I've been following the #Steubenville case really closely over the past six months or so, and I haven't written much on the topic aside from a few tweets--until now.
Today, my friend tagged me in a Facebook post linking to this BuzzFeed article:
(The tweets go on and on, but you can go to the source for more stomach-churning vitriol.)
The conversation on my friend's post made me realize that very few Penn State students know how to digest this issue. Some were jumping to defend the boys. Others were lashing out at him for defending them. Others still were blaming the girl for her actions.
Just for a bit, let's turn our attention away from the individual boys and girls involved. Let's instead turn our attention to the flawed structures that created it: rape culture. Jane Doe--and all Jane Does across the U.S.--are victims of a flawed culture, not "being a whore" or any of the other insults being thrown around.
This issue hits close to home for me, as it took me years of my life to realize I was suffering from it as well. It took coming to college, studying the media, and finding feminist blogs to learn how much I personally was hurting from not having been taught about consent during my youth.
If we want to fix this stuff, it's going to be with changes in the way we think and relate to others. That means empowering all people to fight back against harmful attitudes, ideas, and opinions that lead to incidents like rape or sexual assault.
But how do we empower people to fight back, stand up, and be a hero in the face of these issues? First, we've got to educate them about the problems. Below are some key issues to understand when dealing with Steubenville and the rape culture that permeates every corner of the U.S.--and likely, many countries abroad:
1. Women are objectified, everywhere we look. We can see clear evidence of rape culture in the way the boys paraded Jane Doe's seemingly lifeless body around various parties that awful night. But we have to look broader than Steubenville to see more evidence. Writer and educator Jaclyn Friedman calls out "toxic masculinity"as the problem. She quotes former NFL quarterback Don McPherson: "We don't raise boys to be men. We raise them not to be women, or gay men." Read more about toxic masculinity here.
2. Female objectification acts as a dehumanizer. Dehumanization literally means stripping someone of their compassion, individuality, and civility. When you treat someone like an object, you're dehumanizing them: making them out to be less than fully functional, thinking, breathing, crying, laughing, feeling human beings. Dehumanization is often the first step to justifying violence against others. Remember, this isn't a conscious thought process for many--most people don't realize they're dehumanizing others. It's a learned attitude, and it can often manifests in subtle ways--like laughing at a rape joke, making objectifying "compliments," or not calling out someone else for make these comments.
3. Dehumanization leads to violence--like rape. Let's be clear: rape is a form of violence. It is a unique form of violence not comparable to acts like shoplifting, getting robbed, or even getting murdered. When you are raped, you lose autonomy, control, and a feeling of over your own body. When women are dehumanized and made to be seen as nothing more than objects, it makes it easy for the perpetrator--generally NOT a stranger, btw--to imagine that person as an object. This makes it a lot easier to commit acts of violence against them.
4. We can trace rape culture back to a male-dominated worldview. For me, the media is the #1 perpetrator. Check out this trailer for Miss Representation, a documentary that exposes just how widespread and immediate this problem is. Also, this infographic allows you to see how very few women are a part of the stories we see in Hollywood.
5. Men are victims of this dominant worldview, too. They're often just silent ones. This quote from CNN, I think, illustrates it perfectly:
Evan Westlake, 18, a Steubenville football and baseball player, told the judge on Friday that he saw Richmond digitally penetrate the girl in the basement.
When asked by prosecutors why he didn't stop the incident, he said, "It wasn't violent. I didn't know exactly what rape was. I thought it was forcing yourself on someone."
This is seriously a big, important quote, illustrating the real issue in the Steubenville case, one that isn't unique to Steubenville but is apparent in schools and communities nationwide: a serious lack of education about what constitutes consent to sexual activity and what doesn't.
Until America can learn that sex isn't a taboo subject, but one that needs to be talked about openly and honestly, I'm afraid incidents like this will pop up time and time again. But understanding rape culture is the first step to fighting it--and that's something we can all commit to.
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