Over at the Good Men Project, Nikki Brown is asking the important question: Why Are So Many Good Men Accepting of Rape Culture?
I already wrote about the topic yesterday. I hope I made it clear that in agreeing with Schwyzer’s point about men as potential rapists I do not mean to accept rape culture as I an inherent, natural … thing or that I accept that “all men are rapists.” I do not. Yes, rape culture is a thing. But it’s a thing we need to work hard to change. Rape culture is not something misandrist “nagging” feminists invent to make it easier to hate men. If you do a quick open-minded search you’ll find numerous articles explaining the topic, I linked to one of them in my post yesterday.
The comments at GMP are again telling: Rape culture is not non-existant because an individual rapist was scared away by an individual man. Rape culture is a societal ill. It’s a system. It’s kept up, in my opinion, by rhetoric that includes victim blaming or portrays (sexual) relationships as a game or hunt with an overly aggressive hunter and a coy prey. In a way rape – especially the most common form, rape by someone the victim knows/is already intimate with – is only an extension of the hunter/prey “game.” Rhetoric like this seems to legitimize the rapists “logic.” It’s rhetoric like this that we men need to oppose.
One man can maybe stop one rape. But we’ll need all men* to stop rape culture.
CLARITY AND CHAOS 