Rape culture, not Asian culture, is to blame for Rochdale
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The fact that race, not rape, has dominated discussion of the Rochdale rape case, says a lot about the state of society today. The event in itself is an abhorrent display of violence against women, but the reaction, in my opinion, shows a far more widespread disease affecting society. We live in a rape culture. I see this as indisputable. We live in a world which actively condones and justifies violence against women, including rape.
Last week’s BBC Question Time showed the prevalence of these attitudes. The first question asked about the relation between race and the case. I, for one, was confused – why would race have anything to do with the actual case? The responses given by the panel didn’t exactly help to clear up any misgivings.
The Daily Telegraph’s Peter Oborne answered that the real question was why these women were associating with these men. Because, damn those jezebels for talking to a grown adult male, right? It petrifies me that a mainstream political personality will hold these views – in fact, it scares me that anyone would harbour these misogynist, backwards opinions.
Women are raped because rapists exist. There is nothing a victim can do, ever, to stop herself being raped. No ‘extra precautions’ she can take. And putting even partial responsibility on the victim for an attack is revolting – how would you feel if a friend, a family member was raped, only to be told they are somewhat to blame, because of what they wore? Why should half of society be restricted in their choices because a minority choose to rape? A hundred men could walk past a ‘vulnerable’ woman, but only a rapist would rape her.
So no, Oborne, I don’t care if the victims were complete strangers to, best friends or worst enemies with the perpetrators. I don’t care if they wore a latex catsuit, a bin bag or jeans and a t-shirt. It was not their fault.
So race, is that a factor? Did these men rape because of cultural differences? Because they were of Asian origin? Maybe they didn’t understand that it’s not okay to force yourself on an underage teenager? Sorry, but that excuse doesn’t wash with me. Reading the reports, particularly one in the Independent, it is clear that the abuse was sustained and that the men convicted were fully aware of their actions. One victim “lost count of the number of times she had had sex with men when she did not want to do so”. Another was “persistently coerced or forced into submission” by the men.
Which leads me to my next point – if you forcibly penetrate another human who does not want that to happen, it is rape. It is not sex. Sex is intrinsically good, and by definition consensual. So reports of the Rochdale case referring to ‘sex’ with underage girls are incorrect. There was no consent, so, by definition surely, it was assault. These crimes were heinous violations of the victims’ autonomy. This is not justified by Asian culture; it is promoted by a global rape culture.
The hegemonic culture in music, media, politics, society is a patriarchal one, which continually subjugates women. In Western democratic society, rape and violence against women as a whole is condoned through practices such as victim-blaming and slut-shaming.
Look at the comments by a Toronto police officer which sparked the worldwide ‘SlutWalks’. The misogyny present in modern hip-hop. The way Chris Brown, convicted domestic abuser, has been welcomed back into the collective consciousness with no repercussions. An advertisement on 4Music for an entertainment news programme poses the question “Should Rihanna get back with Chris Brown?” A mainstream-owned television channel asking if a woman should return to the arms of a man who assaulted her. I’m sorry, what? How is this an acceptable thing to do in modern society?
Our entire culture, our society, seeks to justify violence against women. It shows men of all ages that committing horrendous crimes such as rape and assault are okay. Because women lie, and women make poor choices which lead to them being attacked, and women sleep around so it’s clear they just want sex, right?
No. It’s not right. It’s not okay. Race did not cause these young women to be raped. A sexist, patriarchal ideology caused this. Rapists caused this.
It’s not that there are no “Asian Girls” being abused it is that the abuse of asian women is so endemic that it is…
1. Not considered a problem even amongst asian women since “It has become normalised”.
2. Reporting of the abuse is rare due to the lack of ability to report. The community backlash is generally against the girl rather than the boy.
So it’s not that the abuse doesn’t exists but that there is no mechanism for discovering abuse and doing anything about it.
It does come from a culture of “victim blaming” and “slut shaming”. A lot of the victims are white women because in the UK the majority of WOMEN are white, therefore by law of access (AKA if you randomly picked out 10 people in the UK, atleast 7 will be white). It is easy to blame “White women” for going out on the town and dancing in skimpy outfits on a friday and saturday.
It is a lot harder to accept that the decision to do so does not give you the permission to rape. The culture is not asian, it’s a culture of male dominance where subservience to men is encouraged at home and the same attitude is applied in open society by the men who are simply “used to” being treated like this.
The fact is that these men were all described as “Pillars of Community” speaks volumes. This is a crime similar to the catholic church shennanigans. Pillars of Community all seem to get a shocking amount of leeway in the way that they because it reflects badly on the community if these things came to light.
Stopping Rape?
1. Increase the report rate. The earlier the rape is reported the greater the chance of gaining a conviction.
2. Increasing the confidence of women to realise when something is rape and to treat it as such.
3. Community Liason. Proper Liason, not “It’s their culture!” hand waving. I am not white and I find it condescending when people say that.
4. It’s not a race issue, it’s a dickhead issue. It’s understanding that there are people who are dickheads and they come in all shapes and sizes. The trick is to not fixate on just one group of dickheads…
Remember, when a girl is drunk and you shag her it is still possible rape. Irrational decision making is still irrational.
Great article. Rob – I think you’ve missed the point here. Even if there is an argument to be made that cultural issues made a contribution to some of the details of this case, this is a side issue at best. The core fact is that a group of young women were assaulted and raped by a group of men. It doesn’t matter whether the perpetrators or the victims were white, or Asian, or from any other ethnicity or background.
I find that a good test for determining the importance of different contributing factors to a terrible event is to ask the question: how could we stop this from happening again? Would segregating our communities based on their race, or pouring even more police resources into spying on Asian men, do anything to reduce the incidence of rape in our society? Alternatively, how about creating a change in our media, politics and social lives so that people of all genders are treated with equal respect? Which of these options do you think would do more to prevent rape from happening?
I think the sad part is that police did not act because of a fear that sterotyping some asian people would look bad in that community.
If there is a racial profiling element it may just be that people in one community pro rata are more prevalent to commit this grooming crime.
Saying it does not have a racial element is silly. Sadly it does and if we are in denial about that then the police cannot solve the problem.
We need to avoid the Daily Mail having a mandate to say the police are too afraid to act on the pleas for help of 12 and 13 year olds. That is an argument that will be hard to win by denying what happened and why. Your comments above do not really address this.
That asian girls were not groomed is not an accident. Ergo there is a racial element to these rapes. There would be a huge backlash in an asian community if that had happened.