[Work in progress]
About
“Rape Culture” is the concept that sexual assault and rape is normalized or encouraged by society through biases regarding sex and gender, including forms of victim blaming like “slut shaming.” The theory has been hotly debated within and outside of feminist academic circles over what constitutes rape culture and whether it is overemphasized as a cause of rape in Western society.
Origin
According to Wikipedia,[1]“rape culture” was initially coined by second wave feminists in the 1970s to raise awareness about the prevalence of rape in American culture, which some argued was a result of widespread misogyny and sexism in society. On October 31st, 1974, the book Rape: The First Sourcebook for Women by New York Radical Feminists was released, which contained the first published use of the phrase. In 1975, the documentary film Rape Culture was released, which investigates the concept cultural normalization of rape of men and women (shown below).
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Critcisms
On October 25th, 2013, The Amazing Atheist uploaded a video titled “There’s No Rape Culture,” which criticized the way Internet feminists use the phrase “rape culture” (shown below, left). On May 19th, 2014, the American Enterprise Institute YouTube channel uploaded a “Factual Feminist” video titled “Rape culture panic is not the answer,” in which host Christina Hoff Sommers argued that feminist activists at universities were overwmp