1 in 5 women are raped

On casual sexual assault

TRIGGER WARNING

If you are triggered by the sole notion that a woman's experiences aren't 

automatically to be believed, don't read on.

As I was reading up on the sexual assault victims magazine, a weekly published magazine which deals with the victimhood of women who were or are about to be sexually assaulted, I looked up some numbers. The mag said, that every 1 in 5 woman was experiencing sexual assault in her lifetime.

Yet according to critics, the "1 in 5 woman"-statistic was a myth because it was lacking in quality. To these critics, I simply say, when a woman tells you about her experiences, the most radical thing you can do is to listen and believe. Because sexual assault isn't only forcefully holding someone down. Rape is existing in every layer of a woman's life on a day-to-day basis. Woman are raped in rape culture every day in a certain way. Rape culture even enables this abhorrent behaviour.

And the point is, if she feels sexually assaulted, she probably was.

So, let me explain why this number is so high, but let me say it through the voices of the woman on my campus:

"Until noon, I was raped multiple times. Let me explain. First, I stood up, and had to put on some makeup. rape culture forces me to make myself pretty for the boys, although i don't really want to. That's rape. As I was leaving my flat, I thought I'd go to a starbucks, and get some coffee, like usual to console me after my traumatic experience of putting makeup on (while I didn't want to). There, it happened again. A clearly misogynist employee of starbucks talked me into buying caffee au lait, although I wanted my coffee black. I bet he was racist, too." Nubriana, 23

"Yesterday, I had to ride a bus. It was really crowded, and I had trouble finding a seat for me. Because I was tired of shopping and trying to find the right perfume all day, I just had to sit down. There was only one seat left and it was next to a sweaty fat dude. I had no choice. I had to sit down next to him. I was facing away from him in disgust, surpressing my urge to gag for the whole ride but because I had no choice but sitting next to him, although I didn't want to - I was the victim. I had to experience rape culture with my very own body" Carol, 24

"Last week, I was raped 11 times during a time period of 15 minutes. I was walking down the street, to meet a feminist male friend. There were 5 men looking uninvited at me, one assaulted me because he whistled at me like you whistle at a horse, and one had the audacity to accidently brush my arm with his. But the worst of em all was actually my feminist male friend. My eyes witnessed in shock and horror, that there was a bouquet of roses in his hands, and there was this big patriarchal grin on his face. I didn't ask for this, and slapped it down to the ground, stomped on it and went home. An hour later, he tried to lie to me, saying that the roses weren't even for me. Sexist pig." Esther, 26

Needless to say, all those woman were in the vicinity of a campus or on the way to it.

She got it right: Woman can be raped through
the male gaze

So let me clear that up. If anything is going against a woman's will. If a woman is forced to do something that she doesn't want to, but is pressured to do, thats an instance of rape (=sexual assault) in rape culture. Examples like:

• Making yourself pretty albeit you don't really want to.

• Taking out the trash because others won't.

• Uninvited contact in any way by misogynist males (aka normaldude)

• Get slowed down by old and sick people while walking behind them

• the urge to sleep in although you have to go to your uni

Those examples seem petty, but if a student feels assaulted, she probably just simply was. It is of absolute importance that we acknowledge this feelings and get a global awareness on how and when woman feel (sexually) assaulted on a day-to-day basis on university grounds. Because it's just not ok that woman have to endure anything.

I talk to every woman reading this - if we just repeat more often, when and where we feel assaulted, rape will finally be taken seriously.

This is a sure way to fight patriarchy and the crushing clutch of the hand of white cis supremacy.