Are We Setting Women Up to Be Raped?

Who has control over your body? Who gets to decide who does and does not get to touch you, and how, and when? My answer would be: you do. But is this really what we teach women? Maybe not.

A post on the "Yes Means Yes" blog,  "Good Touch, Bad Touch," discusses those annoying cheek-pinches and hugs from relatives in a light I'd never considered before. It argues that when society -- and parents in particular -- teaches girls to accept unwanted touching of any kind, it sets them up to not fight back against sexual assault or rape. It tells them that somebody else gets to make the decision about what is appropriate touching of their bodies, not them. (I'm reminded of the scene in Sixteen Candles when the grandmother give the growing breasts of her shocked teenage granddaughter a good squeeze.)

I'm sure everybody's seen a child trying to squirm out of a relative's enthusiastic hug. Most people probably laugh. But is it really that funny? When we tell our children to put up with undesired touching, can we expect them to report when the "line" is crossed? Maybe, for them, they feel that the line has already been passed.

The post asks: "what’s the point of alerting children to how they feel about inappropriate touch if we also teach them that there is nothing they can do about it?"

It also links to some other excellent pieces about the issue. Rebecca at City of Ladies argues, in a moving personal letter, that the different between an unwanted kiss or hug and rape is only a matter of degree: "So he put his penis in your vagina without your consent. Oh my god such a big deal."

Harriet Jacob writes in an comprehensive post at Fugitivus you should all read, "Women who are taught not to speak up too loudly or too forcefully or too adamantly or too demandingly are not going to shout 'NO' at the top of their goddamn lungs just because some guy is getting uncomfortably close." But instead of realizing that this is a problem of our own creation, society chooses to engage in victim-blaming.

I took a Rape Agression Defense (RAD) course my first year of college, and one of the major tactics they teach you is to yell "NO" loudly every time you hit. The most shocking thing? How many young women -- who chose to take this class to learn to defend themselves -- couldn't do it. The instructor would tell them to stop whispering no and YELL -- and the girls would say that they just couldn't manage it.

The girls would say, "I don't like to yell." Well, rape isn't so great either.

Women don't like to yell because they're taught not to be a "bitch," taught not to assert themselves because they might hurt someone's feelings, whether it be a relative or an interested guy. This becomes internalized to the point where they may lose the ability to act otherwise. But which is worse: hurt feelings or rape?

While there might be more hurt grandmas if we teach girls that they are the only ones who can decide whether someone touching their own body is okay, if it means lower rates of molestation, sexual assault, and rape, doesn't it seem worth it?

Photo credit: smlp.co.uk