telling women over and over that they need to take certain precautions to “prevent” rape is not only an empty promise (most women are raped by men they know, not strangers who can’t control themselves), and an implicit way of implying that women who were raped could have prevented what happened to them, but it also normalizes rape by treating it like a fact of life you have to protect yourself from: like the rain or cold weather–something we have to prepare ourselves for when we walk out the door

this is the worst part about this rhetoric: it erases the reality that the fact we aren’t safe around men, that we are afraid when we are out at night alone, CAN BE CHANGED. that the fact so many men rape women is something we, as a society, can fix. to act as if rape is a fact of life women can prevent deletes the fact MEN by and large are doing the raping and can stop at anytime. instead of questioning why we live in a culture where so many men rape, and making concerted efforts to stop them, we see a large percentage of women becoming rape victims as a given and expect all women to live their lives looking over their shoulder, pretending the fact some were lucky enough to not run into the wrong guy was because they were “vigilant” enough to “protect” themselves

many men are also very willing to think of rape as corrective and disciplinary. deep down, they hope the threat of rape will keep women in line: they won’t dress in certain ways, they won’t go to certain places, they won’t let loose at a party like men do, they won’t act as men do, they will be properly lady like or suffer the consequences. this is the mythology they promote–and why rape is the go-to threat for queer women, feminists, promiscuous women, independent women, etc.

clearly, deep down men must know that rape isn’t a fact of life. they must know it’s not really about sex. they must know it’s about power and they must know that it can and is used as a threat. and men who don’t rape will gladly use the epidemic of sexual violence against women as a tool, employing rape threats, jokes and “warnings” against any women he perceives as out of line in some way. this is rape culture. where ALL women are controlled by the threat of rape and all men benefit from its restrictive power over women