What is Rape Culture?

Sexual Assault Awareness month is nearly approaching.  I find myself asking what exactly is rape culture?  How did this enter into people’s vernacular?   What does it mean to be living in a rape culture? 

A crucial aspect of the definition of rape is the absence of consent.  Culture has many meanings.  I’ll define it as a full range of learned behaviors and patterns.  The degradation of women becomes the norm through acceptance of misogyny.  In a rape culture images, conversations, and laws validate and perpetrate rape.  Validating rape culture in the media excuses rape and reinforces myths about rape and/or sexualizing rape.  Shaming and silencing survivors of rape allows the perpetrator to ignore the actions and the survivor is left with guilt and shaming.    

Viewing mass media daily through images and advertising becomes naturalized going unquestioned.  This leads to people asking, “Violence against women is still an issue?”  In a rape culture majority of people think this is the way it is and no one can change it or people ignore that it occurs daily at an astonishing rate.  Re-examining advertisements, music, television, laws, macho-masculinity, speech and language are steps that need to be taken. Being surrounded with these images, ideologies, and laws can seem overwhelming and shaming.  Re-examining, creating self-awareness, and naming the problems need to happen to end rape culture.  Instead of teaching girls to not get raped, there has been a shift on telling men to not rape.  What made him think this was acceptable and okay to commit rape?  This is removing the blame on women.

By Gretchen D. Hawker

I came across this article “Ten Things to End Rape Culture.” I suggest you take a look at it: http://www.thenation.com/article/172643/ten-things-end-rape-culture#

Community Healing Vigil Next Week!

Interested in attending? Meet us at the WRC at 4pm and we'll go over together as a group on the max. The green line is free all the way there!

Eyes Wide Open: The Clothesline Project

(originally posted 4/09 at wordpress.com)


by Talia Jae Potter

At PCC we have made T-shirts to hang in the main walkway for a week. The t-shirts are messages by women about their own personal experience with some form of sexual abuse or for someone close to them who has had an experience, surviver or not. Its an amazing project to be a part of and I used some club time to make t-shirts with my fellow student parents. It was moving, overwhelming, and cathartic to be a part of these women expressing themselves. I also made my own t-shirt about my own experience with sexual assault.

Hey... its 2009... Playboy... really???

(originally posted 01/09 at wordpress)

by Blythe Pavlik Why is Playboy okay?I don’t get it. I don’t get why Playboy is still considered the “gentlemen’s” magazine or why it is exempt, in some groups, from critical critique. I don’t get it. I grew up in a house with Playboy magazines.

Sexual Assault Capstone: Finding Voice

(originally posted 07/08 at wordpress)


by Kristyn Stolze

I didn’t think enough about acquaintance rape until it happened to someone close to me. Then one of the women I love was raped by her housemate and the light bulb went on.

I grew up learning that sexual violence happened too much and needed to stop, but never went further than knowing, wishing it were different but feeling totally helpless. It took an act of violence against a friend to light a fire under my ass, and I only regret that it took this long for me to really freak out and get busy. I see the fierce, brilliant pack of people answering back to interpersonal violence with action and wish I had joined sooner. I thought I needed to be someone different to do something about sexual violence, someone more educated, more trained, more informed. But I see now that as long as individuals feel powerless, we give our real power as a group away. Fortunately, a lot of people figured this out a lot faster than I did…and they have been busy. For decades. As I learn more about the realities of sexual violence I find some grim statistics, and I used to make the mistake of only seeing the darkness and missing the hope. After my friend’s rape, I felt crazy and powerless, but driven like never before to find out how to get involved somewhere, with something. I decided to take the Sexual Assault Capstone at PSU to connect with the PSU Women’s Resource Center and get more information, and that connection brought me to the shesheet.

I would like to know who is out there reading and what your thoughts, experiences and reactions are to the topic/issue/reality of sexual violence. Because it’s so pervasive in our culture we all live with it in some way every day; this means we all have a story to tell. I want to know what other people are doing to create change. If you aren’t usually comfortable posting responses and comments to blogs, please consider responding to the things you read on the shesheet and to this blog you are reading now. It’s a great space to interact with people who are shaking things up to make much-needed change.

I personally have never blogged until today, but I think it’s an amazing way to connect to a huge community of incredible folks. I want to take part in a bigger conversation about sexual violence with the readers on the shesheet…please join me with some of your thoughts so we can learn from each other!

An Interview With Inspiring Advocate Angela Jensen

(originally posted 03/08 at wordpress)



by Jennifer Collier

I often feel that I am living in a socially disconnected culture where individual ambition outweighs the broader social needs of the community. In moments like these, I draw inspiration from individuals who devote their lives to helping others. PSU’s Interpersonal Violence Advocate, Angela Jensen, was able to reinvigorate my optimism when she took time out of her busy day to tell me about the work that she does at PSU.