Rape culture has been predominant throughout history and continues to thrive in modern society. Although there have been countless efforts to bring awareness of the sexual violence and crimes committed, rape culture still prevails because people deny its existence, or turn a blind eye, and proceed to perpetrate actions that support it. What is rape culture, and how is it normalized in modern society? Rape culture can be defined as “a complex set of beliefs that encourage male sexual aggression and supports violence against women... where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent” (Source D). It supports the misogynistic values of male dominance over women and is normalized in modern society through numerous actions, such as victim
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The argument against the existence of rape culture claims that it is “built on a foundation of dubious statistics and a distorted view of masculinity [and] has already led to policies that have proved devastating to those who have been falsely accused” (Source C). Despite the fact that there are some cases where false accusations are made, these only make up a miniscule percentage of real accusations, and most cases that claim accusations to be misleading prey on using these myths as the “norms they evoke are employed routinely to discredit sexual assault survivors. Rapists’ defense attorneys know they can rely on juries’ susceptibility to these unexamined myths, and more often than not, they are successful,” therefore these myths are repeatedly used as an excuse to deny the existence of rape culture (Source A). Furthermore, studies reveal that “As of 1998, and estimated 17.7 million American women had been victims of attempted or completed rape” (Source E). With this statistic exposing the reality of how common rape is in the United States, it exhibits how common rape is in American society; it also proves that with this many cases of rape, most accusations are most likely not falsely admitted. There are claims that “since 1995, the estimated rate of female rape or sexual assault victimizations has decreased by about 60 percent” and that the “origin of the ‘one in five’ factoid is an online survey conducted under a grant from the Justice Department. Surveyors employed such a broad definition that ‘forced kissing’ and even ‘attempted forced kissing’ qualified as sexual assault” (Source C). Having the percentage of sexual assault decrease in modern society is reasonable as the push for gender equality has finally allowed for the acknowledgement of understanding sexual crimes and educating the public in not committing such crimes. Nevertheless,
The argument against the existence of rape culture claims that it is “built on a foundation of dubious statistics and a distorted view of masculinity [and] has already led to policies that have proved devastating to those who have been falsely accused” (Source C). Despite the fact that there are some cases where false accusations are made, these only make up a miniscule percentage of real accusations, and most cases that claim accusations to be misleading prey on using these myths as the “norms they evoke are employed routinely to discredit sexual assault survivors. Rapists’ defense attorneys know they can rely on juries’ susceptibility to these unexamined myths, and more often than not, they are successful,” therefore these myths are repeatedly used as an excuse to deny the existence of rape culture (Source A). Furthermore, studies reveal that “As of 1998, and estimated 17.7 million American women had been victims of attempted or completed rape” (Source E). With this statistic exposing the reality of how common rape is in the United States, it exhibits how common rape is in American society; it also proves that with this many cases of rape, most accusations are most likely not falsely admitted. There are claims that “since 1995, the estimated rate of female rape or sexual assault victimizations has decreased by about 60 percent” and that the “origin of the ‘one in five’ factoid is an online survey conducted under a grant from the Justice Department. Surveyors employed such a broad definition that ‘forced kissing’ and even ‘attempted forced kissing’ qualified as sexual assault” (Source C). Having the percentage of sexual assault decrease in modern society is reasonable as the push for gender equality has finally allowed for the acknowledgement of understanding sexual crimes and educating the public in not committing such crimes. Nevertheless,