Artist Sarah Maple created her anti-rape cloak in protest of victim blaming (Picture: Sarah Maple)

Like most women today, London-based artist Sarah Maple is tired.

She’s tired of hearing about yet another woman getting added to the long, long list of rape victims. She’s tired of rape culture in general, really. But most of all, she’s tired of the idea that somehow, getting raped is the victim’s fault.

Because you know, the woman probably dressed too sexy. She was out on her own. She was drunk.

Maybe if she’d just stayed covered-up and sober, it wouldn’t have happened. She’s asking for it, really, by wearing what she does, being a woman, and going outside.




In protest of all the bullsh*t, Sarah’s created a tongue-in-cheek rebellion against the concept of victim blaming, in the form of an anti-rape cloak.

‘The dialogue around sexual assault is something that infuriates me.’ (Picture: Sarah Maple)

In theory (according to rape culture, anyway) the anti-rape cloak will protect women from unwanted advances, because finally, everything’s covered up. Which was obviously the problem – women’s bodies. Not the rapists. Hooray. We’re all saved.

Sarah came up with the idea during her feminist activist artist residency, which asked her to make an ‘object of nuisance’ (a reference to the Suffragette movement).

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She told metro.co.uk: ‘The dialogue around sexual assault is something that infuriates me, especially how it is reported in the media, this emotive language that somehow implies that women or even children are ‘asking for it’.

‘I have had an alarming number of friends go through sexual assault in some way and many felt to report it would be ‘making a fuss’, I think this victim blaming culture is to blame for this.

Sarah hopes the cloak will spark a serious conversation around rape culture. (Picture: Sarah Maple)

‘I came up with the idea of creating this ‘tongue in cheek’ ironic garment which women could wear that completely covers us from head to foot, as if somehow, being covered up, we are instantly no longer ‘asking for it’, as if we are now completely protected from the potential of being assaulted in any time or place.’

At first, the protest was just the cloak itself. But Sarah decided to take it on a trip into the real world, heading to New York, the Mojave Desert, and Las Vegas to photograph herself wearing it.

‘Each location puts a different meaning onto the cloak. I also took a picture in a bedroom, which for me is the saddest image, as it shows how rape is usually from someone the victim knows.

‘I make myself large in the image by spreading the cloak out as I really wanted to make empowering images of the cloak, in a way of sort of rebelling against the ridiculousness of victim blaming.’

‘The reaction was interesting.’ (Picture: Sarah Maple)

As well as taking photos of herself in the cloak, Sarah wanted to see how people would react to an outfit professing its rape-preventing abilities.



‘I was nervous to take the garment out because was worried people would think this was yet another rape joke, which is the last thing I was trying to do. I often use tongue-in-cheek humour to get across important topics.

‘The reaction was interesting. In London people didn’t seem to bat an eyelid but in the US people did stop and stare. I think they weren’t sure what to make of it.

‘No one came up to me to confront me but the reaction was either disapproval or laughter.’

Sarah told us she hopes the cloak will get people to have a serious think about how they think and talk about rape and sexual violence.

‘No one is ever ‘asking for it’, in any situation.’ (Picture: Sarah Maple)

‘I would love to get people talking more about this issue. With this work I want people to rethink their views about rape and abuse.

‘No one is ever ‘asking for it’, in any situation. We shouldn’t be telling women how to avoid being raped, we should be educating people about consent.

‘It’s very odd that women are encouraged to be sexy, we are told constantly by the media that our sexiness dictates our value but then if we dress sexily we were ‘asking for it’. It’s a very unfair contradiction.

‘It is also ridiculous to think that men do not have the ability to control themselves, it’s extremely insulting to men too, who we need to join us in this conversation.’

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