You often hear very uneducated people (who attend top-tier universities) make the claim that “rape culture doesn’t exist.” In the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s student newspaper The Badger Herald, David Hookstead, an undergraduate of the university, did just this in his open letter “‘Rape Culture’ Doesn’t Exist,” published on Nov. 4.
It actually took me a while to get through the letter – not only because it was terribly written, but also because it troubled me that such thoughts could emerge from a college student’s mind. But then I stopped and thought some more. I don’t necessarily blame Hookstead for having those thoughts and I’m not so surprised – he’s a part of a culture that renders this ideology acceptable. It’s not that I am angry – I felt sympathetic towards the guy and his inability to put himself in another’s shoes. Though his consciousness may have been shaped by a flawed society prior to even his birth, he does have control over the way in which he discusses these issues, and this article was just not the way to do it.
I don’t have to tell you twice that one in four women have been sexually assaulted before they graduate college and one in 13 to 33 men have been sexually assaulted in their lifetime. If you read anything, you should already know that. What I’m afraid I must reiterate is that privilege continuously persists today, and letters like Hookstead’s are the pinnacle of exercising such privilege. As an editor of a student publication, I am ashamed that The Badger Herald found this worthy of publishing – not because it shows that Hookstead is not conscious of his own privilege but because it’s flat out illogical. I am glad, however, that Katherine Krueger, an undergraduate at the university, submitted an op-ed in response to Hookstead’s letter; at least there is some backlash on Madison’s campus.
Hookstead is right though, “somebody does have to explain this.” So please, allow me.
The letter begins with a claim that “the United States of America doesn’t have a culture of rape any more than it has a culture of murder. This term aggressively paints men as dangerous and as the root of evil.”
Wait, what? Who said anything about men being the root of evil? Or even about aggression? This opinion is a gross misrepresentation of what rape culture is and is wildly heteronormative. But you know what is aggressive? Nonconsensual sex and writing an editorial that argues that it’s inevitable.
Also, what in the world is a culture of murder? Perhaps such a culture may exist in certain places where the death penalty is legalized, but society does not excuse the act of taking someone’s life nor does it argue that the murder was in fact the fault of the victim who was killed. Sadly, the second line of this open letter reveals that Hookstead has no idea what rape culture even is, and that’s the problem.
Rape culture is the manifestation of privilege, slut shaming, victim-blaming and arguing that rape is unavoidable. His open letter about how rape culture doesn’t exist ironically epitomizes rape culture by blaming the victim for consuming too much alcohol, making stark generalizations about how education can’t and won’t help prevent rape and equating a severe calamity like sexual assault to Wiz Khalifa’s choice of rapping about smoking too much dope.
Hookstead’s article is filled with logical fallacies that distract the reader from the problems that arise from rape culture and make obvious claims such as “crime is not unique to the United States, and if you put a spotlight on rape, you don’t understand the real issue.” Okay, no s–t Sherlock, crime is not unique to the United States; however, talking to and educating others about how we shouldn’t rape each other and ensuring that survivors know where they can access resources or simply talk to someone is not misunderstanding the real issue – it’s frankly confronting the real issue. I don’t understand why he’s playing Pain Olympics – crime, murder and rape are all real calamities that permeate throughout the world. But arguing that our society does not normalize and excuse acts of assault is just plain ignorant and proves that Hookstead is speaking on a platform of privilege where he clearly has not experienced what survivors have.
Hookstead also argues that there isn’t a similar culture subscribed to rap music: “Turn on any rap song and you’ll quickly hear some woman being described as a sex thirsty whore. Switch to the next rap song and you’ll likely hear lyrics about shooting people, selling drugs or the degrading state of the black community.” Not only does this statement sound blatantly racist and generalize the entirety of rap music (I think he may only listen to Lil Wayne), but also it’s not true. People do recognize the problematic nature of lyrics in all kinds of genres, and there are specific participants in the industry who try to breakdown this sick misconception. I recommend Hookstead check out Crunk Feminist Collective or read about the Spellman College protests against rapper Nelly. Oh, and just for future reference, any music that does advocate “Blurred Lines,” or calls women “sex thirsty whore[s]” IS a sign of rape culture and should be rejected.
Throughout the article, Hookstead makes some pretty standard Man Who Cried Wolf claims. No, reporting your sexual assault does not undermine the legitimacy of others’ experiences. There is no such thing as real and fake rape.
Hookstead’s arguments and ideology are a large part of the problem as they instill fear and blame onto victims while simultaneously attempting to silence them.
And those attempts to silence are hurting people.
Unfortunately, Hookstead is right: “Some people are bad.”
There will always be those who think it’s okay to strip individuals of their autonomy and force them to submit to whatever demands they may choose. However, we have an obligation to help those who experience these assaults. As opposed to denying the reality of rape culture, we must show that survivors it’s not their fault and try our best to educate everyone we can about these very real issues.
Hookstead is also right about how females can sexually assault males; my sincere apologies go out to his friend who experienced this.
That being said, no one is being heteronormative: rape happens to both genders. Factually speaking, though, one group of people is disproportionately affected. This remark is just another example of Hookstead exercising his privilege as a male and being blind to the reality of statistics.
He concludes his letter with a statement about how we should “focus on those that truly need our help, and let’s stop evil people when we can.” This is where I think he’s being satirical – right? That’s the only way this could possibly be an acceptable conclusion to such a morally questionable letter. Unfortunately, I think Hookstead is really advocating that those who “truly” need our help are not the victims of assault but rather the victims of “more important” problems. That’s a very flawed way to look at things. We need to help survivors and try to change the way we talk about rape, i.e., shift the discourse on rape culture. We need to stop pointing fingers at the oppressed and start pointing fingers at the oppressor. We need to hold those who believe that rape culture doesn’t exist, which by the way is not a male-centric notion, accountable for their words and tell them it’s not okay to perpetuate such a flawed epistemology even if it’s a product of an entirely imperfect institution. And we need to realize that the way we talk about things shapes the reality around us.
Hookstead’s letter has reminded me that there is still much to do on college campuses to raise awareness about sexual assault. The words that he wrote are negatively impacting people, and I hope that through this article he will at least think about these issues in a different way, a way that is untainted by societal norms and rape culture.
I still have hope.
So don’t ever let this culture blame you for something that was not your fault. Don’t ever let the ignorance of others stop you from educating whoever you can, including those inflicting harm, about the horrific implications of rape culture. And don’t ever believe that you’re alone.
If anything, I’m here.
Editorials Editor Priyanka Krishnamurthy is a College junior from Coppell, Texas.
If you or someone you know has been affected by sexual violence, you have support at Emory. Please contact Lauren (LB) Bernstein, Assistant Director for the Respect Program at 404.727.1514 or respect@emory.edu for confidential support. You can also learn more about the Respect Program at respect.emory.edu.
Illustration by Max Cohen
This illustration has been edited to be in accordance with Wheel policies
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“We need to hold those who believe that rape culture doesn’t exist, which by the way is not a male-centric notion, accountable for their words and tell them it’s not okay to perpetuate such a flawed epistemology even if it’s a product of an entirely imperfect institution.”
Great editorial, Prinks!
“We need to hold those who believe that rape culture doesn’t exist, which by the way is not a male-centric notion, accountable for their words and tell them it’s not okay to perpetuate such a flawed epistemology even if it’s a product of an entirely imperfect institution.”
Great editorial, Prinks!
Great work. Very well written.
Great work. Very well written.
“Also, what in the world is a culture of murder? Perhaps such a culture may exist in certain places where the death penalty is legalized”
“Editorials Editor Priyanka Krishnamurthy is a College junior from Coppell, Texas.”
In all seriousness though, this article is a glaring misrepresentation of the original letter (the “straw man” logical fallacy), and I’ll focus on this paragraph:
“Rape culture is the manifestation of privilege, slut shaming, victim-blaming and arguing that rape is unavoidable. [Hookstead’s] open letter about how rape culture doesn’t exist ironically epitomizes rape culture by blaming the victim for consuming too much alcohol, making stark generalizations about how education can’t and won’t help prevent rape and equating a severe calamity like sexual assault to Wiz Khalifa’s choice of rapping about smoking too much dope.”
First of all, the original letter does not explicitly slut shame or blame any victims. (His statement that people put “no blame on women” is in reference to women being the perpetrators of rape, not victims.) Hookstead simply says that some people who regret having sex with someone may lie about having been drunk during the act, which would be a false accusation of rape. Hookstead is right in identifying these instances as harmful to real victims of rape, hence his closing sentence, “[l]et’s focus on those that truly need our help,” which you misconstrue as meaning victims of “‘more important’ problems”, but which is actually quite clearly referring to victims of sexual assault.
Also, if rape culture is indeed the belief “that rape is unavoidable”, then we will always live in a rape culture, because rape will always occur. No amount of education or “reconstructive discourse” will change this. It is important to try to decrease the instance of rape as much as possible, as is true with any other crime from the petty to the violent, but anyone who believes that rape will someday go away is living in a fairy tale. It is a noble goal, but an unattainable reality.
Even still, Hookstead doesn’t say we shouldn’t educate everyone about rape, he
just says that it won’t solve the problem entirely. He also argues that the current ideology promoting teaching our sons not to rape is condescending, which it is. Not all men rape, but the idea that we need to tell men not to rape treats all men as default rapists. At least if we altered his hypothetical statement “If people taught their sons not to rape women then we wouldn’t have a problem,” to be inclusive of all people, then it would become less problematic.
Your next misrepresentation of Hookstead’s work is your idea that he equates sexual assault to “Wiz Khalifa’s choice of rapping about smoking too much dope.” First of all, Wiz Khalifa never raps about smoking too much dope, he always smokes just the right amount. Also, the real problem Hookstead identifies is that a song like Blurred Lines gets massive backlash because it allegedly promotes rape (this is a discussion for another time), yet a song like Kendrick Lamar’s Backseat Freestyle which literally contains a death threat in the hook (“Respect my mind or die from lead showers”) sees almost no negative criticism for that line. Thus, Hookstead’s question still stands: Why is Blurred Lines indicative of some kind of systematic problem in society, yet nobody cares that Backseat Freestyle legitimately condones murder? The problem is particularly widespread in video games, which have been criticized, but once again, no one argues that we live in a “murder culture” despite widespread depictions of killing as
acceptable behavior. (As an aside, you assume Hookstead is racist for mentioning “the degradation of the black community.” He may be saying that the black community is degrading, which is not explicitly racist, but he may also be saying that rap music describes the degradation of the black community, which is sometimes true. Don’t be so quick to judge people with whom you disagree.)
Which brings me to my final, and your initial, point: “Rape culture is the manifestation of privilege”. (For the record, I’m not at all taking this out of context. You list several things that constitute rape culture, and privilege is the first one of these.) Wow. So the very fact that privilege exists means that rape culture exists. Your statement needs some serious qualification. Do we mean white privilege? Male privilege? Wealthy privilege? Education privilege? Surely by virtue of being at Emory you’re guilty of these latter two, and your education privilege practically oozes from this article.
I don’t necessarily disagree with a lot of the stuff you have to say here. I certainly don’t agree with most of Hookstead’s work either. But the way that you present your arguments, the general condescending tone of the article as a whole, and the arguments themselves are not conducive to a constructive discussion about rape culture. There are a lot of other problems with your article which I don’t have time to elaborate on right now (the word is “androcentric”, not “male-centric”; misquotations; your concession that rape is inevitable several paragraphs after you call this point of view rape culture; your apparent disregard for any opinions which differ from your own). I hope that in the future you won’t let your articles become marred by logical fallacies, which you ironically castigate Hookstead’s letter for in the first place. If “the way we talk about things shapes the reality around us”, then your reality must be tragically flawed.
I’m not sure why you’re criticizing the author for misrepresenting (or more aptly, failing to find) the point of Hookstead’s article. I’m not sure there was one. It reads like a laundry list of everything he hates about rape prevention efforts. There is no prescription and virtually no analysis to explain how his “points” tie together except “these are all related to rape prevention efforts and I hate them.” I mean, really, what are his points and what conclusions are the readers supposed to draw from them?
1. Rappers rap about lots of other things and no one criticizes that. (So you shouldn’t criticize rapey lyrics unless you plan to criticize every other bad lyric? I’m not sure why anyone feels the need to actually take a stance of “don’t criticize rape lyrics.”)
2. Women rape too. (Exactly. How does this prove that there isn’t a rape culture? The misconception that women can’t/don’t rape men is directly due to gender stereotypes central to rape culture – men always want sex and can’t be a victim, women are meek and sexually passive, etc. What purpose does this point serve except to reveal that the author doesn’t even understand rape culture? What he seems to be arguing against is his imagined belief that somehow advocating against rape is an attack on men. “Women do it to” is a logical, if somewhat ridiculous, argument in this context, but it actually has nothing to do with his premise that rape culture doesn’t exist.)
3. Some women lie about rape. (This point is my favorite, and by favorite, I mean most disgusting. Yes, there are false allegations of rape. So what’s the prescription here? Take it with a grain of salt whenever a woman reports a rape? Frankly, between this point and the previous, it seems that Hookstead really is responding to some perceived “attack” on men by rape prevention efforts. Your comment about the “don’t teach sons to rape” line smacks of it as well. Statistically, men are more likely than women to be the perpetrators of rape. Period. Would the world be better if we taught everyone not to rape? Of course. But I don’t see why you and Hookstead see the need to be up and arms about the phrase “don’t teach sons to rape.” The idea of teaching anyone not to rape ought to be so innocuous that it can’t possibly be debated. Yet you and Hookstead seem to think this is some kind of attack on men… Men are more likely to rape than women. Does that mean all men are rapists? Of course not. Everyone understands that. So I don’t see why Hookstead (and frankly, plenty of other male authors on the subject) need to essentially attack rape prevention efforts as if the entire male gender were under attack. The entire gender is not and never has been under attack; the subpopulation of men who rape IS under attack, and that ought to be a demographic that no one feels the need to defend.)
So fine. You have some problems with Krishnamurthy’s response to Hookstead’s article. Since, as above, his article was a disjointed, rambling mess, I can forgive her for any perceived strawman. Frankly, I found Hookstead’s article (and many of the comments that came with it) so repugnant that I thoroughly appreciate Krishnamurthy’s attempt to discredit it, no matter what pedantic flaws you may see. Hookstead clearly has no idea what he’s talking about or how toxic words can be (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BYRGrInCIAAwH2r.png for proof) so I applaud Krishnamurthy efforts.
I’m not sure why you’re criticizing the author for misrepresenting (or more aptly, failing to find) the point of Hookstead’s article. I’m not sure there was one. It reads like a laundry list of everything he hates about rape prevention efforts. There is no prescription and virtually no analysis to explain how his “points” tie together except “these are all related to rape prevention efforts and I hate them.” I mean, really, what are his points and what conclusions are the readers supposed to draw from them?
1. Rappers rap about lots of other things and no one criticizes that. (So you shouldn’t criticize rapey lyrics unless you plan to criticize every other bad lyric? I’m not sure why anyone feels the need to actually take a stance of “don’t criticize rape lyrics.”)
2. Women rape too. (Exactly. How does this prove that there isn’t a rape culture? The misconception that women can’t/don’t rape men is directly due to gender stereotypes central to rape culture – men always want sex and can’t be a victim, women are meek and sexually passive, etc. What purpose does this point serve except to reveal that the author doesn’t even understand rape culture? What he seems to be arguing against is his imagined belief that somehow advocating against rape is an attack on men. “Women do it to” is a logical, if somewhat ridiculous, argument in this context, but it actually has nothing to do with his premise that rape culture doesn’t exist.)
3. Some women lie about rape. (This point is my favorite, and by favorite, I mean most disgusting. Yes, there are false allegations of rape. So what’s the prescription here? Take it with a grain of salt whenever a woman reports a rape? Frankly, between this point and the previous, it seems that Hookstead really is responding to some perceived “attack” on men by rape prevention efforts. Your comment about the “don’t teach sons to rape” line smacks of it as well. Statistically, men are more likely than women to be the perpetrators of rape. Period. Would the world be better if we taught everyone not to rape? Of course. But I don’t see why you and Hookstead see the need to be up and arms about the phrase “don’t teach sons to rape.” The idea of teaching anyone not to rape ought to be so innocuous that it can’t possibly be debated. Yet you and Hookstead seem to think this is some kind of attack on men… Men are more likely to rape than women. Does that mean all men are rapists? Of course not. Everyone understands that. So I don’t see why Hookstead (and frankly, plenty of other male authors on the subject) need to essentially attack rape prevention efforts as if the entire male gender were under attack. The entire gender is not and never has been under attack; the subpopulation of men who rape IS under attack, and that ought to be a demographic that no one feels the need to defend.)
So fine. You have some problems with Krishnamurthy’s response to Hookstead’s article. Since, as above, his article was a disjointed, rambling mess, I can forgive her for any perceived strawman. Frankly, I found Hookstead’s article (and many of the comments that came with it) so repugnant that I thoroughly appreciate Krishnamurthy’s attempt to discredit it, no matter what pedantic flaws you may see. Hookstead clearly has no idea what he’s talking about or how toxic words can be (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BYRGrInCIAAwH2r.png for proof) so I applaud Krishnamurthy efforts.