Redefining Rape Into Irrelevance

This year's epidemic of antediluvian statements by repugs on what's "really" rape is no accident.  For more than 40 years, repugs have been denying facts and the reality-based world by redefining basic concepts they don't like.

So getting help from your community when you need it is "mooching;" trying to feed, clothe and shelter your children is a "culture of dependency," and getting raped is a dishonest excuse for an abortion.

We must take our language back from the Orwellian redefiners. And we must start with "rape."

Jessica Valenti at The Nation:

(Last) week, a DC-based feminist group projected the phrase “rape is rape” onto the US Capitol building. The action was meant to highlight survivors’ stories and bring attention to the way rape is often mischaracterized. The sentiment may seem an obvious one—who doesn’t understand what rape is?—but the message, sadly, is much needed. Tuesday evening at the final Indiana Senate debate, Republican Richard Mourdock explained why he opposes abortion with no exceptions by calling pregnancy from rape "something that God intended"- the latest in a long line of "gaffes" by male politicians about sexual assault. It was only this January that the FBI updated its archaic definition of rape, male politicians’ “gaffes” about rape have become par for the course, and victim-blaming in the culture and courts runs rampant.

Feminists have done a lot to change policies, but not enough to change minds. Despite decades of activism on sexual assault—despite common sense, even—there is still widespread ignorance about what rape is, and this absence of a widely understood and culturally accepted definition of sexual assault is one of the biggest hurdles we have in chipping away at rape culture.

SNIP
To too many people, “rape” and “rape victim” are not accurate descriptors but political shorthand—the product of an overblown, politically correct interpretation of sex.

SNIP

The definition of who is a rape victim has been whittled down by racism, misogyny, classism and the pervasive wink-wink-nudge-nudge belief that all women really want to be forced anyway. The assumption is that women are, by default, desirous of sex unless they explicitly state otherwise. And women don’t just have to prove that we said no, but that we screamed it.

Recently the Connecticut State Supreme Court overturned a sexual assault conviction for a man who attacked a woman with severe cerebral palsy. The woman cannot communicate verbally, and according to the court’s documents, has the “intellectual functional equivalent of a 3-year-old.” Still, because of how the state defines rape in cases of physical incapacitation, the court decided that the victim was capable of “biting, kicking, scratching, screeching, groaning or gesturing,” and therefore could have communicated a lack of consent and didn’t. Basically, she didn’t fight back hard enough in order for what happened to her to be considered rape.

This is not just a problem of rhetoric or legalese. The lack of an accepted cultural definition of rape leaves room for mischaracterizations that turn back the clock on progress already made.

SNIP

Every day, the severity, violence and criminality of what rape is—its very definition—is distorted in a way that makes it more difficult for survivors to come forward and for anti-violence advocates to do their work, while making the world easier for victim-blaming and for rapists themselves.

SNIP

This is work is important, but what’s crucial is that we make a shift from targeting pieces of the culture in a reactive way to proactively changing the broader culture in a more lasting way. We need to spend less time worrying about ultraconservative misogynists and extremist politicians and focus on shifting the way we all think about sexual assault and consent. We need to think and act much, much bigger.

SNIP
When Vice President Joe Biden gave a press conference last year about the administration’s efforts to curb sexual violence in schools, he laid some groundwork, saying, “No means no. No means no if you’re drunk or sober. No means no if you’re in bed in the dorm or on the street. No means no even if you said yes first and changed your mind. No means no—and it’s a crime…”

This particular section of his speech—a strong message against rape, that called out victim-blaming, and put the blame squarely on the perpetrator—was tweeted and sent around Tumblr and blogs tens of thousands of times. No offense to the Vice President—but can you imagine the impact if wasn’t Joe Biden but Taylor Swift giving this message? Our politicians should be making bold feminist statements about sexual assault, but our pop culture icons need to be talking about it too.

SNIP

Clearly, this is just one piece of a tremendous battle. A widely accepted definition of rape—even a progressive, feminist one—will not change everything, and it won’t eradicate rape. But it is a necessary step to shift the culture.

SNIP

Thanks to widespread online activism and women’s issues dominating election discourse, feminism is enjoying a moment of real cultural power. Now is the time to use it.

 Think she's over-reacting? Check out this.