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Running Head: LITERATURE REVIEW ROUGH DRAFT

LITERATURE REVIEW ROUGH DRAFT

Jose Luis Marquez

University of Texas at El Paso

ABSTRACT

Rape Culture is an environment in which rape is widespread and the violence against women is

normal in society and is normalized the media and popular culture around the world. Rape culture

is applied by means of misogynistic language and the glamorization of sexual violence, in essence

creating a Culture which the media promotes rape. The rape culture scene has grown over the past

years in college campuses around the United States, rape culture doesn’t only exist in America,

rape culture can also be seen in Middle Eastern Countries like Afghanistan and can also be seen in

jails around the world. The purpose of this Literature Review is to analyze the rape culture and

what it stands for, while focusing on who the rape culture affects, facts about the rape culture

statistics, and show different parts of the rape culture.

RAPE CULTURE: LITERATURE REVIEW

The United States started to see an up rise of the term rape culture after the vice president of the

United States in 2014 Joe Biden gave a speech saying “We know the numbers: one in five of every

one of those young women who is dropped off for the first day of school, before they finish school,

will be assaulted” causing a wide spread scare around college campuses in America (PragerU,

2016). Rape culture has also been wildly talked about the culture in the Middle East where “6

women are being raped simply by being Christian.” (Raymond Ibrahim, 2018) saying that the

reason being is because of the fact that as harsh as Islamic law sharia is for men, it is even more

harsh on women. Being that If Islamic women are viewed and treated as inferior to Muslim men,

non-Muslim women are viewed worse. In spite of the fact that jihadi organizations like ISIS are

buying non-Muslim women to be sold, raped, mutilated, dismembered and burned alive, these
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actions are not known by the media and the world and it is well still taking place in the Muslim

world. In regards to the rape culture in the Middle East there was a case in Afghanistan were United

States soldiers were told to ignore sexual abuse of boys by Afghanistan allies. In Kabul,

Afghanistan Lance Cpl. Gregory Buckley Jr. told his father what was troubling him, stating that

from his bunk he could hear Afghan police officers sexually abusing boys they had brought to the

base. The Marine told his father that he could hear them screaming at night, but they’re not allowed

to do anything about it is what the Marines father remembers his son told him before he was shot

death at the base in 2012. Sexual abuse of children has been a problem in Afghanistan for a long

time, this trend runs more on armed commanders who dominate the rural landscape and can bully

the population. This practice is called bacha bazi, meaning “boy play”, the policy has endured as

American forces have recruited Afghanistan militias to help hold territory against the Taliban.

Many soldiers were troubled because instead of taking out the pedophiles in some instances they

were arming them and placing these men as commanders of the villages. (Joseph Goldstein, 2015)

Another different face of rape culture also presents itself in the prison life in American prisons

where according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 80,000 women and men a year are sexually

abused, where congress passed on the Prison Rape Elimination Act, signed by President George

W. Bush in 2003. (Chandra Bozelko, 2015) For these reasons the debate still continues over what

is rape culture and where it takes place and how to identify if it is indeed a rape culture taking

place, with these 4 questions it will help to tackle down on what rape culture represents and how

to identify it and learn about the different types.

1. What is rape culture?

2. Is rape culture a problem?

3. Who does rape culture affect?

These four questions will help to better understand the assignment and to better inform on what

the culture means and represents also by showing the people affected by it and it what places

people are affected by it.

WHAT IS RAPE CULTURE?

Rape culture is a culture where the media and popular media outlets and popular artist promotes

sexual violence and normalizing rape in societies. One form that rape culture takes place is in

victim blaming, labeling or accusing the victim makes people see themselves different from the

victim if they were in a situation like that and at the end it doesn’t help the victim. Victim blaming

is dangerous for the reason that it makes it harder for the victim to come forward about their case,

victim blaming makes the victim feel like it is their fault for the position they have put themselves

in and helps the abuser to avoid accountability for their actions. (Southern Connecticut State

University) Gender activists, academics and politicians say there is a crisis of a rape culture in the

college campuses in America at this point of time in our life’s, Vice president Joe Biden of the

United States in 2014 said the line of “one in five” meaning that one in five young women that as

the first day until the day they graduate they will be exposed to some of sexual violence and be

assaulted. (PragerU, 2016) According to PragerU rape is certainly a serious problem and it is

something that it is heavily enforced against the law, it states that there is simply no evidence of a

national rape epidemic, and there is no evidence that sexual violence is a norm in our society.
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Picture from: YouTube. (2018). Are 1 in 5 Women Raped at College? [online] Available at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0mzqL50I-w [Accessed 20 Mar. 2018].

According to the YouTube video from PagerU states that the cases of rapes have declined

drastically in the United States and have been declining for ages and are in fact very low. The “1

in 5” speech from Joe Biden came from a study conducted by two larger universities, one in the

Midwest and one in the South, claiming that the survey was anonymous. 5,000 women

participated, claiming that 1,000 had been victims of some type of “non-consensual or unwanted

sex act”. (PagerU, 2016) The video goes on to show data from the United States Bureau of Justice

Statistics that estimates that about 1 in 52.6 college women will be victims of rape or sexual assault

over the course of four years. (PagerU, 2016) Rape culture does not only involve the United States

college campuses, like some of the soldiers in Afghanistan experienced while being deployed on

base where the allied commanders of the villages would bring young boys over into the base and
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sexually abuse them, the soldiers were told not to get involved because it was part of their

“culture”. (Joseph Goldstein, 2015) Whereas rape culture can also be shown in the prisons of the

United States where according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics claims that 80,000 men and

women a year are sexually assaulted in jails. According to The New York Times only New

Hampshire and New Jersey have fully complied with the Prison Rape Elimination Act signed into

law by George W. Bush in 2003, leaving 47 states that from 2003 to 2012 using Justice Department

Data that by the time law’s standards are finalized, nearly two million inmates were sexually

assaulted. The governor of Texas Wrote to the Justice Department stating that 40 percent of the

correctional officers in male jails in Texas are women, leading that “cross-gender viewing” could

potentially not be avoided, Texas has one of the highest rates in prison sexual assault. Texas will

lose 5 percent of federal funding for its state’s prisons that is about 800,000 dollars for its

noncompliance. About half of prison sexual assault complaints in 2011 were filed against staff,

along the lines of the prisons basically protect rape culture to protect themselves. (Chandra

Bozelko, 2015) Like an inmate that was interviewed stated that he was an inmate in Connecticut

for six years, claiming that from what he saw the small groups of guards preyed on inmates

repeatedly and never faced consequences because they were protected by the prison guard unions

which is one of the strongest forces in American labor.

IS RAPE CULTURE A PROBLEM?

In the article by Southern Connecticut State University states that victim blaming is dangerous

because it makes it harder for the victim to ultimately come forward about the crime that they have

experienced, also that if the victim knows that yourself or society blames them for their abuse that

the victim would not feel comfortable coming forward to talk to anyone about their problem. By

victim blaming it allows the abuser to solidify his statement that it was the victims fault that what
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happened is their fault. By victim blaming it allows the abuser to avoid accountability for their

actions. (Southern Connecticut State University) An article form Middle East Forum states that

non-Muslim women tend to be its greatest victims. Showing a recent open door study saying that

“Christian women are among the most violated in the world, in maybe a way we haven’t seen

before” this study revealed that six women are raped everyday simply for being Christian.

(Raymond Ibrahim, 2018) the United Kingdom Government confirmed this injustice for women

on the new fondly Sharia Law in England and Wales, revealing the systematic discrimination

against women in Islamic courts. As harsh as Sharia laws are for men, they’re even harsher on

women, an example being that potential abusers can cite a Koranic verse (4:34) that sanctions wife

beating. Showing that if Muslim women are treated as inferiors, non-Muslim women are viewed

twice as worse. Muslims assailants can also cite another “ayah” (4:24) that condones sexual

enslavement of non-Muslim women in context of “jihad”. (Raymond Ibrahim, 2018) According

to a report in 2014, approximately 700 Christian and 300 Hindu girls are abducted, enslaved and

raped in Pakistan every year, revealing that these numbers are extremely big considering Christians

and Hindus make up 1 percent of the country’s Muslim-majority population. As the number of

Muslim migrants grows in Europe, the sexual abuse of non-Muslim women once relegated to

Muslim nations is becoming more common also in the west. (Raymond Ibrahim, 2018)

WHO DOES RAPE CULTURE AFFECT?

In an article by The Conversation the author makes three main objections one being “what about

false accusations?” saying that they happen. But they’re also rare and should not be ignored and

that it should not distract the people that assailants are overwhelmingly men and victims are mostly

women. The second point is that men get raped too, saying that some men are raped by other men

and suffer emotional damage from stigma and loss of identity as men. And also that some men
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have been forced to have sex with women, claiming that most of these cases go unnoticed in

criminal codes and that must change. Third objection would be that “only bad men rape” and that

most men are “good” men who do not rape. Clamming that it is certainly the case that the majority

of men do not rape women. So what, then, is the “culture” part of “rape” culture?”. (Gerald Walton)

Dan Quinn, a former Special forces captain who beat up an American-backed militia commander

for keeping a boy chained to his bed as a sex slave. After the beating the Army relieved Captain

Quinn of his command and pulled him from Afghanistan resulting in him leaving the military. The

Army is also trying to forcibly retire Sgt. First Class Charles Martland, a special forces member

who joined captain Quinn in beating up the commander. A former Marine Lance corporal recalled

feeling sickened the day he entered a room on a base and saw three or four men lying on the floor

with children between them saying that “he wasn’t a 100 percent sure what was going on under

the sheets but he had a pretty good idea of what was going on”. (Joseph Goldstein, 2015) Captain

Quinn was told one of the militia commanders raped a 14-15-year-old girl who he spotted working

in the fields. Captain Quinn informed the provincial police chief, “he god one day in jail, and then

she was forced to marry him” Captain Quinn said. (Joseph Goldstein, 2015)

HOW CAN RAPE CULTURE BE SOLVED?

Marshall University shows some ways in order men and women can combat rape culture including,

avoiding using language that objectifies or degrades women, be respectful of others physical space

even in casual situations, and always communicate with sexual partners and do not assume

consent, these are some examples that the article gave to battle rape culture. (Marshal University)

In an article by Independent It describes how the Jordanian parliament has voted to revoke an

article of the country’s penal code which consecutively allows a rapist to escape jail through the

laws loopholes that escapes any kind of punishment if he marries the victim. Parliament had a
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choice on either repealing or amending the law in a vote, but decided to get rid of it removing any

loopholes that rapist have been taken advantage of. (Bethan McKernan, 2017) Jordans Ministry

showed data that 159 rapists avoided punishment by marrying their victims between 2010 to 2013

and showed that 300 rapes were reported annually on average during the same period. (Bethan

Mckernan, 2017)

CONCLUSION

At length, the literature review helped to answer the questions about rape culture and what it stands

for, what it is, the many people it affects, and how to promptly solve it and solutions that are being

taken into place to stop rape culture around the world. Many steps are being taken to stop rape

culture in the Middle east and the law is finally turning the right way for the women in the Middle

east, stating that many women’s rights campaigners have targeted Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt

have repealed similar laws and changes to the penal codes. (Bethal Mckernan, 2017)
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REFERENCES

Marshall University. (n.d.). Retrieved March 20, 2018, from

http://www.marshall.edu/wcenter/sexual-assault/rape-culture/.

Southernct.edu. (2018). Rape Culture, Victim Blaming, and The Facts. [online] Available at:

http://www.southernct.edu/sexual-misconduct/facts.html [Accessed 20 Mar. 2018].

Walton, G. (2018). What rape culture says about masculinity. [online] The Conversation.

Available at: https://theconversation.com/what-rape-culture-says-about-masculinity-

85513 [Accessed 3 Apr. 2018].

Bozelko, C. (2018). Opinion | Why We Let Prison Rape Go On. [online] Nytimes.com. Available

at: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/18/opinion/why-we-let-prison-rape-go-on.html

[Accessed 3 Apr. 2018].

YouTube. PragerU (2018). Are 1 in 5 Women Raped at College? [online] Available at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0mzqL50I-w [Accessed 20 Mar. 2018].

Ibrahim, R. (2018). Migrant Crisis: Islamist Rape Culture Comes to Europe. [online] Middle East

Forum. Available at: https://www.meforum.org/articles/2018/migrant-crisis-islamist-rape-

culture-comes-to-euro [Accessed 3 Apr. 2018].

Goldstein, J. (2018). U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Sexual Abuse of Boys by Afghan Allies. [online]

Nytimes.com. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-

told-to-ignore-afghan-allies-abuse-of-boys.html [Accessed 3 Apr. 2018].

victims. [online] The Independent. Available at:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/jordan-rape-law-vote-repeal-

rapists-punishment-marry-victims-womens-rights-sexual-assault-violence-a7870551.html

[Accessed 3 Apr. 2018].