The silence surrounding rape

     Rape is a topic that we as a society, tread lightly around, and there are many reasons for this. One might be that we do not wish to offend anyone by saying something offensive, or maybe that we don't want to mention it around children. In my opinion, the real reason people don't talk about the issue of rape often enough is that it's treated as such a hush-hush topic, as if the mention of that word will end the world as we know it. No, people. It's a fact of life that people get sexually assaulted. That being said, just because it does happen doesn't mean it should happen.

A jewellery advertisement portraying
 the model as the victim of date rape

     When we think of rape, we often think of the victim, which is usually a female, and the offender, usually a man, and maybe the fear the woman might feel and the suffering she would go through after the traumatic event was over. Yes, all of these variables are involved in sexual assault, but what we don't often think about is how rape or rape culture has and continues to affect our society as a whole. The fact that I, a twenty year old petite woman who is relatively defenceless in the face of danger, feels threatened to even walk down the street, brightly lit or not, at night by myself in the middle of downtown Moncton is a very bad thing.
     Most of us probably view the reduction of sexual assault cases to be in the hands of the police or lawmakers, but in reality it's everyone's job to help reduce the occurrence of rape and violence against women. Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) is a national organization based in Washington, DC who work toward stopping rape through public awareness and educational programs in schools, as well as providing training to various companies and community institutions. As stated on their website, http://www.mencanstoprape.org/, their mission is to "to mobilize men to use their strength for creating cultures free from violence, especially men's violence against women". What I like most about this is that they mentioned using their strength to stop rape instead of using strength to abuse women, which is generally the case in rape situations.
     Not only does rape itself need to be stopped, which it most certainly does, but also our society's obsession with rape culture. Most people would not normally look at certain rap songs as rape culture or promoting violence toward women in general, but if you really listen to the words, it can be kind of an eye opener. Here is just a small sample of the extreme violence in Bad Meets Evil's song The Reunion: "Bitch flew out of the car / I laughed like, she deserved it / She didn't think I'd act like that in person." ...Umm... excuse me? I know that's not about rape but it is certainly about violence toward women. Even little miss Britney Spears, singing Hit Me Baby One More Time, or from her song Toxic, "There's no escape, I can't wait, I need a hit, baby gimme it, you're dangerous, I'm lovin' it"... thank you Britney for subconsciously telling girls that being hit, being trapped with no escape and being surrounded by danger is a good, healthy relationship.
   Ashley Judd recently bashed hiphop music for promoting rape culture, which makes sense because she apparently was abused as a child. What really amazes me is that she later apologized for her comment about rap music being too violent. What is with people these days?