So when another guest at the dinner, a female, walked into his house and said something like "God, it gets dark so early now, walking alone in this neighborhood makes me I feel like I'm about to get raped," I didn't expect this response from him: "Here's my thing. Trust everyone till you get raped."
He said it in such a light-hearted, easy, joking way. And it really fried my egg, both because of the insensitivity of the comment, and because of being once again confronted with the fact that even wonderful guys who genuinely respect women (or at least really really seem to) are still capable off an off-the-cuff jokey rape comment.
Thankfully, I have never been the victim of a sexual assault. But we all know that sexual assault is often a common part of the life experience of American females. I think almost any lady who went to college has seen the statistic about one in four women experiencing an attempted or completed rape while in college, according to the Centers for Disease Control. And this number seem better than in actually is, since only 54% of rapes are reported to the police. (here's a (notso)fun fact: even with 46% of rapes being reported, only 3% of rapists will ever spend a day in jail. Hope you didn't think the justice system in America was anywhere close to good).
So, now that we've established how common rape is, let's go back to my friend's comment about how we women should just trust everyone until we get raped. Because there were about 6 women in the room, it's more than likely that least one of us had been the victim of a sexual assault. When he said this, I looked around to try and see if anyone was blatantly offended, but there were other conversation. No one seemed to be visibly upset, but then, these sorts of comments are so common that if there was a victim in the room, she'd probably become pretty skilled at hiding those feelings.
If there was a victim in the room, and in other similar cases, no woman should ever have to have her assault made light of. It simply reinforces a feeling that she is under a man's control, that even after the act she will have to live with shame and hurt, all the while people say things to let her know that it actually wasn't even a big deal, so much so that they can make dumb remarks that aren't even close to witty about the act of rape.
Even if you were 100% sure that no one around you was anything close to a victim of sexual assault, you still shouldn't make a joke about rape and talk about it the same way you would talk about stubbing your toe. Remember the victim who died recently in India after being gang-raped and thrown out of a bus afterwards? So hilarious! Said no one, ever.
So bottom line is, guys (and girls), no matter how much you respect women, don't make rape jokes. It's likely that a victim is within ear shot, and it's also just repugnant to make light of sexual assault.
Eva...thanks for this post. It is so, so important and like you I am frequently shocked by the casual way people reference assault as though it were not a big deal or, worse yet, funny. I feel the same way when people make jokes about serious violence. I try to keep their intentions in mind but I hope we as a society can move toward being more sensitive to these issues and to those who have been subjected to them. Addressing it is the first step - thank you!
ReplyDelete