Rape Culture

Jerry Sandusky was convicted and sentenced for molesting boys in his care.  There were those at Penn State who apparently knew and enabled him.

A student in Steubenville, OH was allegedly raped by two students on the football team.  Both students accused are black; however it appears that others might be involved and the sheriff isn’t going to investigate further. The sheriff is now under fire for how he handled the investigation.  The kids involved are 16.

In October of last year, two US servicemen were arrested on suspicion of raping a girl in Okinawa.

During the 2012 campaign, Todd Akin spewed forth his notion of “legitimate rape” on the country.  He thought the body had a way of “shutting that whole thing down” so that a woman couldn’t possibly become pregnant from such a horrific crime.  Needless to say, Claire McCaskill won.

A flyer was found in a men’s bathroom on the campus of Miami University of Ohio entitled, “The Top 10 Ways to Get Away With Rape”, listing such things as using date rape drugs to begin with, all the way to slitting her throat if the victim identifies her rapist.

A 17 year old gang-rape victim in India committed suicide after she was pressured by law enforcement to marry one of her rapists.

A woman in Alaska had drinks at a bar with a couple of men, continued the party at her home, passed out, waking up later to find she had been raped and her child’s Christmas presents were stolen.

Additionally, two more women were raped Christmas Day, well one was 15 years old.  The accused rapist of the 15 year old had just been arrested earlier for domestic violence against an eleven year old.

Sandra Fluke speaks out on women’s health issues and gets publicly flogged by Limbaugh on his radio show.    Despite sponsors leaving him, he’s still on the air.

GOP members of the House are blocking the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act because they view the inclusion of protecting Native American women as unconstitutional.  New language also protects LGBT and undocumented women.  They apparently don’t like that language either.  

This is just an excuse for misogynists to win.  Whether we call it the War on Women, or Rape Culture, it’s all the same thing.  We denigrate, dismiss and disregard the essential right of women to be safe and protected from harm.  A recent case in California proves that we still have laws on the books that do not protect women.  A law from 1872 was used by the California State Appeals Court to overturn a rape conviction of a guy who gained entry to a woman’s bedroom while she was asleep, began to rape her.  She realized it wasn’t her boyfriend when light from a window revealed the face of her rapist.  That archaic law doesn’t protect her because she is “unmarried”.  So now there’s going to be a re-trial.  How will prosecutors get around this? 

Will we ever be safe?