Rape culture & the Brock Turner case
Tuesday 30 August 2016
Today's subject came earlier than i thought it would. I had planned to talk about it here, obviously, but in my head i would have been talking about it few months later. Except that as i logged into my facebook account this morning the first thing to pop up on my feed was: "Brock Turner will be released this Friday, after serving only half of his laughable sentence". If you have no clue who is and what is going on with Brock Turner.. where were you three months ago when the entire world was outraged by the case of this "seemingly brilliant swimmer" who, in January 2015 raped an unconscious woman behind a dumpster at a university party? Not only the outrage is clear there, but what got the world completely nuts is the sentence, judge Aaron Persky gave him only six months of county jail when the rapist should have faced up to 14 years of jail after being called guilty of three felonies. Judge Persky, an alumnus of Standford University (same university as the rapist) thought jail would be too harsh and inappropriate for this "brilliant swimmer". I kid you not! Therefore, the rapist was to face six months in jail. Well let me tell you, the laughable & ridiculous six months haven't ended yet, but the rapist is to be freed this Friday. Try to imagine how infuriating and sick i felt this morning reading the article! When the whole case came out, it put me out of myself, i was shocked and couldn't understand how rape, a serious crime could be treated in such a light and unserious way. I was shocked and couldn't understand that in 2016, some people like judge Perky could increase what rape culture is in this society. For those of you who don't really know what rape culture is, here is a definition:
"In feminist theory, rape culture is a setting in which rape is pervasive and normalized due to societal attitudes about gender and sexuality.[1][2] The sociology of rape culture is studied academically by feminists. Behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming, sexual objectification, trivializing rape, denial of widespread rape, refusing to acknowledge the harm caused by some forms of sexual violence, or some combination of these.[4]The notion of rape culture has been used to describe and explain behavior within social groups, including prison rape, and in conflict areas where war rape is used as psychological warfare. Entire societies have been alleged to be rape cultures." - wikipedia
The Brock Turner case fulfill all the criteria of what rape culture is. We care more about the rapist's future, who is a rapist i want to stress that out and ignore and blame the victim. This is one of the biggest problem in rape culture: VICTIM BLAMING. For some inexplicable and incomprehensible reasons, when a rape occurs, the first thing many people (men & women) are going to focus on is what was the victim wearing at that time it occurred? Was she drunk or sober? Didn't she asked for it at some point? All the freaking time, When there is a case of rape made public, all the attention will be worn on the victim. Let's make it clear right now: NO WOMAN EVER ASKED FOR BEING RAPED. NO WOMAN EVER DRESSED IN A CERTAIN WAY IN ORDER TO GET RAPED. JUST BECAUSE A WOMAN WAS/IS/WILL BE DRUNK IT NEVER MEANT/ DOES NOT/WILL NEVER MEAN THAT A RANDOM GUY CAN DO WHATEVER HE FEELS LIKE WITH THE BODY OF THIS WOMAN. NO WOMAN EVER ASKED FOR RAPE, THIS SHOULD GET IN PEOPLE'S HEAD, WHEN A RAPE OCCURS IT IS NOT THE WOMAN'S FAULT, IT'S THE RAPIST WHO THOUGHT THAT A WOMAN'S BODY WAS HIS PROPERTY AND THAT HE HAD POWER ON HER BECAUSE SHE IS A WOMAN. BLAME THE RAPIST NOT THE VICTIM!!!
We all have to stop with this bullshit of blaming the woman, because we all know that she never asked for it, what person ever asked for rape intentionally, please tell me? Society has to teach people not to rape and not teach people not to get raped, because nobody wants to get raped, nobody wants that trauma for the rest of their life. Rape culture has to stop, because what are we teaching the boys, our sons and our future grandsons? Society has been telling us since forever that rape is bad and out of our moral, but when it comes to judging a case of rape, all of a sudden, it manages to make it appears like it is not such of a big deal and even enters the barrier of rape culture. That is something we need to teach the children about, because it all starts at very young age.. but i'll talk about it on another post dedicated to it, because childish harassment (a child harassing another child is serious and real deal). Let's get back to the Brock Turner case, shall we? The entire story is sickening, and sad, sad because the letter the rapist's father wrote to the judge is despicable and pays no attention to the victim, do we really care that your rapist of a son can't eat his favourite spare ribs and apparently doesn't enjoy eating anymore but eat to just survive? Do we really care about his loss of appetite when there's a woman out there who got raped by your rapist of a son and has to live with the trauma all day every day? The other people having the rapist's back were as sickening as the father, may it be the mother who was rejoicing to redecorate her house but can't do it anymore since the incident has affected her poor rapist son or the friend who believes rapes take place the same way as you can see on films or TV. The worst with these two is that they are women who apparently don't give a damn about the victim, i wonder what it would have been like if the victim was either a close friend or family.. surely not the same scenario, i agree.
And this coming Friday, Brock Turner, a 20-something rapist will be out of county jail for a crime he committed on a woman who has to see her rapist be freed and have no other consequences that those three-joking-laughable-months of county jail. Her? She has to live with the consequences her rapist has done to her. If you able to cope it, i suggest you to go have a read at the letter she read aloud at the audience three months ago. It is a powerful and very poignant letter you can read here.
I don't know her, but i want her to know and all other victims of rape that they have my back, my voice may be small but i know it can help a ton. To you, if you had been one of those victims, know that you have my back and myself and other fellow women (& men) will fight to end rape culture, but most importantly make sure that those who commit those crimes be sentenced and put in jail the amount of time imposed for this crime (even though for me rape is on the same scale as murder and should be sentenced to life imprisonment!).
