Gender and Agency Reconsidered

There are a lot of things that I could rant about when it comes to rape and sexual violence. When it comes to Mardorossian's book Framing the Rape Victim, her argument gives me more to reconsider and be pissed about. I am not even sure I can articulate everything that I want to say, but just stay
with me here:

In Mardorossian's book, she talks about how rape is not "woman's issue" but rather deals with masculinity vs. femininity. Thinking of rape and violence in general in this context is an eye opener. If I think about violent situations, I am starting to think about who would be considered the 'masculine' power and who would be the 'feminine.' When I used to think about rape, it was automatically a 'man' taking advantage of a 'woman' and this book helps break that down.

Something that I've also been frustrating with is blaming rape victims. I love the picture in the book of the sign that says "Society teaches Don't Get Raped rather than Don't Rape." I always think of this picture when it comes the the subject:

There is so much shit that women are constantly told - don't drink too much, don't wear skimpy clothes, don't flirt, blah blah blah - or people could just not rape. Why would anyone ASK to be raped?! That is not how it works. I recently watched the movie "Prey for Rock & Roll" which is a pretty awesome movie and there is scene (spoiler alert) where this (hetero) couple is talking about sex fantasies and it is the guy's fantasy to 'pretend to rape' the girl and the girl gets to do her part of the fantasy too, so she ends up shooting the guy (with a blank bullet) because it was her fantasy to kill her rapist. The girl kept saying 'girls don't fantasize about being raped' and the guy just didn't see that.

Along with all of this, because some people don't understand what consent is or what might be considered rape, there is a staggering amount of people who don't believe that they are rapists or getting raped. I wish I could find the picture, but I once stumbled upon an article from a newspaper that had all these different things listed that would be considered rape and there was a way too high amount of people that said they would do that - with men and women being polled.

There are just so many things to be said about the subject that my mind might have been jumping around - but they are all things that need to be said and thought about.