Rape Culture

Bibliographic Data

ID18937014
AuthorsJoyce E Williams (Texas Woman's University, corresponding author)
Year2015
Publication date2015-10-26
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeOTHER
VenueThe Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology (JOURNAL)
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosr019.pub2
OpenAlexW4241826080
ISBN9781405165518
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited11

Rape culture is a concept of unknown origin and of uncertain definition; yet it has made its way into everyday vocabulary and is assumed to be commonly understood. The award‐winning documentary film Rape Culture made by Margaret Lazarus in 1975 takes credit for first defining the concept. The film's narration relies heavily on jargon such as “rapism” and “phallocentric society” and is more illustrative than definitive in dealing with rape as depicted in movies, music, and other forms of entertainment. Authors of the popular Transforming a Rape Culture define the phenomenon as “a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women ... a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent” (Buchwald, Fletcher, and Roth, 1993: v). Herman (1984) characterized the United States as a rape culture because sex is typified in aggressive males and passive females. At the other end of the continuum of definitions are efforts to define a rape culture empirically such as are found in the work of Baron and Straus (1989) and Ellis (1989). Some empirical works on rape theorize its emanation from a subculture of violence, for example, societies with high homicide rates also tend to have high rape rates (Amir, 1971; Baron and Straus, 1989). Other researchers stress that an environment such as created by the military, male gangs, or fraternities produce rape‐prone subcultures (Boswell and Spade, 1996; Sanday, 1996; Nelson, 2002; Wolf, 2013). Clearly, rape is more common and acceptable in some environments than in others. However, the concept of rape culture inextricably links rape with the cultural fabric of the whole of society, recognizing that there are systems, institutions, and attitudes that encourage sexual assault and protect sexual predators

Aggression · Art · Criminology · Entertainment · Homicide · Human sexuality · Jargon · Literature · Media studies · Narrative · Poison control · Popular culture · Sociology · Suicide prevention · Visual arts · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Philosophy · Psychology · Sexual Assault and Victimization Studies · Social Psychology · Sports, Gender, and Society

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