrator or the victim”. This definitely correlates with the movement to end men’s violence against women. We teach young boys they need to be aggressive, powerful, controlling, and dominant. If we are teaching young boys these are the characteristics they must possess to be considered a man, how can we deny the Rape Culture present? It sounds like we are promoting and teaching boys that rape is okay, because those are the characteristics one must have to be a man. Below is the link to the poem.

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