Things learned/realized this semester

1. How often rape happens - even on WSU’s campus - and how little it is reported.

2. How important sex-education is – How often it’s taught, how it’s taught, and when it’s taught

3. How many rapes occur by acquaintances – sometimes it’s more important to be wary of who you let your guard down around over being afraid of walking home alone.

4. Even rape has an opportune moment & commonplaces

 

Something that crossed my mind

I was thinking earlier today about different misconceptions our society has about rape. Something that really struck me was a fraternity that had signs saying "21 to party, 18 to sleep over." I think a lot of people are under the impression that if someone is over the age of 18, it can't be rape. Yes, that's the age when you are legally capable to giving consent - but there is so much more involved in consent than just that.

That's the first question asked when someone says they had sex, "How old were they?" and if they were above 18, people just say "well, that's their problem then if they didn't want to have sex."

Bud light can

I am appalled by the label on the bottle of the Bud Light can. Within the article it says "I didn’t really think we intended what is going on,” and that there are multiple new beer labels associated with the #UpForWhatever campaign.

#UpForWhatever in itself can be taken poorly through a rape lens, but if it had been advertised differently it may have been fine.

Now that I have taken this class I view things through a rape lens far more often then before, and I can't help but wonder if I would have even noticed the negative connotation this label had before this semester. This proves the amount of rape-related language and advertisement that surrounds us constantly. It's actually very sad.

The author of this article states, "how many people do you think this label had to go through without anyone side-eyeing it to the grave?"

It's amazing how many people over look the fact that this tagline is blatantly about rape - it goes to show the de-dramatization our society places on the topic of rape. We NEED to stop brushing it under the rug.

Reflection

            As I wrote in my reflective essay for English 360 last semester, I haven’t always been a writer, in fact I was born with Dyslexia which is a learning disorder that causes reading and writing to be very difficult to comprehend. However, as I learned to cope with my Dyslexia I grew to really enjoy writing. English became my favorite subject in high school, and ended up being the class I succeeded most in. Coming into college I had no idea what I wanted to major in, all I knew was I wanted to do something in which I could apply and continually advance my creativity. After taking introductory courses in English my freshman year, I grew to really enjoy them. I started exploring other English and Art classes and soon after decided without a doubt I wanted to major in digital technology and culture, and later made rhetoric and Professional Writing my additional major.

            My ultimate goal has been to become a graphic designer since the beginning of my college career, but I would love to incorporate writing into my career in some way. Regardless of the exact path I choose, rhetoric is going to inevitably be a major part of my work. Currently, I am the intern at Washington State Magazine and have learned a lot about narrative-non-fiction writing which I have fallen in love with. It’s a great way to tell real-life stories, but include my own voice in my writing. The type of writing done in English 460, however, did not come as easy to me. It took me longer than usual to write the essays for this class, and I still was never completely satisfied with the end product. Rape culture is just such a complex topic, it was difficult for me to sit down and execute one cohesive point.

As a junior in college, I have been exposed to rape-culture so much that I had become desensitized to the constant comments, disregard of rape, and disinterest in making a change. The biggest challenge I faced in this class was writing the essays. It’s so difficult to write about such a controversial topic, especially because no two people’s views on it are identical. Even my own views are often conflicting, which lead to a challenging writing experience. I found myself coming up with a thesis, but as I wrote it I found counter arguments to everything I had been previously writing. As someone who has mostly written about books, people, or non-controversial topics – this was a huge challenge. However, challenging myself as a writer is the best way to improve, and writing about such a difficult topic was a great way to ground my opinions.  

I have been required to take multiple rhetoric classes, and learned a lot of the basics in English 360 last semester, which made English 460 tremendously more interesting. Analyzing rape culture through the lens of rhetoric has been extremely eye opening, and I know that my views on rape have been forever changed.

            My first essay was about rape in pop-culture. Since the beginning of the semester I have watched TV and movies through a different set of eyes, in that I didn’t even realize how many of my favorite movies and shows involved rape. The most disturbing is the amount of rape in TV shows designed for teenagers to watch. In my personal opinion, rape should not be allowed to be scripted into any show unless it is an accurate depiction of the consequences that follow.

            My second essay was about sex-education around the world. This is another thing that I never realized how lacking it was. My personal experience with sex-education in schools was very minimal, which is presumably the case with many others my age. This is why when we get to college, rape statistics are so high – because the lack of education received prior to being on our own.

            The blog assignments felt slightly repetitive as we often talked about similar topics on multiple days, but they were extremely useful when it came time to write an essay. Writing about a day’s discussion into a blog helped sort out my thoughts, and served as a reference and reminder for writing the essays. The third project, however, was my favorite. It gave me a chance to put my design skills to use and come up with something that could potentially be used to make a difference. Through refining my design and information involved on the flyer, I may turn it in to someone just to see if there is anything further I can do with it.

            The relationship between rhetoric and rape-culture could be what makes a difference. In this I mean that the language of rape-culture needs to change, the arguments against rape need to change, and the way students are taught about rape-culture needs to change. Something that truly stuck out to my from recent class periods was the idea that “guilty until proven innocent” is synonymous with the victim being a liar until proven honest. This is just one example of the things that need to change within our world.

            Each student coming up with different readings was a very interesting topic. The reason I liked this is because we did this in such a way that we had three rounds, and each round held a different sort of conversation. The first round was organizing our thoughts and views, the second round solidified them, and the third was brain-storming ways to make a change. It may be beneficial for future classes to switch the groups around each round though, because this way each round receives a fresh set of eyes constructing the research.

            Listening to my class-mates input was a great way to find a foundation for my views because they often offered a counter-view which is a great form of critical analysis of controversial topics. This class was filled with mature, intelligent students which was a very lucky find when discussing something so heavy. Listening to topics each student wrote about was also a good way to find topics for myself to write about. It was also great because others offered ideas that I may have not even thought about prior to this class. It was also great, because most of us knew each other from English 360, and therefore were already comfortable sharing our views.
            Overall, this class has truly opened my eyes, and my hope is that it continues to be taught. It’s vitally important for as many young people’s eyes as possible to be opened to the reality of rape. It’s something that has become so taboo in our world, and won’t get the attention it deserves until people make a stand. I feel optimistic about the future of universities and rape-culture, because through doing research in this class it seems that people are beginning to make changes. My deepest hope is that rape statistics drastically drop, and that rape-education rises tremendously.        

Disabilities and Consent

How does someone establish if a persons consent is valid when it comes to having a disability? It's hard because some disabilities (i.e. Alzheimer) makes it so the person with the disability doesn't know what they're saying at all times. However, it's wrong to deny someone sex just because they have a disability.

I think it's important to consider how disabled they truly are, and consider how sex will affect the person with a disability. For example, someone may consent - and then turn around to have an anxiety attack or completely forget that they said yes in the first place. When it comes to having sex with someone who has a disability, there is much more consideration that goes into deciding whether the consent is valid.

Looking Back

Looking back over the semester and considering the students in this class, I think it's very clear that all of our eyes have been opened. We are more aware of everything that surrounds us - specifically regarding living on a college campus.

Before this class, the majority of us wouldn't have thought twice about hearing people use the word 'rape' as slang, but now a lot of us would cringe at hearing that. Also,  taking this semester to think critically about this topic has been really beneficial - if this class carried on to future semesters, I think a difference would be made. If not only because people would be educated, but someone who takes this course may take a stance and an effort to make a difference.

Solutions

Through looking at everyone's project 3 today, it's very apparent we are coming up with some good solutions. This biggest common denominator is that we need to get information out to the public before it's too late. We've discussed this a lot in class, and I think this is what is lacking on college campuses. College campuses seem to give the students information just enough to check it off their list and clear their names if something does occur. It's vitally important to give information in a way that is going to stick, not just be forgotten a week later.

Some of my favorite projects of the day have been the flyers and pamphlets that could be passed out around campus. It seems so simple and obvious, but honestly before this class I have never seen a pamphlet or flyer like any of the ones we've seen today - which is truly sad.

Our class came up with multiple different flyers, and they all covered different topics which shows the wide variety of information that is getting overlooked in culture today. Something as simple and ordinary as flyers and pamphlets may be a piece of the key to change.

I realized I never posted Essay 2

Sex-Education around the World

            It is no secret that rape is a world-wide crime. There is not one place someone could go and have a zero percent chance of getting raped, but some countries are undoubtedly safer than others.  Proper sex-education is one of the highest contributors to low rape statistics as well as teenage and unplanned pregnancies, and lower abortion rates.

Sweden has been in the hot seat as of late because of the dramatic increase of rapes in the past 40 years. Other than the African country of Lesotho, Sweden had the highest rape rate in the 2014 study. It hasn’t always been this way for Sweden. In 1975, there were 421 reported rapes, whereas in 2014 there were 6,620 – a 1,472% increase. (Carlqvist)

No country wants to be known for their rape statistics. Sweden was once among the European countries that are looked up to for the way they handle sex education, but now Sweden is trying to cover up the rising statistics with excuses. Rather than taking action steps to minimize rape, Sweden seems to be attempting to explain their way out of these accusations. Some of their claims are that the statistics have increased so drastically not because more rapes are occurring, but rather because more rapes are being reported. They have also said more sexual offences are being classified as rape than ever before, therefore it seems there are more when there really is not. Finally, the most ludicrous of excuses is that the gender equality is rising in Sweden and the men, especially immigrant men, aren’t able to handle it and instead lash out in anger. (Carlqvist)

Making excuses for why their rape statistics are climbing will not stop rapes from happening and in end will cause people to fear visiting. Whereas if Sweden accepts their rising numbers, and does everything in their power to minimize them, people will more likely recognize their efforts and not be afraid to visit.

The biggest common denominator between what has changed, and why the statistic has sky rocketed in Sweden is the amount of immigrants moving into Sweden. Sweden used to be a very closed off country, not letting many outsiders in. Now, Sweden has gained nearly half a million immigrants and the number of rapes has risen to the astonishing number of one in four Swedish women.  Seemingly, this can be directly related to the lack of education in the immigrants. The new-come immigrants amount to nearly 6% of the population, and are responsible to nearly 75% of rapes. If Sweden took the efforts they are putting in to making excuses for their rising rape-rates, and placed them in to educating the immigrants maybe their rates will crawl back down to a safer place.

Before Sweden’s increase in rapes, it was a relatively safe country. Sweden had an interesting, but effective way of educating students about sex. The goal was to de-dramatize the act of sex. Swedish middle school teacher, Malin Hammarstrom, sets out to do just this. She has a series of classes that the young eighth grade students go through. In the first lesson she sits at the front of the room and lets her students say all the sex-related words that they can think of, and she writes them on the board. The goal is to show her students that it’s not awkward or embarrassing, or even something to be ashamed of. (Saers) She follows this lesson with at least twelve more classes in which the students can ask any questions they may have. Hammarstrom claims she has never had an upset parent contact her about this approach. If an American middle school teacher tried this way of teaching, there would undoubtedly be a controversy.

The United States tends to take two approaches: one of which is an abstinence approach, and a second in which is a passive approach. The abstinence approach simply tells children that having sex before marriage is wrong. Telling a child something is wrong is only going to make them want to rebel. The passive approach is simply avoiding sex-education and handing out condoms. It seems that there is no in between in the United States sex-education programs. If an institution attempts a sex-education program, it’s usually too short to be effective.

For instance, the Washington State University Booze Sex and Reality Checks program is a good start, but it’s not enough to make much of an impact. One fifty minute session to a group of eighteen year olds who are excited about entering a life of freedom and parties, is not going to stop them from making mistakes. In order to begin making a difference, a University, or any other institution needs to have a series of classes much like the Swedish middle school teacher’s approach. 

It’s important to know what topics to de-dramatize, and which to make students prominently aware of. Sex in itself is over-dramatized in America. For the more innocent years of life the topic is considered gross and taboo. As we grow older we realize sex is everywhere, but what we don’t realize is how distorted and poorly portrayed it is. It’s important to be aware of the reality of sex.

On the other side of things, rape is a topic that is very under-dramatized in America. It should be explicitly and prominently known to every citizen, but instead it is undermined by calling it sexual-battery, sexual-assault, et cetera because no one wants to hear the word “rape.” Within an education program, rape needs to be taught explicitly. It is unthinkable to believe it is possible to make this topic clear enough to make an impact in one fifty minute Booze Sex and Reality Checks class.

No single country has, or may ever have the solution to abolishing rape, so it is more efficient to look into what countries are doing wrong in order to create a solution. The biggest mistake Sweden seems to be making, is filling the media with excuses as to why it is such a dangerous time in Sweden. Sweden needs to take the effort they’ve put into educating their native students on sex in the past, and expand it to the immigrants flooding into their country in the present. Now that the doors of Sweden have been opened to immigrants, it’s too late to close them. It is not, however, too late to take a step into solving the problems the high levels of immigration has caused.

 The United States is making mistakes as well by ignoring the fact that children and students are not receiving proper education in order to make a change. Education has been proven to make a world of difference in all aspects of life. The United States needs to start teaching students the difference between sex and rape, stop distorting sex in the media, and start focusing on reaching children at a younger age when they’re still impressionable. Telling and eighteen year old in one class not to rape is the least effective form of sex-education possible. It’s time to make a change in the school programs in the United States and around the world.

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Carlqvist, Ingred. "Sweden: Rape Capital of the West." Gatestone Institute. 14 Feb. 2015. Web.

Saers, Jenny. "A Closer Look at Utopia: Strengths and Weaknesses of Sex Ed in Sweden." RH Reality Check. 23 Apr. 2009. Web.

 

Project 3

4/9/15

Is culture responsible for rape? It's hard to say. Culture isn't forcing anyone to do anything, but it has played such a part in desensitizing society to the reality of rape that it is definitely somewhat responsible. The Times article says that rape culture is not responsible at all, and I disagree. I think if culture turned around and had the same reaction to rape in any form as they do to other crimes, the rape statistics would decrease dramatically. The problem is, is rapists know they can get away with it because too often the victim is the one blamed. They also feel like they can get away with it by justification because they can twist the scenerio to sound like it wasn't rape.

In society, if both parties say yes, it's not rate. However, there are so many more things that should be involved. People will go to extreme lengths to get a yes. If you have to get a girl drunk or ask her a hundred times to get a yes, it should be considered a no. It all comes back to education in my opinion. Education on what classifies as rape, and education on how to get yourself out of a scenario.

April 2, 2015

The New York Times article about how to fend off a rapist really struck me. It's interesting to me that there are four "levels" of rapists, and there are different ways to fend them off. In my opinion this is definitely good knowledge, but there is no way I am going to go through the different levels and decide which tactic I need to take to fend off my attacker. Being raped is such a scary thing, that the first response is to do whatever it takes to escape - the one thing this article says NOT to do.

It's a hard thing to learn because it might be detrimental to teach escape mechanisms to young girls, because then they'd just walk around afraid that they're going to have to put them to use. On the other hand, it may be detrimental to not teach these things at all because then when a woman is in the scenario, she has no idea what to do.

One way to do this, is to help everyone understand the things we are not willing to talk about. Make the acts of rape explicitly known to boys and girls alike, so that maybe the reaction to rape would be the same as it is to other serious crimes. Rape is just a topic no one likes to think about, and that's the problem. It needs to be taught young that it is not okay on any level. It shouldn't be brushed off, and it shouldn't be taught to only girls - but rather taught to everyone.