RAINN on Rape Culture

[jimhines]

Will Shetterly wrote a blog post asking if I had addressed “RAINN’s refutation of ‘rape culture’” yet. I’m writing this less to respond to Shetterly and more because I think there’s some good conversation to be had around RAINN’s recommendations. But I should warn folks that by invoking his name and linking to his blog post, I’m basically

Comments

[rosefox]

The major concern I've seen expressed about relying on bystander intervention is that bystanders are more likely to intervene if the person being attacked is, say, a young white cis woman than an older black trans woman. In some demographics, the person being attacked would be right to fear bystanders rather than relying on them for help.

That's also a concern with these frankly naive comments from the RAINN letter:

We believe that the most effective - the primary - way to prevent sexual violence is to use the criminal justice system to take more rapists off the streets.

[C]onfusion discourages victims from coming forward to take the brave step of reporting this crime.... When these crimes aren’t reported... serial criminals are left unpunished and free to strike again.Again, that assumes the criminal justice system is there to help rape victims and survivors rather than victimize them further. Even for white cis women, that's often not the case. And the further one gets from that place of privilege, the more likely it is that one

[sunlit_music]

Seconding what rosefox is saying. I'm sick and tired of people who say rape survivors who don't report are responsible for future rapes. Plus I am so frustrated when people say they don't care about rape victims who don't report rapes or take out Apprehended Violence Orders.