The Rape Culture

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. By making women the “gatekeepers” of sex society sets up the idea that women are expected to be responsible for men’s sexual behavior. This mentality can lead to both mental and physical aggression toward men and women. In this particular scenario women lose the ability to say “Yes” as society believes in the purity of women and the outward expression of sexuality in women as unnatural. Men also lose the ability to say “no” as they are believed to have a natural drive for sex all the time. In the end this scenario also leads women to be at fault for rape, no matter what (Harding 44-46). In the world today and in the rape culture we are immersed in, people believe men are completely incapable of self-control and therefore they are entitled …show more content…
The rape itself causes not only physical damage to a human being but also deeply scars them mentally and emotionally and instead of working to alleviate the pain victims are ridden with, society perpetuates a culture that works to worsen the conflict taking place in the life of the victim.
The rape culture in our society has only grown as media has become an outlet of expression where many ideals about women and their sexuality are shared and debated. Mainstream news media in our society has a huge impact over how we perceive the world and is constantly striving to influence our views and ideals while skewing our perception of reality through biased portrayal of the happenings in our world. The way rape crimes are presented through news media sources have the power to negate the experiences of sexual assault of victims. News sources are aware that they have the power to manipulate people 's views and they exert this certain power through their portrayal of a story. And in the case of rape culture they can either choose to perpetuate it or stop it dead in its tracks. We clearly see the …show more content…
Rape culture encompasses a broad spectrum of popular culture and traditional values all combining in a way that causes aggression towards victims of rape. While unfortunately society as a whole has become used to the vicious attacks involving sexual abuse due to rape culture, it is not too late to change things. Rape culture exists only because we believe it doesn’t, we allow the degradation of women to occur on a daily basis while we promote the hyper sexuality of men. Society must stop and address victim blaming and the definition of masculinity and then work as a whole to rid society of misogyny and recreate the vision of men and women in a balance of both respect and

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