Rape Culture | Reagan Williams | TEDxArkansasStateUniversity

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[Music] On January 8th of 2012 a 14 year old girl asked a friend to come over for a slumber party the two had been friends since early childhood even though they were separated by a grade in school and they started out the evening drinking and watching a scary movie and she had been texting an older boy named Matt who was the senior quarterback on the football team like any other freshman she felt a lot of pressure to fit in with these older boys and so when he asked her if the girls would come over and hang out she was ecstatic he came and picked them up asking them to get out of the car before they reached the front door and climbed through a basement window now when the girls got inside they discovered four other senior boys all of who encouraged them to drink vodka out of a cup specifically labeled for them she was an experienced with alcohol but she trusted these older boys that she had known from school and so as they continued to hand her drinks the world eventually went black less than an hour later the boys had taken the girls home her friend made it inside but she was unresponsive and so five senior boys left a fourteen-year-old girl lying on the ground in below freezing temperatures where her hair froze to the ground in the morning she crawled up to the front door where her mother found her bruised and sick and she drew a bath to warm her up but that was when she noticed that her daughter was red and inflamed underneath her clothes and so she rushed her to the hospital where her 14 year old child would undergo a rape kit and when the results came back their worst fears had been confirmed years later that young girl would find out that her 13 year old friend had been raped in the room right next door but the horror wasn't over for this young woman she faced an entire community of people who turned her worst nightmare into a hashtag claiming that she was asking for it the county dropped the charges saying that there was no evidence of a sex crime here even though there was a video of her rape circulating the halls of her school and that was until the hacking group Anonymous got the state involved but even after a long and treacherous trial her rapist was only sentenced to four months in prison to be served only on weekends and that was then reduced to two years probation in which he had to pay an 1800 dollar fine and say that he was sorry for what he had done he is not a registered sex offender and he never spent a day behind bars in the United States only six percent of all reported rapes land and prison sentence when combined with the relatively low amount of reporting this means that 99% of rapists get away with their crimes now there are two reasons that might contribute to this first rape is an incredibly personal crime and thus is very difficult to prove eight out of every ten rapes occur between people who knew each other before that event scholars call this acquaintance rape and so contrary to what most people believe most rapes don't happen in a dark alley or in a bad part of town no most rapes happen between friends between family members co-workers boyfriends or girlfriends most rapes happen behind closed doors which makes them incredibly difficult to prove in a court of law the second factor that might contribute to these low conviction rates is the social narrative surrounding rape in the United States scholars call this the theory of secondary victimization which contends that for many victims being exposed to victim blaming attitudes will be akin to a second rape victims are in a space of extreme vulnerability immediately following an attack not only has their body been violated but their autonomy their humanity their sense of identity have to rape is one of the only crimes in which a victim's body is used as a weapon against them and this alone is enough to inflict severe psychological harm that's why for many victims secondary victimization will then lead to self blame sexual revitalisation promiscuity or low self-esteem the word rape may seem unapproachable after an attack and they might cover up or hide the crimes against them or even defend their rapists when challenged by family members or friends research by Mary costs shows that victims of acquaintance rape are far less likely than victims of stranger rape to define the event as such and so the process of grasping an attack so brutal and so personal is difficult enough that when victim blaming attitudes are added to this mix it only gets that much harder one in four college women in the United States will be raped during their time on campus one in four studies show that college students endorse common rape myths at unprecedented rates and so when challenged with doubt or uncertainty about a sexual assault these make it much easier to blame the victim and excused the actions of the perpetrator they perpetuate myths that infiltrate the minds of our young people and then lead to higher levels of sexual assault in the future for example the belief that false rape accusations are a common problem is particularly harmful to victims especially when considering that the National sexual violence Resource Center reports that only two to eight percent of all reported rapes are actually found to be false whereas 68% of all rapes will never be reported and only 6% of those that are will end in a prison sentence so the prevalence of rape outweighs the prevalence of false accusations astronomically and yet millions of people still question victims instead of even considering the possibility that these accusations are true on November 5th of 2012 an 18 year old man competed in the collegiate debate tournament at the beginning of the year his coach had assigned the team captain Hannah to be his partner she flirted from the very beginning expressing clear sexual interest in him but he politely told her that he wasn't interested and eventually as her flirting progressed he asked the coach to reassign the partnerships only to be told no now at this particular tournament they had prepared a presentation on sexual assault because they were aware that many members of the debate community will often go to parties after a day of competition and his team was very close and so the men and women would often spend time in one hotel room after a long day of competing but he wasn't partaking in any of these social activities this night he was alone in a hotel room sleeping off a splitting migraine that had left him incapacitated he suffered from the medical condition that often left him unable to move because of severe migraines his roommates had left the door cracked and so after about an hour of sleep he felt someone crawl into the bed next to him he was hazy and confused as she rubbed up against him he quietly begged her to leave but she kept saying over and over that sex cures headaches and then it would be our little secret she raped him he begged her to stop he remembers thinking that he should try to physically stop her but he was afraid that he'd get in trouble for hurting a woman and eventually she got disinterested and left the room the next morning he awoke to jokes and rumours spread throughout the team like wildfire she had bragged to another member of the team that she had convinced him to hook up he never told the truth about what happened that night she is not a registered sex offender and she never spent a day in prison for male victims the social paradigm surrounding rape brings unique challenges the first and most common myth that they must face is that males can't be the victims of rape but this is not true millions of boys and men have been the victims of rape the National sexual violence Resource Center reports that one in 71 American men will be raped during their lifetime and these numbers jump to alarming Heights when considering a college education as one in 16 men on campus will be sexually victimized sexual orientation can also greatly increase this risk as bisexual and gay men are at a 50 percent higher risk than heterosexual men to be the victims of sexual violence rather than rape so while the statistics on male rape are so very clear male victims often experience even more skepticism and indifference than female victims but victims are not the only actors in male rape scenarios that people find unbelievable the notion that rapists are generally sexually frustrated men is particularly harmful because it makes implications about the nature of the crime so despite significant evidence that states that rape is a crime about power and control many people still choose to believe that it's motivated by sexual impulse it also makes implications that women can't rape men or that women never perpetuate sexual violence but this is not true either we have undereducated our young men about what to do in situations of sexual assault and they thus cannot often validate their experiences after one likewise social expectations of men often change their connection to this crime because men are often expected to conform to hyper masculine stereotypes and dominate women and men are also expected never to raise a hand to a woman leaving them in an awkward position of defenselessness when attacked by a female rapist on April 4th of 2015 an 18 year old girl met up with a boy that she had been dating now the two had a year's long history of relationships and breakups but she always thought that in the end they were supposed to get married and settle down together she left her car at his workplace and rode with him back to his home now this was like any other night but she felt uneasy about it still she couldn't place why she might feel this way but something just wasn't right she had been contemplating whether to end this relationship for good she wasn't sure if it's what she wanted anymore so after a couple of hours when she still couldn't shake this bad feeling she told him very plainly that she did not want to see him anymore he began kissing her ignoring her request he was persistent she became afraid and he seemed confused as to why but when she realized that this encounter was not going to stop she became paralyzed with fear she was careful not to move she counted her breaths but when the physical pain became unbearable she snapped into action beginning to kick her legs and flail her arms until he jumped backwards letting her loose and she ran into the bathroom and locked the door after a long shower she returned back to that very room and they didn't talk about what had happened but she didn't want to cause a scene or make him angry by asking him to take her home and so she laid beside him for the rest of the night pretending to sleep the next morning he acted as if everything was fine between them and he held her hand in the car but that night she told him she needed some space and time to process what had happened and she asked him not to contact her anymore a few days later she awoke to a text message from him asking if he could get something off his chest his message said do you think that I read you she would never forget that this young woman never reported her crime she never told his parents or his friends they had hundreds of people in common in their lives were inextricably intertwined and she feared ruining his pristine reputation she feared that because of it no one would believe her he is not a registered sex offender and he never suffered any consequences for his crime that girl was me telling a crowd of strangers about my most vulnerable and terrifying experience is incredibly difficult i grappled with whether to tell it at all I thought about what he would say if he heard it and I worried about what would happen now that this heavy secret between us is out but secrets weigh you down April 4th of 2015 is not the end of my story my story is one of turning victimhood into survival few words can describe the feelings of shame and betrayal that I felt that night and few words can describe the shock of discovering that a man I loved valued his power over me so much more than my own humanity but April 4th of 2015 is not the end of my story I will not feel shame and I will not allow him to continue to perpetuate violence in my life by keeping me silent and still I tell you this story not because I want your sympathy or your praise I tell you because it's likely that one in four of the women and one in sixteen of the men that I encounter on an everyday basis are the victims of rape I tell you because it's likely that every one of you sees the manifestations of this culture every day in your lives the research shows that it is possible to construct a in which rape is so discouraged that even potential rapists would never act out in sexual violence a common modern-day example of this is the Minang cabal Society of Indonesia here women are inherently valued not for their sexual purpose but for their contribution to society and male sexual prowess and violence are not deemed manly because their concept of masculinity is not tied to sex at all we live in what scholars would call a rape prone society in which the culture of violence against women is so embedded in us that we forget it's even there we have misinformed our young men about the definition of consent and we have defined sexuality in terms of power and obligation but we must unlearn these behaviors together because the reality is that you sit in class every single day with rape victims and you probably sit in class with rapists - rapists are not born rapists they are constructed by socio-cultural attitudes that shape their identity and motivate their violence talking about sexual assault is incredibly uncomfortable but that's precisely why we must do just that so if you are a victim of sexual assault tell your story proudly and if you're not use your voice to help those who are because I firmly believe that our vulnerability is our voice but our stories fuel our strength that our pain does not define us and that our common experiences will bind strangers together with an unbreakable force and with our stories not in spite of them we will be stronger than ever before together we can cure our society of the sickness that plagues us and we will be free thank you [Applause] [Music]

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Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 216,400

Rating: 4.7855678 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Life, Education

Id: z_2DU7VTOmk

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Length: 17min 44sec (1064 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 03 2017

Reddit Comments

I heard like the first 2minutes and that’s unfortunate. Anonymous is awesome for getting the state involved, need to finish the rest of the video.

Edit: she just said 99% of rapist get away with rape this shit is sad.

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/Anonymous6977 📅︎︎ Jul 22 2019 🗫︎ replies

Thank you for sharing this. I hadn't seen it before

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/notactuallysoougly 📅︎︎ Jul 22 2019 🗫︎ replies