9/27

Today we discussed some statistics about rape, why rape happens, and sort of summed up everything we have learned thus far. We started the day by choosing the cases we want to focus on for our papers and also picked the dates we would be presenting them. I chose the Julio Morales case, which is about a man who rapes his friends sister right after her boyfriend leaves the room, tricking her into thinking he is the boyfriend. I am presenting more about this on Thursday and will have some more facts ready!

We came up with a list of "how not to get raped" if you are a woman (more satire than anything) and it included the following things:
-Don't drink
-Don't go to parties
-Don't dress provocatively
-Stay away from men
-Don't be friends with men
-Men are evil
-Drinking is evil
-Don't be a woman

We also discussed the real topic of what causes rape: RAPISTS. Ultimately, it doesn't matter if a woman is blacked out drunk wearing nothing but lingerie, that does not give someone the right to rape her.

This discussion soon came to the debate of nature vs nurture and how that effects rape culture in the United States. Boys from a young age are taught to be tough and manly, and that "boys will be boys", all of these excuses pointing to the idea that somehow rape and violence is okay. But how did we get to this point? How did we come up with the idea that rape is acceptable? We need to stop claiming it is in the nature of men to want power, because rape is a position of power, and realize that these are people with serious psychological issues if they can rape someone. It is not okay for "boys to be boys" if that means someone is being harmed physically, mentally, or sexually in the process.

From here we move to gender roles, and wondering how we can change this? Stereotypically, men aren't great at communication, and in an innocent sense, may not understand or be able to pick up non-verbal cues a woman is giving if she doesn't straight out say no. This becomes an issue because not all women are bold enough to say no when a large man is doing something to them they do not like, so instead they use body language to show the man it isn't what they want. Once a woman does say no, or makes it very clear this isn't what she wants, men might feel like they were misled which causes them to feel betrayed and angry. This is an issue because men's communication skills are not being worked on as an entire population, so body language isn't always picked up. There are so many things that can go wrong with the nature vs nurture debate and the typical gender roles, which leads to one thing still: rapists cause rape. No other excuses.