Steubenville Case/Rape Culture

Miscellaneous General
1

The Steubenville case is gaining popularity, and of course rape culture hits the limelight. Thus I’m starting this over again. From the Public Shaming Tumblr, Black Girl Dangerous, and from Raw Story,

Harlow explained that it had been “incredibly difficult” to watch “as these two young men — who had such promising futures, star football players, very good students — literally watched as they believed their life fell apart.”

“One of the young men, Ma’lik Richmond, as that sentence came down, he collapsed,” the CNN reporter recalled, adding that the convicted rapist told his attorney that “my life is over, no one is going to want me now.”

As well as this piece from Bleeding Heart Libertarians,

In a previous post I argued that libertarians should start to think about rape, and the institutions that shelter and protect rapists, as a topic that could benefit from a libertarian approach. After all, the action of rape violates our belief that “interactions should be peaceful exchanges between consenting parties.” And the culture that protects it confirms everything that public choice theory has taught us about the “dangers that come into play in dysfunctional institutions.”

Several commenters on my earlier post suggested that I was merely telling everyone something we all knew already. Rape is bad. Yawn. Perhaps now we can get back to a topic that really matters? Like raw milk?

I’m not so sure everyone knows rape is bad. And with left-leaning CNN’s sympathetic–even maudlin–coverage of the young lives destroyed when rapists are convicted for raping people swirling in a noxious stew with the asinine statements about rape made by so many of last year’s Republican candidates, maybe it’s time for what Students for Liberty calls the “radical center” to do a little talking about rape culture?

As well as this picture that strikes me as a bit odd;

Must we debate rape culture does not exist? If everyone knows rape is bad, then why do they not only take place, but the rapists themselves are given more sympathy than the victim?

2

thats not rape culture, those are statements by piece of shit talking heads. pull your head out of the collectivist sandbox and realize that personal security is a gender-neutral private good.

edited to add: I’m glad people are also recognizing the destructive power of the criminally injustice system. hopefully we can agree that returning focus to the victim should emphasize restitution and prevention.

3

matter of fact, where is your word about the victim? what are they supposed to say? what good are their words supposed to do, besides further erode the privacy of a woman who has been horribly abused and exposed already?

4

Bert,

Your input would be appreciated here

I’m unconvinced as to the extent of rape culture, and I really tend to hate feminism in general so I do tend to go the opposite way of those who scream “rape culture” since this allows me to dissociate from liberals. I think that there is some truth to the idea, but generally the concept is taken too far in assuming how rape and the like is normally portrayed. It also seems to assume that just because you’re not responsible for being raped that you weren’t being foolish.

Nonetheless, from what I’ve seen it does appear that the way this case is being portrayed is pretty perverse, but this may be partially because there is ambiguity around the case itself.

“thats not rape culture, those are statements by piece of shit talking heads. pull your head out of the collectivist sandbox and realize that personal security is a gender-neutral private good.”

Why isn’t it rape culture? Furthermore Bert is not being collectivistic except insofar as someone who talks about groups inherently is, and your comment doesn’t add anything to the discussion of whether or not women in certain situations are discriminated against, instead focusing upon another issue.

5

Rape culture seems to be a meaningless phrase. Do we have a drug culture in America too? Everybody does drugs? We all legitimize drugs? Everyone knows drugs are bad? Good? I noticed that Wikipedia doesn’t have a page for “thief culture”, but look, the government robs us blind, and almost everyone is cool with it to some extent. Why do we have a rape culture but not a thief culture? What about a thug culture?

6

Yes, let’s talk about rape culture. Let’s start with the facts. False accusations and false convictions happen. A lot. Women are not devoid of the retaliatory instinct common to all human beings, male or female. One way to retaliate against someone is to make a false accusation against them and hope it sticks. Rape-shield laws have exacerbated the problem by increasing the likelihood that an accusation - true or false - will stick, by overturning basic, long-standing principles of jurisprudence.

Not surprisingly, rape is common in prison. Men are the primary victims of prison rape. It is primarily the innocent, petty criminals and non-gang members who are victimized. There is essentially no recourse, so that prison rape is essentially de facto legal. Talk about a rape culture!

And now, the TSA airline checkpoints have become a denizen of de jure digital rape. Sexual assault victims and rape victims passing through these checkpoints run the risk of being traumatized by being forced to relive the experience of being forcibly touched in sensitive areas - which depending on the exuberance of the TSA goon may even include the rectal area, the scrotum, and the labial folds. Same sex screenings does not solve the problem since many rape/sexual assault victims are actually victims of someone of the same sex or the issue of the gender of the assaulting individual may have been irrelevant - it was the fact that an unwelcome touch was forced upon them that caused the emotional trauma.

Foster homes are another State-sponsored institution where rape occurs with little or not recourse. Children sent to foster homes have reached the last stop in the State’s child grist-mill… child protection agencies are reluctant to lose foster parents, even supposing that a victimized child is aware of his or her ability to seek recourse with the child protection agency.

American college campuses have become havens of debauchery. Many of the participants in the Girls Gone Wild porn movies are college-aged women engaging in licentious and debauched behavior. Rape, no doubt, occurs, is likely under-reported, and there may very well be something that can be described as a macho rape-culture in the college fraternities. High-school footballers - such as these Steubenville kids - are in a pipeline leading to the frat-boy parties and associated debauchery - including the sinister aspects of hazing, assault, battery, and even rape - that are necessarily associated with such licentious behavior.

The problem is in generalizing this. How is it that privileged, proto-frat-boy, high-school footballers are a representative sample of “men”?? And how is it that you intend to stem the tide of rape culture by turning attention away from commonplace, daily de jure rape committed by TSA thugs at airline checkpoints 365 days a year, onto a speculative, subjective, and clearly biased claim that “men” have a de facto “rape culture” among them?? It seems to me that the first step in stopping de facto rape is to stop de jure rape. But perhaps I’m just one of these mythical creatures that doesn’t know rape is bad.

Clayton -

7

I see what you did there.

8

i think steubenville is a pretty good example of what feminists are talking about when they talk about “rape culture”. i mean, you had two teens who were possibly being protected from rape allegations due to their privleged standing in the community. and now that they’ve been convicted it seems more media attn has been paid to how their lives were ruined instead of how they ruined the lives of a 16 yr old girl.

can numerous instances of these sorts of circumstances be added together to demonstrate that a “culture” exists in America that condones or excuses rape? I don’t know. you really can’t quantify culture so it seems like no matter what your position is on that question your argument will to boil down to a collection of annecdotes and a few descriptive statistics.

but i think that is really beside the point. the real point is that there are a number of institutions in the U.S. and around the world that turn a blind eye to rape (Sarah links to a particularly egregious illustration of the U.S. military doing this in a previous post). and i totally agree with Sarah that libertarians should pay more attention to this issue than they currently do. going back to the example of the U.S. military, the draft was ended due in some part to the insistant criticisms of libertarian opponents like Milton Friedman. could the same positive role be played in motivating reform in the military today with regards to handling rape in the ranks?

in any case, i know i have personally not thought that much about the institutions surrounding rape in our society. i will try to do more of that in the future.

9

Malachi, if those said statements are representive of a vast majority of people, such as the various Twitter posts on the Public Shaming Tumblr, would it not be a snapshot of the culture we live in? They are not the only ones who say/agree with those statements, a lot of people do.

Where is my word about the victim? Honestly I have none, her world was destroyed and she was only 16. Though I’ll sympathize with the victim, not the rapists. But because we cannot form in words how we feel about the victim we have to boast the rapists?

Also, in what line of thinking am I putting forth anything collective. I’m sure a majority of us here can agree we do not agree/support/endorse racism or sexism (I can only hope not), yet wouldn’t that be “collective”? Here’s a problem of our time: rape culture. Now I’m a collectivist to be against it?

Neodoxy, I had planned on writing something on gender, but in a different context (something towards the LGBT crowd). I’ll say in this context of rape culture, but liberals and conservatives both can have this mindset of victim blaming. I recently just moved all my old posts on feminism from my Tumblr to my site, one of which has to do with rape culture (wrote it before the final hearing of the case). I’d say that you could go through them in chronological order, I started writing them when feminism started to “click” with me, so it may be a different approach than what you’ve seen.

Clayton, before you ask questions, make sure you direct them to the right person who’s positing them to be asked, because we don’t want any strawmen.

This case is a sample of rape culture, for example, the commentary of the news speakers, the court room scene, various Twitter posts sympathetic towards the boys, and blaming the girl. This is not an isolated case. What we can take from this case is that a lot of people, a lot of young people think and view these problems in this way. Young people are willing to “slut shame” the girl, insult her intelligence, and praise the deeds of the men. It’s as if nothing has changed since the 1950’s. This is outside of a systematic rape, because if you do not address the thinking and the language of a people outside of a system, how do you expect them to change the system? Clearly, people think rape is not a big deal, and it’s to be mad a mockery of. Do you think if these boys didn’t get caught they’d feel guilty? Probably not, seeing how they took pictures and text jokes to their friends about it.

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the real point is that there are a number of institutions in

beat me to it. THis is an insitutional question, all that can be looked at is how various institutions play off each other and cause tension. THis is where Lachmann, Weber, and Horowitz can come in handy. Also I think, by definition, rape is wrong - if somehow there exists an “over abundance” of rape (whatever that may mean), it’s signaling a flaw in the legal system.

That stated, I don’t know how sold I am with these categories, it seems like it could be an empty intellectual class thing and can be filtered off with other “questions”: the jewish question, the women question, the proletariat question, the race question, etc, etc. If that’s the case, I don’t think there is much of a question or solution to such a problem other than maybe putting severe limitations on the class that “diagnoses” such non-problems.

11

Wait, are you saying that on the internet, there are people with really bad taste, and they say mean spirited things, especially on sites catering to the lowest common denominator? And also, the media has some kind of, I don’t know, agenda? And they’re airheaded morons, too? I’m starting a petition.

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Clarification:

By “I don’t know how sold I am wth these categories”: I mean I really am unsure, some type of “rape culture” could very well exist that could be a real problem and thought of that as a given. I was just thinking if a rape culture “didn’t exist” what the culprit of the myth would be.

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beat me to it. THis is an insitutional question, all that can be looked at is how various institutions play off each other and cause tension. THis is where Lachmann, Weber, and Horowitz can come in handy. Also I think, by definition, rape is wrong - if somehow there exists an “over abundance” of rape (whatever that may mean), it’s signaling a flaw in the legal system.

Agreed. Like I said, I’ve not spent much time with these issues, but what little I have spent, it seems like the typical solution to fighting the “rape culture” is spreading awareness. And I do think that is important (even if it may sound a little cheesy). But, I think Sarah is right that a libertarian/public choice perspective on this issue would be that there are institutional flaws driving the problem (i like that you said “over appendance” – it puts this issue even more in territorey that libertarians would find familair). It has to be (at least in part) an incentives problem!

I have been reading about these issues (and feminism in general) in recent months, so I am glad Bert posted this as it just gives me more reason to think about these issues. I look forward to reading more of his and your posts on this subject. I will also be doing some more reading on this in the future. If anyone has any good books or articles on this or related subjects worth looking into, let me know.

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@Vive & Student

Are you two both sure that you’re really talking about “rape culture” when you mention

““over abundance” of rape”?

This doesn’t really seem like it has much to do with the issue of rape culture itself. Indeed even as a vague concept I’m struggling to see what this could possibly mean. Rape culture, as I understand it, has to do with the attitudes towards rape and surrounding issues (almost exclusively surrounding women in both cases) favoring the idea that it is often the fault of female should that female be a “slut”, as well as sympathy towards the rapist. This has nothing to do with the occurrence of rape in general nor its “over abundance”. It’s rape culture, not rape adjudication.

15

I’m impressed at how easily Bert handwaves away criticisms and questions such as, you know, Clayton’s entire post, or any of my questions:

Do we have a thief culture? Etc.

16

Neodoxy,

Maybe I’m using the term incorrectly.

In that post, I was speaking speaking specifically about formal institutions that contribute to the occurence of rape by making it less likely the rapist is punished or by reducing the severity of that punishment (my thoughts being inspired by this post: http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2013/02/violating-our-principles/).

But I also understand “rape culture” extends to informal institutions like social norms (like slut shaming and the other things you mentioned) that also contribute to the occurence of rape (by reducing the social penalty of committing rape).

In both cases, it seems to me that the problem is institutions that make rape more likely than it would be otherwise.

Maybe I am defining “rape culture” too broadly? Or just plain wrong?

17

Student, as I told Neodoxy, go through my site (linked above) with some of the things I’ve written on feminism on different perspectives.

gotlucky, I decided that I’d rather stay directly on topic, and not be sidelined by other arguments which would detract from this post, which is rape culture. Though I did not handwave away criticism, I read his post, and he brings up systematic rape, but how is one to combat systematic rape when rape (outside a systematic variety) that’s in our society and culture is so easily tolerated by a vast majority of people? If culture is a projection of it’s people, we will not expect much change if the views of people do not change. You simply do not say you want to end war by policy or political means if half the country believes war is right, otherwise it has no affect what you rally for.

Now if the TSA is a case, fine, but one cannot rally around gainst any variable of rape done by X, if one does not address rape in general. I put emphasis on young people on this who do express views that can be defined as rape culture and those who are against it. Thus, how is one to combat systematic rape, if the mindset of the people at hand tolerate rape in general?

Also, I thought your questions where rhetorical. Again, I do not want to bother to dive into them to remain off topic, but the same questioning applies. If people find it acceptable that something can be coerced from someone, do you expect to change pressing issues if their views don’t change first?

18

Student,

Hmmm… I’m actually unfamiliar with the real ‘legal’ aspects of rape culture. I agree with Clayton’s claims that socially and judicially in many cases the accusation of “flat-out” rape (not the most ridiculous term used on this thread so far) is becoming increasingly damaging and threatening to males. The claim of rape is (usually) much more damaging now than it used to be in the past. Perhaps I am conflating “slut shaming” to the entirety of rape culture.

I also think that you’re using the term “institution” too broadly here. You can argue that culture is an institution, and I have no problem with that per se, yet in this context I feel that it obscures the issue in such a way that I see out of the left much of the time. It implies there are “institutional factors” i.e big baddies which are causing all this badness, when in reality the “informal” is much more important than the “institution”, since these are actually decentralized and actually somewhat spontaneous factors.

The source of all human knowledge seems to (after a cursorary glance) agree with me that rape culture is primarily a purely “cultural” not really a legal phenomenon per se. While I’m not very well versed on the issue, I would be genuinely surprised if there were many legal barriers that prevented proper recourse for rape victims, or if there are I’d bet that they were remnants of ye oldie sexism of the protestant legal variety.

Also, just a quick note on feminism. I know that you and I fundamentally disagree on the nature of gender, yet something to keep in mind before exploring the area of gender and the relationship between the sexes both individually and socially is what the end goal of any reasonable human being should be: individual self-determination based upon real merit and desire rather than based upon non-personality based factors such as race or sex. I doubt you would make this error, yet I see those who enter into the “feminism arena” from either side make this error all the time. They lose sight of what the final goal should be, regardless of what is going on or what has been going on in society, because they never fully realized this in the first place.

People are people and so on, even if some people are rapists.

19

No I’m not so sure what “rape culture” is - I was trying to hazard a guess - but my answer would still be similar to students: if it is to exist intelligibly it only seems to make sense in the category of “phenomenon” or institution - in which it could be informal and/or purely legal - in which case there may bea real tension, by the mere fact people can make an issue out of it.

After that I was alluding to some caution that was probably similar to what gotlucky was stating about “thief culture” - and what is the geneology of this term, and is this just two sided culture war baiting?

EDIT:

most important how does one qualify this discussion so it doesn’t run amok and people can stick to a non insane way of discussion, that’s the problem with topics like these

20

Neo,

I have to run to bed so can’t give a full response. But, did just want to say that I am using the term “institutions” in the same sense as Doug North, who defined them as “human designed constraints that structure political, economic, and social interaction” (these could include formal constrains like laws or informal constraints like social norms). You could say his definition could include almost anything (you wouldn’t be the first), but the same could be said of a lot of big-concept words.
http://www.econ.uchile.cl/uploads/documento/94ced618aa1aa4d59bf48a17b1c7f605cc9ace73.pdf

That being said, I could be totally wrong about rape culture being about institutions (everything looks like economics to me anymore. maybe i need more tools in my mental tool box). :stuck_out_tongue: Looking at the wikipedia link, I don’t see any mention of formal institutions that lead to rape, so you could be right.

If I am using the term wrong, I apologize. This is a subject I want to learn more about but am still not very deep into it yet.