At college today, I asked my tutor, Peter, a question. “Do you, as a man, fear rape when you're out and about?”
His reply was “no.”
“Well women do,” I said. “Most women basically can't walk down the street without the possibility that she'll be attacked crossing her mind.”
“Yeah, it's true,” agreed Najmah from across the room.
Peter, bless him, was dumbstruck. You poor men, you don't know you're born! But his reaction surprised me. It has never occurred to me that men don't know how much women fear rape. I take it for granted – as a small child I was warned not to talk to strangers, accept sweets etc., and I knew why, and it stayed with me forever. I feared being abducted then and I still fear it now. I suspect most other women are the same. To suddenly be reminded that men shrugged off all that 'don't talk to strangers' stuff once they felt they were too old to be targeted by paedophiles, and it didn't occur to them that women can't so easily shrug it off, is quite a realisation. Or maybe they never feared creepy old men with sweets as much as I did in the first place.
I bring this up because I'm in my third year at uni, approaching dissertation time, and I've chosen to write about how rape is portrayed in the media. I feel the need to explain why rape is such a big deal to women. I know men get raped as well, and I will write about them too in my dissertation, but where rape is concerned men do not feel the same culture of fear. Women are more vulnerable, primarily because they are physically less strong than men.
I also know that statistically, the stereotypical scenario of a woman who gets raped by a stranger in a dark alley doesn't compare to the number of rape cases in which the woman knows her attacker, and which in all likelihood takes place indoors. So really, why should we fear being attacked when we're walking home in the dark? Is it only the fact that we are weaker than men? Why do I feel particularly vulnerable if I'm walking home in the dark wearing heels or a low-cut top?
Rapists do not commit rape because they are so horny they can't stop themselves. It's got nothing to do with sex. It's about power and control, it's about violating another person to give yourself a feeling of superiority.
That's why I get so, so angry when people lay blame on a woman who's been raped because she was wearing a short skirt or a low-cut top or whatever. Nobody MUST have sex just because they get turned on. Normal people cut their losses, go home and masturbate. No one 'asks' to be raped. I'd hoped such a dim view of rape victims was long buried in the past where it belongs, but then recently a woman in her early 50s said to me: “If she dresses like that, she deserves it.”
One more thing before I crack on with my ever-relentless mound of coursework. Young teenagers who dress like sluts do not do so to appeal sexually to the boys. Typically, their feelings about sex range from afraid to merely giggly, and they don't want it until they are 15 or older. No, they dress like sluts because to them, that's how you look older. That's all it is – they just can't wait to grow up and be considered an adult. Trust me, I used to be one of them.
To say that they're little slags who deserve what they get is tantamount to child abuse, if you ask me.
