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Dismissive attitude to sexual assault sustains hierarchy of class, male privilege.

by Soraya Chemaly

Warning: This post contains graphic depictions of sexualized violence.

The same small part of me that still wants to believe in faeries wanted to think that I could avoid thinking or writing about rape for at least a few weeks. But, it's impossible. Not with laws in California that say single women can't, in effect, be raped and when the night-long gang-rape of a 16-year-old unconscious girl "divides" a community dedicated to its football team. Definitely not when ongoing details about the death of a 23-year-old in Delhi, whose rape to the point of disembowelment and multiple organ failure, are spurring protests all over the world.

No matter where you are in the world, the result of rape — "date rape," "gang-rape," "easy rape," "emergency rape," "war rape" — is the same: oppression. Women are not free to live without the constant threat of assault and violence or without being treated like objects and property.  When I last checked there were at least four "rape capitals" of the world. You know what that makes the rest of us? "Rape Suburbs."

Girls and women aren't idiots. On the contrary, we understand perfectly: we're supposed to "be careful." Don't do something we might "regret."  "Stay home." "So what if it happens, anyway?" We can't feel any security that our bodily integrity will be respected. Or that our consent matters.

We cannot enjoy the confident access and ownership of public space that men do. Our attempts to pursue equality and opportunity are inhibited, not only by actual rape, but by people's malevolent tolerance for it. Rape is useful, even the rape of boys and men: it sustains a system that rewards physical dominance and sustains male hegemony….

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