YouTube video-blogger, public sex educator and feminist activist Laci Green kicked off One Sexy Week with SexFest Monday night.
Green’s multimedia presentation featured video compilations as well as slides focusing on the meaning and prevalence of rape culture, as well as ways to address and dismantle it.
“Feminazis, stupid b****, men haters—I’ve heard it all, but this is a heavily gendered crime," Green said.
Green started her presentation by highlighting the societal phenomenon of tolerating and trivializing rape—citing a 2015 study that found one-third of college men would coerce a woman into sex if they knew they could get away with it.
She also presented a video compilation featuring provocative recordings of fraternity chants, media coverage of rape cases and politicians' comments on rape.
The case of Steubenville High School in Steubenville, Ohio—where two high school football players, who were later convicted in juvenile court, assaulted an inebriated teenager—was discussed in depth.
Green pointed out that major media outlets, including news channels such as NBC and CNN, “repeatedly stressed that the victim was drunk,” which Green said showed a lack of sympathy for the victim.
Specifically pertaining to rape culture on college campuses, Green noted that the trauma of assault is compounded by a lack of institutional support, citing the examples of multiple universities currently under Title IX investigations.
Duke is currently undergoing its own Title IX investigation. The University was notified in November that the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights had initiated the investigation of a Title IX complaint filed by a Duke student.
Pop culture and political representations also serve to perpetuate rape culture, Green added, citing Robin Thicke's hit song “Blurred Lines."
“An important part of rape culture is that people think rape is common, inevitable and ‘not a big deal,'" Green said.
Green also touched upon her own experience of being sexually assaulted in college, urging the public to be more thoughtful of the victims and cautious about making rape jokes.
“When my friends make those jokes, I knew, quietly, that I could not trust them—it’s reaffirming rapists and trivializing the victims’ experience,” she said.
In addition to society’s toleration and trivialization of sexual assault and sexual violence, Green also discussed the effect of gender roles and victim blaming on the prevalence of rape culture.
Green cited a case at the University of Virginia in which a rape was reported by a sorority member, and the report was followed by an administrative response of sending out emails to the sorority dictating their members to “be back in their room by 6 p.m.”
“It’s completely absurd this idea of limiting women’s freedom will solve sexual assault,” Green said. “When the society is victim blaming, we start blaming ourselves. Women’s self-empowerment is tied up in the attitude toward sexual assault. None of the rape prevention tips we received growing up will prevent rape. It still happens.”
At the end of her talk, Green emphasized that the goal is to take down rape culture by taking a "big picture" approach to the problem.
“The alternative to rape culture is consent culture,” Green said. “A lot of the times we’re talking about sexual assault, we focus on certain particular stories, court cases and testimonials. If we dismantle these themes—tolerating, trivializing rape, victim blaming and promoting gender roles—we would live in a really different society.”
She encouraged the audience to use their voice to create global systemic change by using media tools and being a part of the new media.
Junior Anya Ranganathan, co-leader of Duke Support, which aims to assist sexual assault survivors, said the talk sent a powerful message.
“As a survivor of sexual assault, I found Laci’s appraisal of rape culture faithful to my experiences,” Ranganathan said. “She provided an engaging account of how gender roles, victim blaming and normalization of sexual violence intersect to marginalize survivors’ experiences.”
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