Perpetuating the Culture of Rape, One Male Politician at a Time

I have a strong stance on the issue of rape. If a rape is a rape, then that rape is rape. There is no illegitimate rape, no rape-ish, no rape-y. There is just rape.

And a few months ago I would have ended that last paragraph with “rape is wrong.” However, it’s come to the public’s attention that many Republican men in power do not seem to think so.

Women in this nation are taking blow after blow delivered by male GOP politicians. There appears to be no end to what these men think they know about women’s bodies, despite not being female. The latest issue of interest? Rape.

Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan and US Senate candidate Richard Mourdock agree on one fundamental issue about rape: if rape happens then it was meant to be.

Ryan called rape just another “method of conception” while Mourdock defended his religious, anti-choice stance saying that if a woman became impregnated by rape it was "something God intended to happen."

US Senate candidate Todd Akin, on the other hand, fundamentally disagrees with these men’s positions on rape against women. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Funny, this clearly uninformed woman missed that part of sex ed.    

This dismissive view on rape further strips women of control over their bodies. If rape is not taken seriously then women who are victims of sexual assault have no ground to stand on and will continue to be victimized.

In an interview in September, Kim Sherva, executive director of the Minneapolis SlutWalk, said that we are a nation that promotes the “rape culture.” This is a culture where the severity of rape is repressed and fueled by its tendency to “blame the victim” and is further perpetuated by microagressions, like rape jokes and overt aggressions towards women, similar to the attacks these three men made.

People in this nation (Ryan and Mourdock) are diminishing, and downright dismissing (Akin) the harmful consequences of rape.

Women face the scary reality that rape can result in a pregnancy. A pregnancy that, if abortion in cases of rape are outlawed, would result in a continuous nine month re-victimization and imprisonment of her body on top of the traumatic experience itself.

What irks me the most is that these men will never have to fear this terrifyingly real outcome of rape.  These men will never have to live with the consequences that female rape victims do. This female author thinks it’s safe to say that if they did, we’d never hear these hateful, harmful, hurtful, oppressive words come out of their mouths.

For more information and resources visit:

Central Minnesota Sexual Assault Center provides support for victims, both female and male, of sexual assault.

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