'I'm Not Saying That Rape Is Good, But I'm Just Saying ... Can't You Take Care Of Yourselves?'

[eridani]

http://www.upworthy.com/im-not-saying-that-rape-is-good-but-im-just-saying-cant-you-take-care-of-yourselves?c=upw1

In Oakland, it's the police not doing anything about it for years even though they knew about it, because they said “we couldn't do anything about it.” Rape culture is reinforcing to young girls that they don't have the right to feel safe. Rape culture is people telling women that protecting themselves from rape is like property theft. Well, it's not that I believe that rape is okay, but if you're going to leave your car parked on the street with the keys in the ignition and walk away, can you really expect that someone is not going to come along and steal it?

I say to that the two things that I think when I think of people calling property theft into account for this is that one, my vagina isn't a car. And if it was, I would have saved a lot more money in taxes over the years and then I'd be able to fix it's brake pads. Secondly, we're not disembodied from our bodies. Our vaginas aren't cars that we can walk away from and leave. The only way that that analogy works is if I'm sitting in the car, and you come and you open the car and you drag me out of it, then you steal my fucking car. Your vagina is not a vehicle but this is what rape culture looks like.

Rape culture is pretending that rape culture doesn't exist. It's people preferring to believe that the women in their lives are potential victims rather than accepting that the men in their lives are potential predators, because people like to talk about rapists as being evil monsters who lurk in the streets and shadows and we, the women, have to protect ourselves against them. I'm not saying that rape is good, girls. I'm just saying can't you just learn to take care of yourselves? Girls, when will you learn that the world is full of evil monsters and you have to protect yourselves? Rape culture is assuming that we haven't been raised protecting ourselves, believing in the state of our own vulnerability since the very days when we were first walking out away from our parents.

[DetlefK]

3. Just make two lists.

List all the places and times where/when you run into a serious risk of getting robbed.

List all the places and times where/when a woman runs into a serious risk of getting sexually assaulted or raped.


For example: A dark alley, 9 pm. There is nobody except you. You walk past some guys sitting in a van. They stare at you.
Do you feel safe as a man?
Do you feel safe as a woman?

For example: A dark alley, 9 pm. Two guys have been walking behind you for 5 minutes now, walking the same route as you.
Do you feel safe as a man?
Do you feel safe as a woman?

[get the red out]

4. Disgusting

Back when I was in grad school in the late 80s, I was power walking in broad daylight on campus and had a man attpt to rape me. I got lucky, I was wearing wrist weights and was in incredible shape; I started screaming and beating him over the head with the weights and he ran off.

Broad daylight, on campus, should we all stay inside terrified 24/7? Or anytime at all? There is no way to prevent the possibility or being raped by "taking care of ourselves".