Culture Hacking
Jul. 4th, 2005 03:40 amThere's been a wave of rape awareness & so forth sweeping LJ in the last couple days. And given that it's bouncing back and forth, the time seems to be ripe to find something constructive that can actually be done in face-to-face interactions to get people thinking to change stuff. And this seems like it could help.
Rape is not funny.
elfwreck said, in the essay/rant/plan, that women aren't part of those kinds of conversations. We may not be actively included in the conversation, but I'm "one of the guys", and if something like that came up in conversation at all, it could come up around me, so the burden's on me as well to shut them down as disgusting. I don't care if I'm not actually "part of the conversation" when something like that comes up. If it's within my earshot in, say, the workplace, it's my responsibility to say (as a supervisor) that it's not at all appropriate for work, and say (as a human) that what they're bragging about is disgusting.
Rape is not funny.
Racism did not become unacceptable because laws were passed against it, nor because tolerant-minded politicians made impassioned speeches against it... it became unacceptable because ordinary people, in their private conversations, stopped thinking of "nigger jokes" as funny, and they gradually told their buddies "this ain' the place for that kind of joke." With that half-smile with the wrinkled nose that says "... and I don't know why you think it's funny at all, but I don't care how filthy your taste in humor is as long as you don't share it with my kids."The whole movement is just asking for some icons and banners. I have a cunning design in my head.
Rapism--the attitude that a woman with a short dress is "asking for it" or that a man is "entitled" to certain things after paying for a date or that he's a football player, she must've wanted it--will only be stopped by the same methods. No amount of laws or prosecutions can change social standards; people will continue to believe that "rapists" are those creepy losers who stalk women in parking lots, and the guy who pushes his date (who was gonna give in eventually, really, so what's the harm in getting it a little early?) is some other category of person, something acceptable in polite conversation.
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