I refuse to apologize for being male

[Harmony Blue]

124. Instead of towing a line that is perpetuated without solid basis lets examine what culture is first

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/culture

"the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place, or time

: a particular society that has its own beliefs, ways of life, art, etc.

: a way of thinking, behaving, or working that exists in a place or organization (such as a business)"

Basically culture is a collective belief system by a group or organization of people. How is this culture transmitted from one generation to the next? Throughout human history, and pre historic times culture was transmitted from one generation from another from the parents or elders to the youth. No one is born knowing culture, so iIF rape is a cultural phenomena then it must be learned right? So lets examine the mechanisms, people, and institutions responsible for teaching our children.

1. Parents - Most parents have an obligation from the government in our country to raise children that reflect the standards, morals, and ethics of our country. More specifically laws that they must abide by and they must teach their children to abide by the same. Parents don't teach children or condone rape culture explicitly, but it could be argued they do so implicitly. I would argue parents raising children have a hard time broaching the subject of sexuality in the first place. So rape culture is in another stratosphere.

2. Schools - This is another area where culture is learned and taught to young, developing children. When I was growing up the vast majority of my teachers were female, in elementary, middle school, and high school. In college that changed slightly with a split so to say. But even in my science courses a lot of my professors were female.

To back up my observations with evidence here is a link:

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=28

Demographics:

"Among full-time and part-time public school teachers in 2007–08, some 76 percent of public school teachers were female, 44 percent were under age 40, and 52 percent had a master’s or higher degree. Compared with public school teachers, a lower percentage of private school teachers were female (74 percent), were under age 40 (39 percent), and had a master’s or higher degree (38 percent)."

I do not believe most females that currently teach were raised in a culture of rape, because most of their teachers were female and they have grown up to become teachers themselves. And I highly doubt they teach or perpetuate a culture of rape either in our scholastic institutions.

3. Peer groups that children associate with: It is often said that this is the core of rape culture however after further examination that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Human beings always cluster with those of similar interests and form cliques. This social stratification becomes more prominent during high school and yet despite this stratification various clique groups do not condone or accept rape culture. At the apex of a high school clique groups is obviously the athletes, and most often accused of being part of rape culture. But in reality it isn't as common as most believe because these young boys/men have a lot of pride and social status. If they associate with males that do illegal acts like rape they taint themselves within their own social group. They have pressure to not associate with such boys/mens for thei lose favor with the girls/woman they are trying to seek validation from. Most of what high school boys learn is that they must seek validation with girls/women if they want any interaction with them. Thus, they learn that they can't associate with such males/boys fairly quickly. Girls/woman learn that they can communicate with each other to create a layer of protection and to warn others in their peer group or throughout the school of the behavior of certain males. Those males even if they are able to avoid the laws are still ostracized by their own peers. Where that doesn't happen however is when adults come to the aid of such perpetrators and condones such hideous behavior. However, that doesn't constitute rape culture. That constitutes illegal behavior which may lead that young person to commit other crimes as a result.

4. Media: Sexuality in the United States is not fully embraced due to Puritan beliefs systems still permeating throughout our society. With that said, we still are saturated with sexuality, but most children are not taught about sexuality at an early age in our country but they are exposed to media. Still, rape culture isn't portrayed that often in films or televeision, but they do exist because they are part of entertainment. Unfortunately children have a hard discerning the complexity that is sexual fantasy from real life though. Still, if rape culture is so prevalent in our society as many believe then media would have such depictions flooding and saturating. But actually in our society such sexual fantasies are considered a small niche, or a kinky type of feitsh outside of mainstream society.

Most rapes on college campuses are a result of a close friend or a significant other they are dating commits a rape. This to me is a singular action and not part of a collective or a peer pressure group that condones such behavior. What often is the cases with rapes in a college situation is most males are not taught sexuality properly and to be able to communicate properly (it is not that males are not capable of communication as well as females it is that they are socially conditioned not). In other words not to respect sexual boundaries but that to me does not constitute rape culture.