"Rape Culture is an attempt by an individual or party to normalize acts of rape and sexual abuse" No, that definition is not going to cut it. You can not define the acts of an individual(s) and label it a culture. The problem with the rape culture argument is that it tries to label the actions of a small group of individuals who act of their own volition with no outside influence, and then labels the collective of rapists and sexual abusers a "Rape Culture". If Donald Trump claims that he grabs women, he is responsible as an individual for his claims; this in no way proves that their is an existing cultural influence behind his actions. Rape culture exists in the middle east, and it exists in prison, because in both places it exists with no punishment. Riker, you of all people should know about Circular logic.
Jesus....
Aight, I'm gonna try to make this as thorough and simple as I can.
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To determine if rape culture is real, the first thing we have to do is define rape culture. First thing to get out of the way: Rape culture is NOT a culture. If the basis of your argument is "You can't call this a culture," then that means that you haven't actually made an attempt to learn what rape culture is. You look at the name, see culture, and assume that it LITERALLY means a culture. You're basing your argument solely on the name of the concept, which is ignorance.
There are those who argue that the fact that the presence of rape culture in America is the product of certain social and cultural norms that once existed, such as males having a higher socioeconomic and political standings than women, but rape culture itself is not meant to refer to an actual culture.
Now, for the actual definition of rape culture: Rape culture means a setting where rape and sexual assault are normalized. Rape culture is a title given to the trivialization of rape and sexual assault. To determine if the term(rape culture) exists, we have to ask ourselves, do the concepts that the title refers to(instances of rape/sexual assault being trivialized and normalized) occur.
The answer to that is, "Yes." I bring up Donald Trump's words because that's an example of someone trivializing and normalizing acts of sexual assault. I bring up Brock Turner and other judges because those are examples of people trivializing rape. Rape is trivialized when people blame people who are raped for the clothing they are worn inside of assigning the blame to the actual rapist. Rape is trivialized when the rape of men is made into a joke instead of being addressed as something serious.
The concepts that the term "rape culture" refer to are observable as something that actually happens. Therefore, rape culture is indeed real. No, it's not a literal, actual culture, it's simply a term created to describe a specific phenomena that takes several forms. You can argue that the use of the word "culture" for the title is wrong, but that not that the concepts it refers to doesn't exist.