She’s Speaking Up: The Untold Truth behind Rape Culture
We live in a society where misjudgment, mistreatments, and violence shelters. Societal norms have been known to only listen to one side of the story. The people who are often affected are the victims of sexual violence who have suffered tremendously because of the misjudgments and violence of this society. These victims are often silenced, shoved to the side, and abused. However, is hearing the side of the offender and silencing the victim the only option to really know the whole truth?
Rape culture is defined as a society or environment whose prevailing social attitudes have the effect of normalizing or trivializing sexual assault and abuse. It has been prevalent all around the world ever since the old times. Moreover, this culture still continues to grow up to this time. As of February 2020, the data obtained by the PSA from the PNP indicated that there were 2,162 rape cases reported to the police. It was also evident that cases of rape increased as the years go by. With that being said, contributing to this injustice is a habit of society that eventually perpetuates victim blaming.
What is victim blaming really? Victim blaming usually occurs when the victim of a crime or any wrongful act is held entirely or partially guilty for the harm that occurred to them and restricts victims from speaking up. Though many have already stood up against this, society still remains neutral and just chooses to ignore it. Being blamed for traumatic experiences like rape can lead to an increase in mental health challenges such as anxiety and PTSD. The cultural tendency for victim blaming also decreases the likelihood that people will seek help due to fear of being shamed or judged. Instead of giving them the right to speak up for themselves, it always ends up torturing them even more by giving them a fear of defending for their rights. “You should dress better next time,” is a statement society loves to tattle when a rape case happens. It has been a repeated reason and excuse for men over the years to escape and blame the traumatized woman instead. This is rape culture. With the presence of victim blaming, rape culture worsened as it’s always deemed as the victim’s fault. Women have been judged over the years based on how they dress and how they act in public. However, society has failed to recognize that it’s not always about how women dress but because of the presence of uneducated and disrespectful men. There are rape cases that women were not even dressed improperly, some of them were just wearing sweaters and jeans. So, is it really just about how a woman dresses?
But, times have changed. Women have grown courageously to speak up for unfair judgements against them. They have stood strong and fought against society about rape culture. A new generation who is educated enough about this toxic culture has risen and is ready to correct society. Why do we even need to point fingers? Why do we not just start educating the youth of today about respecting each other’s rights- more specifically women’s rights? Rape victims have been silenced for years but now is finally time to voice out. So, if you are a victim of sexual violence, never be afraid to speak up. Your trauma is as valid as your side of the story.
Finally, a realization popped out. We live in a society that teaches us how to “not get raped” instead of “don’t rape”. So, as educated youth and members of society, we should start educating men to respect women’s rights and let us shatter this norm of rape culture and victim blaming. As we do so, we would have a much better community where everyone’s rights, opinions, and traumas matter. Always remember, there is no disgrace in being a survivor of sexual violence — the shame is always on the aggressor.
Sophia Galzote, Article Writer.
