Rape Culture

Rape culture refers to a society in which sexual violence and abuse against women are normalized through all pillars of culture: gender roles, media, education, etc. The misogynistic attitude that prevails in countries like the U.S. continues to normalize rape, excuse it and blame its victims.

The Problem With Sabrina Carpenter’s Album Cover Is Not Sex—It’s Violence 

The real discomfort with Carpenter’s controversial cover isn’t about sexual provocation. It’s about normalizing images of violence against women.

Policing women’s sexual choices should never be the goal of this discourse. Our personal sex lives are rich with context, and I hope that most people who enthusiastically interact with violent sexual acts, such as choking or hair-pulling, have felt comfortable enough with their partner to talk them through and have a truly consensual experience.

But we can monitor the way we speak about sex—especially expressions that lack that personal context, like album covers—and our tendencies as feminists to defend them in any light, no matter how troubling, for fear of restricting women as opposed to liberating them. 

We do not need to be OK with violence. Each of us has the personal autonomy to consider it, be conscious of it, oppose it, or even play with it. But when we look at an image of a woman having her hair pulled like the leash of a dog, it is only human—and important—that we feel uncomfortable.

Keeping Score: Americans Oppose Mass Deportations; Supreme Court Upholds Free Preventive Care Under ACA

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.

This week:
—marking three years since the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade
—”Deep cracks are showing in the Trump and Miller mass deportation agenda,” said Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice.
—Rest in power, Minnesota Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, who were assassinated in an act of political violence. “Political violence of any kind has no place in our democracy,” said Democratic Women’s Caucus chair Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.).
—The Supreme Court upheld bans on gender-affirming care for minors.
—Harvey Weinstein was again convicted of a criminal sex act.
—raising awareness for LGBTQ Equal Pay Day
—82% of Democrats and 68% of Republicans believe funding for childcare should increase. 

… and more.

Harvey Weinstein’s Half-Baked Verdict Reinforces a Continued Tradition of Suspicion Towards Victims of Sexual Assault

While dressed in modern garb, today’s distrust of accusers who delay reporting is hardly new. For most of our history, a “prompt outcry” rule was baked into our law, as explained in my book on accuser credibility. The rule rested on an abiding suspicion of accusers, equating delayed reporting with falsehood and allowing only rape allegations reported soon after the incident to proceed. 

How Violent Porn Initiates Young Boys in Violence Against Women

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“Your body, my choice.” That misogynist credo is the crux of the blockbuster Netflix mini-series, Adolescence, the third most-watched English language show of all time on Netflix. The show continues to provoke debate about the impact of social media on the mental health of boys, in a world dominated by the manosphere, and its power to transform boys’ into violent misogynists. 

Surprisingly, porn was the one missing element in the otherwise brilliant four-part Netflix drama.

The show centers on a 13-year-old boy, Jamie—a typical lad, vulnerable, like so many other young men, to the venom of online misogyny spewed through unbridled social media, chatrooms, blogs and podcasts. This angry ideology, masquerading as manly virtue, blames women for male alienation and promotes violent sexuality and the dehumanization of women—the very narratives of porn.

‘Companion’ Unmasks the Horror Beneath the Tradwife Fantasy

Companion starts with a dreamy tradwife fantasy and ends in a blood-soaked feminist reckoning. Writer-director Drew Hancock’s film may nod to Scream, Ex Machina and Black Mirror, but it carves out its own smart, brutal allegory for waking up from the fantasy of obedience. Sophie Thatcher’s performance anchors the story as Iris evolves from Stepford-perfect to gloriously feral, reminding us that when women start asking questions, the whole system bleeds.

‘Rape Club’: Trial Set for Prison Guard Accused of Sexual Abuse in Notorious California Women’s Prison

Earlier this month, a jury of ten men and two women was unable to come to a unanimous decision after a week’s deliberation. They were judging the trial of former correctional officer Darrell Wayne Smith, nicknamed “Dirty Dick,” accused of 15 counts of sexual misconduct. Smith was the last correctional officer to be charged with abuse at the now-shut-down FCI Dublin, as part of a sprawling federal investigation that convicted seven officers, including the prison’s warden and chaplain.

‘The Strong Do What They Please’: Dr. Judith Herman on Trump, Trauma and Tyranny

Feminist writers have long argued that there is an intrinsic relationship between patriarchy, rape and colonialism. The seizure of land by force is comparable to the seizure of a woman’s body—and historically rape and war have often gone hand-in-hand. 

In order to get a better understanding of how Donald Trump’s attitudes towards women might be related to his foreign policy, I reached out to Dr. Judith Herman, a world-renowned expert in trauma studies.

“The rules are pretty straightforward: The strong do what they please because they can. The weak submit because they have no other choice. And the bystanders are either complicit or too terrified to intervene, or just don’t care. These are the same rules whether we are talking about international relations or whether we’re talking about intimate personal relations.”