The Unspoken Issue Most people know about rape, and violence. They understand that they are issues that the world has. What they do not know is that the majority of people in the world contribute to rape culture. What is rape culture? Most people would ask this question because it is something that little to no people talk about. Rape culture is a term to describe a culture in which rape, sexual violence, and violence in general are common. The media and attitudes that are accepted as the norm play a large part in condoning and perpetuating rape culture. Society’s sexualization, ignorance, normalization and desensitization of abuse and violence perpetuates the acceptance of “rape culture”. Sex sells. It is as simple as that; and the media uses that to its advantage a lot of the time. When looking at advertisements there is a large number of them that include scantily dressed women, or half naked men. However, looking closer you see that there is a lot of gender stereotyping in those advertisements as well. A Dolce and Gabbana advertisement has one in particular that when looking at it with a critical eye you see that it is putting both men and women back to the fifties. In this add there is a woman lying on the ground with her hips propped up and there are five men around her, one in particular is over top of her. When looking
Camilleri 2 at this first glance you most likely will not see anything other than a fashion advertisement, but looking closer you see that it is very close to looking like a scene right before a rape takes place. This advertisement has since been taken down, but the fact that this is an advertisement that was approved to be put up in the first place is what the scariest part is. Now you will ask why I said that the advertisement put the two genders back in the fifties, and the answer is as simple as the woman is below the men. She is on the ground where as the men are above her. They can easily control her because she is in a vulnerable state. Most people would think it unnecessary to pick apart an advertisement to this extent, but without looking at it the way it truly should always be looked at, the advertisement would be free to run, and people would consider it to be “sexy”, or just normal and that should not be acceptable. When society sexualizes violence, it is dangerous and often perpetuates the acceptance of victim blaming.
When people trivialize rape, ignorance is often the key factor because it is something that is not talked about. The specific word rape causes an uneasiness in the majority of people, therefore making it often a “hush, hush” topic. However, what is the harm in that; if we do not talk about it, it is not really reality, right? No. By not talking about it, by letting these things “just happen” and then telling the victims they are at fault because they decided to put themselves in that position to be completely vulnerable, is sick. How does all that information tie into the conclusion that ignorance is the key factor? Well, it’s the ignorance of not knowing the story, of only listening to what the law considers to be guilty and not guilty. The New York daily news posted an article entitled: “Two boys, 10, charged with rape of girl, 8, in London, England” Two boys under the age of thirteen were charged for rape. A young girl followed the two boys to a playground. They then took her to the edge of the bushes and took turns raping her. Because
Camilleri 3 they are under thirteen they were let out on bail and because they were only children this case was overlooked. The boys didn’t have to pay for what they did at all; no justice was served to the little girl. It is disgusting when that case is dismissed because “boys will be boys”. It is easier not to hear, and to treat it as a joke to lighten up the subject. It is easier to ignore, and blame the victims. However, what good does that do, and who are you to decide whether or not something should be taken seriously or