Victim blaming, trivialization of sexual abuse must stop
On Sunday night, I attended a presentation held in South Quad about sexual violence and assault. After a couple of PowerPoint slides about the parameters of sexual violence and rape legislation, the representative from Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention and Prevention, or SAVIP, opened up the floor for discussion. The speaker read out statements about hypothetical situations to which we had to hold up a red, yellow or green card to signify how appropriate we deemed each incident. I was incensed to hear one response from a guy who had shown a green card to the statement: “A woman leads a drunk guy upstairs at a party.” He said, “This can mean two things: If it’s your girlfriend, then that’s great because it means you’re cashing in. If it’s not, then you should get the hell outta there because she’s probably trying to get a baby outta you.”
I was enraged by the suggestion that all women must be driven by the desire to either please men or use them as baby-making machines. After a heated debate, the discussion turned to the topic of victim blaming. The representative explained how rape is a heinous crime no matter what victims were wearing or their level of intoxication. A green-carder from across the room piped up,
“But come on, you go out to Five Points at Halloween and you see loads of girls dressed as black cats. You can’t say they aren’t asking for it.”
Since when did I live in a world that suggests women dress to entice rapists? The women in the room launched into a verbal reproach, spelling out that women should be able to wear what they want without being labeled as a temptress — or as anything, for that matter. If this guy was suggesting that the only reason for provocative dress was to prompt sexual abuse, then what did he have to say for the increasing number of 14-year-olds who wear denim hot-pants because they want to look like Nicki Minaj? Are these young girls “asking for it,” too?
The biggest shock of the night came when the representative told us about the egregious Instagram phenomenon known as “#rapeface.” There are over 40,000 #rapeface photos on Instagram, in which users take a picture of themselves pulling a face they’d make if they saw someone they’d like to rape. The #rapeface trend is a gross trivialization of traumatizing sexual assault, and it needs to stop.
Feminists of today may not be fighting for the right to vote, but it’s moments like these that remind me that the battle against discrimination is far from over. Sex discrimination in the 21st century is of a completely different nature compared to the institutionalized prejudices of the 1970s. Women’s rights advocates must adapt to the grossly insidious nature of modern-day sexism if we don’t want to go down in history as the generation that well and truly settled for less.
As I swiftly put this guy and his misogynistic comments in their place, I heard sighs across the room from his friends. There have been few periods in American history when feminism hasn’t been labeled as a horde of menstruating, grumpy man-haters, and at this moment I felt like they were lumping me into this mistaken stereotype. As a moderate feminist I believe that the primary goal of feminism is to uplift the status of women so that it rests on an equal plane to men — I’m not “crazy” and I don’t hate men. If people are too weary to make mental notes when their speech offends others, I begin to wonder when everyone started getting so tired. We women are pretty damn tired too, but it doesn’t mean we’re giving up the fight.