It’s Time To Reverse Rape Culture.
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At six, I was sexually assaulted by my cousin, who is 11 years older than me, for a year.
He threatened me to not tell anyone, and I obeyed, not fully comprehending what was happening to me. I lost my voice for eight more years, and ended up filled with hatred for most of my childhood.
At age 14, I finally revealed the truth to my mother. She said she believed me, but she wanted to pretend as if nothing happened, even as I pleaded to talk about it more or go to therapy and seek help for myself. I buried this harrowing secret for many years.
Pain is a very solitary sense you cannot share with others. In college, I numbed myself with drugs, and bounced from one unstable and abusive relationship to another, to fill whatever little emotions I had left
At the time, one of my friends took me to a meeting for LGBT survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.
I didn’t expect to walk to the front of the room in a crowd full of strangers and share my story.
What surprised me more though was not that I ended up getting up on that podium, but what I said. With tears streaming down my face, I told everyone in the room that what got me through this was faith.
It was faith in something greater — something good, something better out there — even as an agnostic.
I said my life was going to be magnificent despite my past; yes, there may be scars for the rest of my life, but I will refuse to let this define me. It was hope that got me through. After all, without hope what else is there?
Reversing rape culture has significantly improved throughout the last couple of years, but we still have a long way to go. Rape culture is why my mother did not want to believe me, and I’m sure other parents have felt similarly when they were placed in that position.
We need to explicate rape as a serious issue that constantly gets played down by our patriarchal institution.
A slap on the wrist and a few days in a jail cell is not enough retribution to make a rapist not want to rape again.
Not enough people want to admit sexual assault can happen to anyone regardless of their age, gender, sexual identity, or socioeconomic status, and it’s time to change that.
Women are objectified and assaulted every day. We need to educate society that any woman can be raped — a mother, a sex-worker, a grandmother, a child.
I am disgusted when I see men blatantly ogling a woman right in front of them, or when unsolicited sexual advances spurt out of their mouths.
Since I was 16, random men have constantly told many of my friends and me that we should smile more because we’re so beautiful, asked for our numbers, or that they never thought Asians were attractive but we were the exception.
Even if a man raises his voice to a woman in broad daylight, nothing is done about it.
My heart falls each time a man makes eye contact with me in a way that sends chills up my spine.
When I think about women’s rights abroad, especially in conservative countries, I wonder how they view the United States. For those in marginalized areas of the world, chances are they think their lives would be better off here, in the land of the free.
If only they knew how far we have yet to reach justice.
When I walk on the street, I hate that I have to carry nail clippers with a pointed edge to make me feel safe. Some days, it’s a trigger for me. I get flashbacks of the time I spent on those cold, porcelain floors in my childhood home, and I want to give up on all that I’ve worked for.
I let it get the best of me, and stay up all night replaying the scene in my head.
All the self-defense classes I take cannot make me feel more confident.
When I went to college in the Midwest, the first thing I purchased was pepper spray at the local sporting goods store.
I carried it with me wherever I went; fortunately, I never had to use it but I always walked on campus prepared to fight back.
Too often, I have read stories by women not realizing they were raped. I see comments from people who refuse to believe a woman has been raped just because she did not report it immediately after the incident.
What’s even worse is if they blame the victim, slut-shaming and saying they asked for it.
When I see videos of well-intentioned men watching their mothers or sisters get catcalled on the street in an attempt to raise awareness on the issue, it infuriates me that they need to see a familiar face; that the woman shown has to be relatable to them in order to realize this is a complete invasion of a woman’s space and privacy.
Why don’t they know this is unacceptable?
These are circumstances due entirely to rape culture. If anyone says they were raped, we need to trust them and remind them it is never their fault. We need to abolish the fear of telling others, which is why so many cases of rape go unreported.
I once asked a group of women how their significant others reacted when they told them about their experiences being catcalled.
The majority of the women told me I was being too sensitive; after all, men will always be pigs, and because of that fact, they didn’t feel the need to share their stories with them. Others said they were flattered, and didn’t think of it as any form of harassment.
Some women have been conditioned to think sexual violence is an acceptable act for men, not realizing catcalling is demeaning in every sense.
Why should we live in a society that allows this to happen? Why is fear even an option?
There are times I want to call out the men who bombard me on the street, but there’s always the chance of my retaliation being taken the wrong way. It’s disheartening that we live in a world where negative attention given to perpetrators can be worse than any attention given at all.
Society has tried to water down rape, and blame inappropriate acts of sexual violence on a particular group of people. They have even used their money or influence to make rape claims go away.
For example, a college quarterback is accused and the college administration does little regarding the situation because he’s their prized star, leaving the victim scarred for the rest of her life, having to transfer or leave campus indefinitely.
In high school, my sex ed class was taught by the male gym teacher, who begrudgingly told us sex was for marriage only and the myriad sexually transmitted diseases and infections one would get if they had sex before marriage.
There was no mention of date rape, meaning of consent, or anything that is relevant to today’s society. Schools need to be teaching better sexual education; rather than enforcing abstinence, we should be discussing consent and safety to all sexes.
It’s easy to say to a victim that their experience was not that bad, that it could have been worse, and they should be grateful they still have their lives. I’ve been told that a countless number of times, and I can honestly say it has never made me feel better.
What helped was knowing I am not alone.
Reclaiming a survivor’s body after abuse is one of the hardest things they will ever endure in their lifetime. Just because the abuse may be invisible does not mean the scars are not there. We cannot let rape culture win.
It’s now or never.
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Elizabeth Tsung is a Taiwanese American living in NYC. She is currently getting her Masters in Teaching from Fordham University. Feel free to connect with her on Twitter.
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It’s Time to Reverse Rape Culture. | Rebelle Society | Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News
January 31, 2016 at 2:08 am[…] Source: It’s Time to Reverse Rape Culture. | Rebelle Society […]