This is what rape culture looks like

As someone who has been active in feminist organizations for years, I am occasionally asked what I mean by “rape culture.” I often say that rape culture is anything that normalizes unwanted, nonconsensual sex.
In other words, rape culture is anything that makes rape seem like it is not really rape.
I explain it this way because I have no doubt that most people, if asked, would say that rape is wrong. The problem is that because of rape culture, many people can’t identify what rape looks like.
Young men are taught that rape means jumping out of the bushes, attacking a stranger, and violently forcing her to have sex with him. While this can be true, they often don’t know that 70 per cent of rapes are committed by someone the victim knows, and that they could rape their classmate, friend, girlfriend, or wife. They might not be sure what consent really means.
Because of rape culture, young women sometimes don’t have this information either. This leaves them confused and humiliated when they are raped. Because of rape culture, they may feel guilty, or like they asked for it—that they were dressed too provocatively, or weren’t careful enough. They don’t know that it is never their fault.
This past week, news broke that universities in Vancouver and Halifax were using grossly sexist, misogynistic chants making light of rape as part of frosh week activities. Having spent the better part of the last ten years on university campuses, I know that these chants are part of a much broader culture promoting rape and sexual violence.
Though far from unusual, the chants—viewed as harmless, in good fun, or as a group-building activity by those participating—provide an excellent example of how rape culture manifests in practice:
- Rape culture is frosh week organizers leading a chant spelling out YOUNG: Y for Your Younger Sister, O for Oh-so-tight, U for Underage, N for No Consent, G for Grab that Ass.
- Rape culture is those same students being entrusted with welcoming new students to campus, teaching them university customs, and helping them adapt to “normal” university life. It is new university students thinking they have to participate in such activities or ways of thinking in order to fit in.
- Rape culture is the president of the student union admitting that he had participated in the chant, but hadn’t really thought about it since it had been used in several previous years.
- Rape culture is the chant being widely described in the media as merely “inappropriate” and simply promoting underage sex rather than glorifying rape.
- Rape culture is a mainstream newspaper publishing an article blaming both the chant and rape in general on young women wearing too little clothing.
- Rape culture is the premier of Nova Scotia saying that he feels bad for the chanters and expressing his concern for their future careers, echoing the way some commentators have lamented young convicted rapists’ lives being ruined.
- Rape culture is the university administration believing that mandating “sensitivity” training is a sufficient response to the incident—as if the problem were merely that students weren’t sensitive to the fact that they might offend someone with the chant.
- Rape culture is students at another university on the other side of the country singing a similar chant glorifying the rape of young women. It is those students, knowing that the chant will be seen as inappropriate and offensive, insisting it be sung in secret.
- Rape culture is participants saying that while they don’t think rape is OK, the chant “maybe gets people out of their personal boundaries and bubbles” and “was just for fun, right?”
Each aspect of these incidents demonstrates how rape is normalized in our culture—by confusing rape with sex, by making rape seem ordinary, or by downplaying rape with jokes and chants. This doesn’t excuse chanters (or rapists) from their actions, but it does mean that we must collectively take responsibility for combating rape culture. With messages such as these, it is no wonder that young people are confused about rape and about the fact that non-consensual sex—no matter with whom or what the circumstances—is always rape, always violent, and always serious.
This will not be the last time that rape culture shows up on university campuses or elsewhere. It is important that we—as students, parents, teachers, administrators, activists, artists, media-makers, government officials, or otherwise—consider how our responses to these incidents may help perpetuate this culture and look for ways that we can intervene.
While part of this work involves condemning rape culture, it is equally important to build alternative cultures promoting respectful, consensual relationships. When cultures of consent—in which knowing, communicating, and respecting boundaries are normalized and considered essential to all sexual relationships—replace rape culture in our society, we will truly be on our way to creating a world free from sexual violence.
13 Comments
I agree that the cheer being said was very wrong and enjoyed your article. But why did you choose to use a photo from Queen’s University? I find that misrepresenting of the article, please reconsider your choice.
From Queen's Student in Kingston on Sep 11th, 2013 at 7:28pm
Horrifying incident at ubc. I hadn’t heard the actual chant before and it makes my stomach churn. Thank you for speaking up and out. There needs to be more education presented by women (and men) on rape culture. As a woman who has been raped (domestic violence, not from a stranger jumping out if bushes), this article gives me hope for change, so my future daughters and their daughters don’t have to be another statistic: another victim blamed by the sex between her legs.
From Laura in Vancouver on Sep 11th, 2013 at 11:58pm
I’m another Queen’s student who is upset by the choice of picture here. In an article that doesn’t even mention Queen’s, why was this picture chosen?
From Queen's Student on Sep 12th, 2013 at 8:37am
Thanks for writing this!
From Jane in Montreal on Sep 12th, 2013 at 10:57am
The central message of this piece is that Saint Mary’s and UBC are not anomalies — rape culture exists on all university campuses (and beyond), including Queen’s. The photo was chosen because it depicts an everyday scene at a Canadian university campus, and in that sense embodies the writer’s argument that rape culture is pervasive (and must be challenged) everywhere, not just where these particular chants took place.
From Valerie Zink on Sep 12th, 2013 at 12:03pm
This is a great article, I think the writer has excellent ways of spelling out exactly why this kind of behavior is so wrong!! i was appalled when i heard about these stupid chants going on at other campuses, but yet i remember thinking I don’t know what it is exactly that is so wrong with them – they’re just kids having fun, right? it’s just kinda disrespectful and rude, right? no. it is so, so much more. now we need to take the next step forward (as she mentions in the last paragraph) and actually replace these ridiculous, horrible chants (and ideas that go along with them) with positive ones. there are many ways to joke and have fun with ideas about consensual sex, rather than promoting an already prevalent culture of rape acceptance, normalization, and promotion. That should NOT be normal or acceptable.
From Jessica in Toronto on Sep 12th, 2013 at 2:33pm
Feminists normally frustrate me to no end but you keep doing what you’re doing. You’re not obnoxious like the wacky radical feminists. Get at ‘em! Haha
From Michael in Toronto on Sep 12th, 2013 at 4:07pm
Thank you for getting to the core of this issue. Well written.
From Amanda in Barrie on Sep 12th, 2013 at 5:03pm
My real concern, and wonder, is why none of the media outlets did any research at all behind the history of the chant. There appears to be similar chants across the country but how they are linked hasn’t been explored. Who created them? Why were they repeated year after year without much thought?
From Concerned on Sep 12th, 2013 at 7:49pm
The leader of the Student Union should be expelled, and maybe even have a bunch of his credits taken away. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that rape is DEFINITELY not something to joke around about. If this kid’s future is ruined because of this, that’s tough luck for him. Maybe if his life was wrecked, he’d feel some pain and humiliation – just like rape victims do. I have no sympathy at all for whoever it was who decided that singing chants about rape was a good idea. I thought university was where intelligent people could be found. There are some mean people out there…
From Andrew Robinson in Calgary on Sep 13th, 2013 at 12:33am
I lived out of town. It wasn’t unusual for people to offer others, especially kids, a drive, to town, or home, again home again. I had never been on a date. I went to the school sock hop alone. I was excited that I was old enough to go bowling on a Friday night, even if I bowled gutter bowls. Everyone was eating and drinking at a tournament. One guy who was an officer in the army was there. He had driven me home before. I thought he was a friend. He bought me a hot dog and a shake. I finally rolled a couple of strike. I got a lot of pats on the back and hugs. I was happy and excited. This guy gave me a kiss. I thought getting a kiss for a strike was incredible. On the way home he asked me several times if I was sixteen. I thought he wanted to give me a sweet sixteen present. The first few times he drove me home he was time. He came to watch me bowl and would buy me a hotdog and cola. I thought he was a friend. Yes, he kissed me good-night and I liked it Then he decided since I smiled at him I wanted more. He raped me. He only stopped when I cried and told him he was hurting me. Later he claimed he only attempted to rape me but STOPPED when I asked. Later when the police and lawyers military court was involved he swore that I attacked him. And one comment I heard through all of this. It takes two to tango. I didn’t hear the music. I didn’t know that song. I didn’t eve hear him ask, and I didn’t want to dance. As his ‘punishment’ he was posted to Germany for three years and warn such behaviour could ruin his career. I never forgot his face or his voice. Years later I was near a high school in another city. I missed my bus. A car pulled up along side of me. The driver leaned over and with a big smile he asked “Can I give you a drive.” I often wondered how many young women lives this officer and gentleman changed
From Joan Chipman in Dartmouth NS on Sep 13th, 2013 at 6:37am
Hi Jane,
I really enjoyed your article, and I agree with your position that the incidents at UBC were not acceptable, and this does point to a further and deeper cultural problem in our society.
I think a large part of the problem is that men are repressed sexually and have been for a long time. Macho culture is what is put in its place to compensate; we are taught to aspire to be sports heroes, to revel in winning, and to assign blame to something else when we lose. Men are not taught to take responsibility for their feelings at a very young age, (if you don’t believe me go to a minor hockey game some day…)
Imagine a world where all of the value that our culture puts on you and your life comes from your ability to win to succeed. Imagine if you thought you were a winner, and your first reaction to losing is to feel like less of a person. You do not want to lose.
The win/lose culture is to blame, and that culture is everywhere.
The only solution is Win/Win culture, and healthy communication. I don’t see any example of this in our western culture, nor in any of the eastern cultures.
That is my thought for the evening, and it’s late, so it may make no sense
From Culturally confused in Canada on Sep 14th, 2013 at 12:05am
Great post, Jane.
You remove a lot of the ambiguity around the subjects of sex and rape in culture, which is so greatly needed.
Forgive me if this is bad form, but I’d love it if you’d check out my response to The Globe & Mail’s dismissal of rape culture and the legitimacy of rape statistics at Universities and Colleges across North America.
Thanks again for the insight into a complex issue.
From Tara Reed in Toronto, Ontario on Sep 14th, 2013 at 7:24pm