why men are responsible for rape culture, and why it doesn't mean what you think it means.

A few weeks ago, I was part of a discussion regarding rape culture and the responsibilities of all men where rape culture is concerned. Or, more precisely, the fact that all men are responsible for rape culture.

[record screech-stop]

Wait, what?

Yes. All.

You, gentleman, reading this? You are responsible for rape culture, and the way it functions in larger culture, and the direction it travels. 

And not only that: you are more responsible for it, and more powerful within its contexts, than I am. 

While you're chewing on that (or wanting to chew on me for saying it), can I just say things? 

Chances are, if you're reading this, you're my friend, or someone I consider wonderful, or, at least, someone I don't consider a total jackhole. This is probably the only thing I'm ever going to write or say about this, because man, does it bring out the ugly in people. Myself included. It's touchy. No guy in my life wants to be associated with rapists; no woman in my life, whether she's been catcalled on the street or physically assaulted, enjoys talking about it, especially with men who are immediately offended by a big-picture misinterpretation of many key focus-ins, and especially when men feel comfortable schooling women on the takeaways of their own experiences. [For the purposes of this writing, I'm primarily addressing male-on-female rape, although men are certainly victimized and women are perpetrators as well, in fewer numbers.]

I think, in this kind of discussion, there are two key focus-ins. 

1) It is important for men who reject rape culture as wrong to accept responsibility for their place in rape culture by speaking up, speaking out, and rejecting it on the spot because, as rape is a violent crime of power, control, and subjugation, never, at any point in history, has the voice of the subjugated ever mattered to the people who were subjugating them. I am intelligent, articulate, can shape thoughts into lovely things, can craft iron-clad arguments while blowing the walls off yours, if inclined, and although I, unfortunately, have more experience with this subject than I can ever come to terms with: the majority of fully half of the people on this planet will never, ever, ever listen to me, or anyone like me. 

But you, men, the ones who appropriately consider women your asymmetrical equals, who laud them as your peers without a second thought - the half of the people on this earth who won't listen to me, or any other woman, will listen to you. I can scream my experience until I'm purple, and what it's done to me, and what it's doing to the world - but they'll listen to you. 

Let that sink in, please. 

You are responsible. Responsible. Not because you carry blame, but because if you consider me your equal, and you recognize that my voice is not considered equal, you have a responsibility to speak the truth. Which leads into: 

2) "Responsibility" is not synonymous with "blame." To say that all men are responsible for rape culture is not the same as saying that all men are to blame for rape culture, or at fault for, or championing, or cheerleading rapes as they occur. One word can have multiple definitions, and we all know it: responsibility is also defined, from multiple sources, as: 

1) having an obligation to do something, or having control over or care for someone, as part of one's job or role; 2) able to be trusted to do what is right or to do the things that are expected or required; 3) having a capacity for moral decisions and therefore accountable; 4) capable of rational thought or action

Not a single one of these definitions is archaic or obscure. I can't help it, guys, but I get incensed when you prioritize defending your own bruised sense of honor I'm not a rapist not a rapist not all men no no no! over basic reading comprehension; I get furious at the knee-jerk anger, defense, and even, recently, the fact that there are men who will belittle my voice in a discussion of rape culture because my "objectivity is diminished by the fact that I have been raped." Yes, friends, there are people walking around, paying taxes, raising children, operating motor vehicles, and voting in presidents who believe that intimate knowledge of a subject disqualifies you from discussing it. 

Can you see the predicament? Damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you've been raped, your voice is tainted; if you haven't, but you still speak, you're an angry feminist looking for reasons to be angry; if you expect men to speak out and act out against rape culture, you're calling them rapists. If you say nothing, it will eat you alive. 

And you know one of the worst, most maddening, most saddening things? Some of the most honorable men I know, who peripherally offer me the most hope and healing just by virtue of knowing them and seeing how they relate to the women in their lives, are the ones who get the most incensed when I say that all men are responsible for rape culture. Some of the men who are doing most of the work to eradicate rape culture within their circle of influence are the ones who get most instantly offended at the idea that they're responsible to do the good work they're already doing, simply because someone said it in very direct terms. But they'll never see it like that; they'll never recognize their own unnecessary picking-up-of-offense. Because all their ears heard is that I lumped them in with rapists, or called them a rapist, or some such. And the best they have to offer is to chastise me that not all men are rapists or subjugate women or blah blah blah blah blah as though I'm some kind of lives-in-a-van-down-by-the-river who doesn't already know that. 

Speaking strictly in terms of men: 

If you raise your sons to respect women and consider them equals because it's the right thing to do, you are shouldering responsibility for rape culture, and teaching them to do the same. 

If you raise your sons to reject sexist/sexually violent humor because it is inappropriate, you are shouldering responsibility for rape culture, and teaching them to do the same. 

If you make clear your disapproval at themes of gender unbalance, sexually-violent or degrading humor, etc., you are shouldering responsibility for rape culture, and expecting others around you to do the same.

If you express disapproval at themes which subjugate women intellectually, sexually, or otherwise to men, you are shouldering responsibility for rape culture by making your views known to those around you.

Don't get pissed off at me, or others, when it's pointed out. It doesn't mean what you're quick to assume it means. 

I'm actually thanking you. 

So thank you. Again.