In the News

By Kirsten West-Savali

 

“We don’t raise boys to be men,” said former NFL quarterback turned feminist Don McPherson. “We raise them not to be women, or gay men.”

 

That brutally honest statement delivered at the March 8th launch of “Ring the Bell” — a bold campaign developed by global human rights organization Breakthrough  to secure “concrete, actionable promises” from 1 million men to end discrimination and sexual assault against women — speaks directly to the entrenched gender roles and expectations that have made rape one of the most pervasive crimes in our society.

 

Violent words — hit, bang, beat, cut, smash – have been reappropriated to refer to enjoyable, consensual sexual activity, particularly in African-American communities where, not surprisingly, sixty percent of black girls have experienced sexual abuse before the age of eighteen. This is a barely-sheathed nod to the reality that for many men, masculinity is defined by the authority — indeed, the right — to objectify, dehumanize, violate and destroy. Some people refer to this as “rape culture,” while many accept it as part of life. If that threshold of so-called manhood must be crossed by penetrating unwilling women, then so be it.

 

The Steubenville rape case and the sympathetic reactions to the plight of the young men who were found guilty of penetrating an incapacitated young woman shows that this mentality is still very powerful.

 

But recently there has been a perceptible shift in the zeitgeist, which was prompted in part by the statements of conservative politicians during the 2012 presidential election. Republicans from Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, to Rick Santorum and Paul Ryan made headlines for claiming that there are varying degrees of rape. From “forcible” rapes, to “legitimate” rapes, to rapes that are “God’s gift,” what came to be called the “War on Women” quickly became polarizing in a highly contentious election cycle heavily skewed towards women’s issues and how they intersect with and reflect on the collective society.

It became painfully clear that these leaders understood little of the needs of women, from our needs for reproductive health, to the right to feel safe from being raped – period.

 

Following on the heels of Rep. Gwen Moore revealing her own history of sexual assault on the House floor in an effort to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, these statements from Republicans rendered the political landscape fertile for change. And these seeds for change have been sown internationally. Rape and sexual violence against women, a quietly accepted fact of life since the beginning of civilization, is finally being attacked with the same force as any aggressor.

 

When the horrifying gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in New Delhi exploded in the international news, the sheer brutality of the crime forced people all over the world to pay attention and reexamine the prevalence of violence against women.

 

The young Indian victim boarded a bus on December 16, 2012 with her fiancé. She was then raped by six men, including the driver. After taking turns with her, and beating her fiancé until he began to lose consciousness, they impaled her with a metal rod that shredded her internal organs before hurling them both from the moving vehicle to die.

 

This heinous crime prompted members of this traditional culture to vociferously demand justice for women who are victims of sexual violence — demands made on an unprecedented scale. It also led feminists around the world to look closer at rape cases near their own homes.

 

In the weeks and months that followed, more rapes occurred, making headlines, including one in which three Philadelphia teenagers forced their way into a woman’s car and drove around for hours as they beat and raped her – on Christmas Day.

 

In a nation such as ours in which only three percent of rape cases end in a conviction, it would have seemed normal for such an incident to pass out of the public’s consciousness with little more than a brief, sympathetic emotion. But things are changing. People are demanding that violence against women be called out and punished rather than passively accepted as inevitable.

 

Unconscionable crimes such as these led feminists and activists such as the creators of “Ring the Bell” to push for better ways to discuss rape and other violence against women. One result? Efforts to reframe the conversation around rape, shifting focus away from victims and towards criminals.

 

As radical as this seems – because even the Steubenville case saw its share of victim blaming — this concept is not new.

 

As far back as 2009, activist Jaclyn Friedman asked the question: What if the key to rape prevention is educating men not to rape? She also cited where this has been successful. Based on this idea, there is a list circulating, both honest and dripping with sarcasm, that shares the top10 tips to prevent rape. Every single one of the tips focuses on men, while illustrating how utterly ridiculous it is to task women with eradicating rape alone, as traditional “protective” thinking on the subject has promoted as plausible.

 

And it doesn’t end there. In London on February 14th, actress Thandie Newton, who is a survivor of sexual exploitation, joined the One Billion Rising global campaign – and crowds of demonstrators – in front of London’s Parliament to protest violence against women, and spark a movement worldwide.

 

Yes, times are changing.

 

With scarce Republican support, on March 7th, President Barack Obama reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act. On March 13th, in the first Senate hearing on sexual assault in nearly a decade, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), along with Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would prohibit convicted sex offenders from joining the military. And by doing so, she blew the door hiding rape culture in the military wide open.

 

Boxer’s amendment coincides with Sen. Claire McCaskill, (D-MO) drafting legislation that would reduce military commanders’ ability to dismiss sexual assault cases within their ranks.

 

These promising developments are exciting evidence that a cultural groundswell trumpeting changing attitudes towards sexual violence is occurring, and that many men are on board.

 

We are ending the silent consensus that sexual violence is acceptable. But with resistance to oppression often comes a backlash against the newfound audacity of the oppressed.

 

When theGrio writer Zerlina Maxwell made an appearance on FOX’s The Sean Hannity Show armed with the infallible logic that men must take responsibility for ending rape, she not only met opposition during the segment, she also received vitriolic hatred spewed at her online. Racist slurs and death threats were hurled at Maxwell all because she dared to tilt the scales of power towards women and accountability towards men. But, that ugly reaction has even further solidified the growing movement.

 

The timeline of the Steubenville rape case shows that when equality and justice knock on the doors of patriarchy, the institution does not go down without a fight – but it can be taken down.

 

Couple these extremely promising developments with broadening awareness via social media, redirections of political focus, and expanding activism, and we find ourselves poised at a watershed moment in our global fight to protect women from being vulnerable targets to predators in hostile environments.

 

The dissolution of rape culture is not impossible; it is inevitable.