Being as unfortunate as it is today, the patriarchy is a core reason for sexual assault against women because it enforces men to corner women into a submissive role. Had society not repeatedly indicate that men have the right to sexualize, objectify, and slut-shame women at every waking moment, rates of sexual assault would significantly plummet. But this doesn’t only add to the troubles of women—men are also disadvantaged from this backward community, but in distinctive ways.
There is no use denying sexual assault cases against women are more common than that of men’s, and the statistics agree. 90% of sexual violence against women are caused by men. In cases where men are the victim, 93% of abusers were a man. Even when you combine all rape cases, men still account for 78% of all assaults.
Our society has conditioned women to bear responsibility for assaults that happen to them, a phenomenon thought of as ‘victim-blaming’. This concept was created to defend rapists and, naturally, there are several predominant issues with this thinking.
Women are discouraged from wearing revealing clothing, from being taught to defend themselves, and are told that they should be more cautious at night. Women putting these warnings in motion does not necessarily stop rape; instead of blaming girls for something out of their control, it would make more sense to teach boys to stop raping and assaulting.
Victim blaming is underneath a term called ‘rape culture’. This culture is where sexual assault committed by men against women becomes normalized.
Such is the case with Brock Turner, convicted of three counts of felony sexual assault. A sizable portion of the population made excuses to vindicate him, claiming he was a good person or that he was under the influence. Rape culture allows excuses to be made for the assaulter, often saying things like ‘boys will be boys’. But in reality, boys must change. Their behavior towards women lacks simple, decent human respect—and yet we wonder why women are afraid of men.
Another issue with victim-blaming is when men ask for proof of rape. There are many court cases where the victim is placed on the stand and asked a series of tiring questions, with the defendant’s attorney trying to spotlight the victim’s inconsistencies in her story. The problem with this is that it’s natural for a rape victim to not remember the details of her assault, mainly because rape victims are often given drugs prior so they can’t fight back.
Psychology explains that when humans go through traumatic events and episodes, parts of our brain shuts out the event to minimize the pain. This is a biological response, not a voluntary one. Researched and proven by many psychologists, this proves that we cannot hold ‘inconsistencies in her story’ against the victim.
The poignancy of this is that men don’t believe women anymore because, after the #MeToo movement, it seemed like ‘every girl has been assaulted’, and they began to think of it as a ‘boy who cried wolf’ situation. That was the entire point of the movement—to let women and young girls around the world speak out for themselves, but men continued to dismiss it as there were ‘too many cases’ and found it hard to believe.
Although outright shaming and forcing women into certain roles have been eliminated, there are still many forms of modern-day oppression that happen on social media platforms. Women still get shamed for sharing their stories, but this time it is better concealed in a form of a ‘joke’. A new wave of criticism from immature boys target assaulted women by making rape jokes, dismissing their experience, and gaslighting them—asking ‘where’s the proof?’ or saying ‘every girl has been assaulted, why should we believe you?’. This behavior makes victims feel unheard, which is often why women don’t come forward. An actual rape case should be heard, not brushed off.
The patriarchal oppression through sexual assault doesn’t only happen with women; it happens with men too, only it’s not discussed enough. Assault is more commonly seen as something that happens to women, caused by men—not the other way around. The harmful stereotype that all men must be ‘strong and masculine’ leads to cases against men being minimized as it is assumed that they don’t need help and are self-sufficient. Men are humans too—they feel the same way a woman does when they are assaulted. They need help, and society has failed to give it to them.
When a male gets raped or molested, other men tell them that they ‘should have enjoyed it’. This has a similar effect to telling a woman to ‘show proof’; it downplays their experience by taking it less seriously, resulting in them less likely to report it. Even in discussions of assault against men, they are, sadly, often the punchline of jokes regarding the rates of prison rape.
The double standard is staggering. If a woman were congratulated for being assaulted, just imagine the backlash the congratulator would get. Double standards surrounding men and women dispense plentiful damage on men; for example, a group of girls were filmed ripping a boy’s shirt off. The boy was clearly uncomfortable with it, yet the comment section was filled with other girls complimenting his body.
Society tends to dismiss injustices against men because they ‘should not be weak’, when in fact, men should be able to be vulnerable without being judged, regardless of sexual orientation. Although sexual assault happens to women more often, the situation with men is just as detrimental and made even worse so due to its rarity in discussion.
In all fairness, sexual assault against both genders should be listened to and not set aside or gaslighted. The patriarchy is to blame for this as everyone suffers from misconceptions of stereotyped and damaging gender roles. In order to retract the destruction of this, we must combat by deconstructing the patriarchy and stripping sexist gender roles from both men and women. Men should be able to be vulnerable whereas women should not be blamed outright for rape.