Rolexes andthe Rape Culture

I read a very interesting post on tumblr yesterday, and it really moved me:

Gentlemen. This is what rape culture is like:
Imagine you have a Rolex watch. Nice fancy Rolex, you bought it because you like the way it looks and you wanted to treat yourself. And then you get beaten and mugged and your Rolex is stolen. So you go to the police. Only, instead of investigating the crime, the police want to know why you were wearing a Rolex instead of a regular watch. Have you ever given a Rolex to anyone else? Is it possible you wanted to be mugged? Why didn’t you wear long sleeves to cover up the Rolex if you didn’t want to be mugged?
And then after that, everywhere you go, there are constant jokes about stealing your Rolex. People you don’t even know whistle at your Rolex and make jokes about cutting your hand off to get it.
The media doesn’t help either; it portrays people who wear Rolexes as flamboyant assholes who secretly just want someone to come along and take that Rolex off their hands, when all you wanted was to wear a nice watch without getting harassed for it. When you complain that you are starting to feel unsafe, people laugh you off and say that you are too uptight. Never mind you got violently attacked for the crime of wearing a friggin time piece.

Imagining all that? It sucks, doesn’t it.

Now imagine you could never take the Rolex off.

This is what the rape culture is like.

This really spoke to me, and I thought that this metaphor was effective; however, I did find it depressing that we need a material metaphor. Female bodies and autonomy need to be compared to material possessions in order to be emphasized as a thing deserving of value and respect to the "privileged" male population.

According to FORCE, a nonprofit website based on upsetting rape culture, rape culture is a society in which people are surrounded by language, images, laws and phenomena that perpetuate ad validate rape. I've witnessed jokes, references on TV, in music, and in advertising that all make violence against women out to be a joke or something normal and acceptable.

I'd like to share an excerpt from the FORCE website:

"Media imagery perpetuates rape by excusing it, validating myths about rape, and/or sexualizing rape. The Stanger Rape myth, for example, is frequently reinforced through Lifetime movies like She Fought Alone, or most episodes of Law and Order: Special Victim’s Unit. This kind of media perpetuates rape, because it continues the shame and silence that surrounds the majority of survivors who were raped by friends or family; and it allows perpetrators to avoid dealing with their problems, since they do not match the profile of rapists “As Seen On TV.”
Our very laws and lawmakers also contribute to perpetuating the Stranger Rape myth, such as in the controversial “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” that Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) introduced in early 2011. Smith wanted to define rape, for the purposes of their anti-abortion bill, as “forcible rape,” therefore excluding non-consensual sex and statutory rape. The problem here is the continued emphasis on the actions of victims- in this case, dissecting whether they resisted enough- rather than putting energy into preventing rape by changing the behaviors of perpetrators."

I could honestly go on and on about this but I have to get some sleep. I will say that it I disgusting that in this day and age, our country is so inefficient on preventing and treating our rape culture. Women continue to get raped, and so little is done to actually prevent it. The emphasis is put on the victim and what she's wearing or something else arbitrary. I hope that our policymakers will work harder than ever to change the way these violent acts are treated and our media will work harder on changing the ways these violent acts are portrayed in the media.

I can only hope that in the future, nobody will ever have to walk home by a road where cars honk at them, to be verbally harassed in public areas, or to ever experience sexual violence.