In August, a group of teenagers in a small Ohio town attended a party where underage drinking took place.
This isn’t anything out of the ordinary for our society–your parents did it, my friends have done it and you’re probably doing it as well.
At this party, a girl got so drunk she couldn’t walk. Got so drunk, she couldn’t talk. At one point during the night, she was raped by one Steubenville football player while another recorded the incident.
From start to end, the Steubenville rape case is a chain of one terrifying event after another.
A drunk girl being raped, to her rapists who claimed that it was consensual even after calling her a “dead girl” to the mainstream media sympathizing with rapists and blaming the victim for being “promiscuous.”
Steubenville reminds us that we too live in a rape culture–where sexual violence is so common that it’s considered normal.
Self defense classes for female Elk Grove students recently finished up, but in cases such as Steubenville, they’re not effective.
In a growing society where women are told they should prevent rape by not acting, doing or wearing certain things, classes teaching women how to “not get raped,” without providing a class for males that teaches “don’t rape” is troubling.
I want to make it clear that I am not suggesting that female students should not take self-defense courses or that there’s no such thing as a woman who has successfully defended herself against assault.
However, male students should also be educated on consent and rape.
By only offering defense classes to women, the school is reinforcing the common recommendation that women should “learn how to protect themselves” as the only possible solution to rape.
According to the Huffington Post, women are three times more likely to be raped by someone they know than a stranger and nine times more likely to be raped in their home than being raped on the street, making what we commonly refer to as “date rape,” by far the most common”type” of rape.
Self defense may seem helpful when you picture the typical rape scenario.
It’s different when you think about trying to harm your boyfriend, friend or family member–someone you trust.
Besides being able to protect yourself, we live in a society where women are taught to “not get raped,” instead of teaching men “don’t rape.”
These two football players aren’t social abnormalities in an otherwise safe world. These boys are what they’ve been raised to be–rapists.
In a society where we tell boys that it was this girl’s fault for putting herself in a vulnerable situation then it becomes plausible that these boys didn’t know that what they were doing was wrong.
Instead of asking “how could they think this was okay?,” rape culture is asking “what was she thinking getting that drunk?”
This line of thinking implies that men are incapable of control and that it takes an extraordinary effort not to rape someone.
When you’re constantly encouraged to go out and get “what’s yours,” when people are constantly telling you not to be weak, when people tell you that masculinity is measured by power over others, then it’s possible that a drunk girl may look to someone as just another thing you’re entitled to do whatever you want to.
To combat sexual violence, women shouldn’t have to feel compelled to take a self-defense class.
Instead, we need to educate students about consent and sexual violence
Let’s support women who learn self-defense. But let’s not let our thoughts about preventing rape end there.
By: Paige Crenshaw