As I sit in a classroom of people who criticize the idea of rape culture and whether its the laws fault for being outdated or the outfit of women. And how if these students could change something and help they would, but the truth of it is that you will NEVER understand the victimization of a victim until you are in their shoes. You see what they choose to express but the truth of it is? They will spend years if not more trying to fix the mental damage that has been done to them.
Being a victim is like stripping down every fundamental structure of your confidence and trying to rebuild when the thought that everyone around you could be the next offender.
If it were about the outfit on the girl, we wouldn't find children being sexually assaulted at a young age and we would not find rape in every culture across this country no matter the outfit of the victim.
And in arguing that because men are not told "don't do that" you are letting them learn it for themselves, Is basically saying that because we did not specifically explain to these people males that Raping another human being...how is it that some can refrain more than others.
But because I sat in a class where we can discuss the way rape culture is affected by all aspects in a society dominated by males with people who have hardly ever experienced such violence and crime...
People who will never understand a culture they live next to and haven't been involved in, I pray that they never are. I find myself at odds, with classmates, with myself, because in the same breath that I will express that it is worse to come forward and tell someone what happened I will blame the attacker long before I blame the victim and whatever they were wearing, I will also speak that the problem isn't whether our laws are outdated or how we function together or telling little boys no.
Instead... this rape culture we find ourselves surrounded by, is based solely on the fact that those who have never been a victim or have never first hand experienced the damage will never be able to change the outcome for those who do experience it.
