To most people, rape culture is a far off hypothetical issue that has nothing to do with them or their daily lives, when in fact rape culture is all around us. We deal with its repercussions all the time in the form of people like Brock Turner, the Stanford rapist, and Allen Artis, the UNC rapist. Rape itself is becoming more and more prevalent in our daily lives, with staggering statistics such as that one in five women and one in 71 men will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Even the word rape culture can be difficult to define, let alone understand why it is a problem. Rape culture is how society, including the justice system, views and treats sexual assault and victims of sexual assault. Freshman Savie Warren says, “I define rape culture as accusing the victim rather than the rapist, by asking them what they were wearing or how they were acting.” In the recent case of Allen Artis at UNC, the victim Delaney Robinson claims when police questioned her about the assault, they were asking demanding and accusatory questions rather than her rapist, who was consoled when upset during police questioning. This is just one of many examples of how the cruel rape culture in the United States finds its way into how the justice system treats victims and attackers.

 American rape culture manifests itself in the form of rape jokes, lenient sentencing, and accusing victims of being responsible for what happened to them, which allows sexual assault statistics to soar and rapists to walk free. Former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner, who was found guilty of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, was only charged with a six month sentence that he only served three months of. By being lenient on rapists and harsh on victims, we are making it less likely for victims to press charges. Sexual assault is never a victim’s fault, no matter what they were drinking, what they were behaving, what they were wearing, or if they changed their mind. The only thing that causes rape is rapists. Rather than normalizing rape culture we need to be normalizing concepts like active consent and that no always means no, as to remind people that sexually assaulting another person is never okay.  

 It should not matter if the victim is your sister or a perfect stranger, it is on all of us to stop the ridiculous rape culture in the United States. We have to discourage sexual assault by showing that the justice system will punish rapists harshly, and stop normalizing that rape is not a serious matter. Just as importantly, we must encourage survivors to stand up and always assume the victim is telling the truth. Junior Ben Rappaport says, “I think it is the responsibility of all of us to stop this culture of rape, which is done by making others informed that this is a serious problem that should not be taken lightly, by any stretch.” The way you talk about rape and sexual assault does affect other people, and you never know how it may affect others now or later in life.