Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture and What We Can Do about It - Kate Harding
Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture and What We Can Do about It - Kate Harding
Non-Fiction
Pages: 272
Right now I've got a better chance of being raped than I have of catching a cold. And all the self-defence classes and panic whistles, all the vitamin C and throat lozenges in the world, won't protect me from either. Think about that for a moment next time you sneeze. One in 5 women will be raped at some point in their lives. One in 5. That's a 20% chance. Cancer patients have better odds.
I read this book with alternatively tears clouding my vision or rage spiking my blood pressure. It's that kind of book. Kate Harding pulls no punches here, systematically shredding all of the misogynistic, irrational, prejudicial bullshit arguments that get trotted out over and over when the issue of rape comes up. The sheer mental contortions some rape-apologists exhibit beggars belief, not to mention the apparent lack of any regard for men as rational, thinking human beings - 'men just can't help themselves, men need to be reminded not to rape, men don't understand non-verbal communication, he was just doing what comes naturally' - is that how men really want to see themselves?
Whether it's hate-trolls online or celebrity rapists, failures of the criminal justice system or abuses of power by law enforcement officials, a media that consistently reports rape in terms of the victim rather than the perpetrator, a culture that excuses misogyny as 'boys will be boys', anti-abortion activists that claim the body 'has ways of shutting this down' so a rape-related pregnancy can't have been 'real' rape, a culture of toxic masculinity within higher education, Kate Harding writes with a clear and impassioned voice, and one I thoroughly welcomed. She doesn't just take the feminist high-road, but demonstrates how this kind of rape culture damages everyone, not just women.
I could not put this book down. I would make it required reading in schools, colleges, universities. I would make every trainee police officer, every first responder, everyone involved in the criminal justice system read this. Rape culture is so invisible, so insidious that it isn't until you read a book like this that you realise just how pervasive it is throughout our entire culture. But books like this are an important start.
Non-Fiction
Pages: 272
Right now I've got a better chance of being raped than I have of catching a cold. And all the self-defence classes and panic whistles, all the vitamin C and throat lozenges in the world, won't protect me from either. Think about that for a moment next time you sneeze. One in 5 women will be raped at some point in their lives. One in 5. That's a 20% chance. Cancer patients have better odds.
I read this book with alternatively tears clouding my vision or rage spiking my blood pressure. It's that kind of book. Kate Harding pulls no punches here, systematically shredding all of the misogynistic, irrational, prejudicial bullshit arguments that get trotted out over and over when the issue of rape comes up. The sheer mental contortions some rape-apologists exhibit beggars belief, not to mention the apparent lack of any regard for men as rational, thinking human beings - 'men just can't help themselves, men need to be reminded not to rape, men don't understand non-verbal communication, he was just doing what comes naturally' - is that how men really want to see themselves?
Whether it's hate-trolls online or celebrity rapists, failures of the criminal justice system or abuses of power by law enforcement officials, a media that consistently reports rape in terms of the victim rather than the perpetrator, a culture that excuses misogyny as 'boys will be boys', anti-abortion activists that claim the body 'has ways of shutting this down' so a rape-related pregnancy can't have been 'real' rape, a culture of toxic masculinity within higher education, Kate Harding writes with a clear and impassioned voice, and one I thoroughly welcomed. She doesn't just take the feminist high-road, but demonstrates how this kind of rape culture damages everyone, not just women.
I could not put this book down. I would make it required reading in schools, colleges, universities. I would make every trainee police officer, every first responder, everyone involved in the criminal justice system read this. Rape culture is so invisible, so insidious that it isn't until you read a book like this that you realise just how pervasive it is throughout our entire culture. But books like this are an important start.