♡Male Privilege and Rape Culture♡

Being a young female nearly every day I witness and am occasionally a 'victim' of male privilege. A lot of male friends I have don't necessarily believe that such a thing exists in this day and age but that is simply because they themselves never are negatively effected by it.

To give you a better understanding of what I am talking about, male privilege is saying "I have a boyfriend" being the only thing that stops a man from hitting on you because they have more respect for another man than respect for your lack of interest and rejection. There have been countless amounts of times when I myself go out and have to come up with stories so that a man would leave me alone, this even happens to men that are really nice but they just have this idea that what they want they can have. This has happened to me on numerous occasions as well - a man has become somewhat interested in me and has made out with me without my consent. They did it in not a malicious way and they weren't meaning to be harmful but because they think that it's a 'romantic' thing to do, or, again, because they think they can just get what they want.

There is also the idea of 'cock blocking' - both my friends and I have experienced being called a 'cock block'. We'll be at a bar, pub or club and one of us gets unwelcomed advances from a guy so another one of us steps in to get rid of him, then having them call us a 'cock block'. In actual fact half the time the friend doing the 'cock blocking' was following orders from the friend that the guy is hitting on. When going out we tend to  have two signals for our friends: "I'm into him" and "Help me outta this!!!". The amount of "get me out of here" tactics that women have among their friends should be enough evidence of the fact that rape culture does exist.

I don't want to make this post the length of an essay but just quickly for those who don't know what rape culture is, it is an environment where rape is prevalent and sexual violence against women is normalised and excused in both media and popular culture. This kind of culture is preserved through the use of misogynistic language, objectifying women's bodies and also glamourising sexual violence - this all creates a society that disregards the safety and rights of women. Most women and girls limit their behaviour because of the existence of rape, even unknowingly. Women do this through not walking down certain streets, holding their keys in their hand as a weapon when they walk alone just in case, locking all of their car doors when they get in their care at a parking lot etc and most of this is done without women realising as it has become just a part of their every day routine. This cycle of fear is the legacy of rape culture.

Some examples of rape culture are blaming the victim, triviliasing sexual assault, sexually explicit jokes, tolerance of sexual harassment, publicly scrutinising a victims dress, mental state, motives and history, assuming only promiscuous women get raped, refusing to take rape accusations seriously, assuming that men don't get raped and teaching women how to avoid getting raped instead of teaching men not to rape.

While all of this sounds negative and dark there are ways that you can combat rape culture! You can avoid using language that objectifies or degrades women, think critically about the media's messages about women, men, relationships and violence, speak out if you hear someone else making an offensive joke or triviliasing rape and by defining your own womanhood or manhood, not letting stereotypes shape your actions! These are just a few way that we can change society for the better.

Lots of love,

xx

♡Slut Shaming♡

An issue that has been around for a while now that always makes me frustrated is slut shaming. It's not just the ignorant that tend to do it either - I know so many pro-feminist women who have many a bad thing to say about a woman's choices which is ridiculous because there are so many people out there, especially the patriarchal society that we live in, that limits our choices as women and shame us for making choices that they don't approve of themselves.

So for those that don't know what slut shaming is, it is when people judge women for having sex with "too many people", having sex with people that "aren't their partner" and even for wearing particular things or acting a particular way. When it comes to costumes, clothing, and sexual behavior, women are judged by a very different rubric than men. This is not to say that men are't judged at all, because of course they are to some degree but if a woman is to have a lot of sex people label her as a "whore", “dirty”, "slut", etc and many people believe that women with these labels don't deserve to be treated with respect and they also believe that this means they can say whatever they want about that woman or to that woman.

Obvisouly when it comes to men some people may use the terms “manslut” or “manwhore” but the consequences for the  man being called these things are not nearly as extreme and they are not disrespected nearly as much as women who are called similar names. He won’t be degraded, bullied, or have lies and rumours spread about him and his reputation won’t be destroyed in response because I mean, c'mon, that's just what men do right? They can't and shouldn't control their urges, right? They're just sex crazy right? No no no no no. Patriarchy is damaging to men as well as women because of these ideas.

Slut shaming is another way of controlling women and telling them what they are and are not allowed to do. Women who slut shame each other is an example of internalised sexism which is harmful when it comes to women's relationships with each other. After all, women are in this together and instead should be helping each other instead of harming each other.
Slut shaming pits women against each other and creates a divide. Instead of building women up and cultivating healthy friendships, slut shame turns women against each other so that the slut-shamer can prove she’s “not like that” and therefore worthy of respect.  It puts women into harmful categories based on nothing more than how someone dresses or is perceived by others.

It also limits women's freedoms and choices because if a woman "breaks the rules" in regards to how you or society believes, for some bizarre reason, they have to dress and have to behave then you are basically saying that they don't have the same rights as men and cannot do what they want unless they want to "pay the price".

An alarming fact is that because people see “sluts” as unworthy of respect, people believe that they are therefore not entitled to say no.  In this mentality, “sluts” become a target of harassment, assault, and even rape.  After the violence, the woman is occasionally blamed for it.  After all, she was just a dumb slut….she asked for it, right?

I am interested to hear what you guys think!

Lots of love,

♡Human Rights Victories♡

Hi guys! Sorry for being a bit MIA at the moment but I was sick for a while and trying to catch up with my uni work, I'm going to be fairly busy the next couple of weeks because it's that time of year when they pile assignment after assignment onto you but I will try and be as good as I can when it comes to blogging!

Now I know my blog posts are a mixture of the serious and the not so serious so today I thought I would just briefly talk about something that I thought needed to be heard.

I know that fighting for human rights can be tough and sometimes we hear the bad news more than we heard the good, which makes it seem like the bad news is never-ending but I wanted to let you know that there are good things happening out there. There are good things happening every day and I thought I should let you know a few of the great things that have happened recently.

I'm sure a large majority of you have seen the fairly recent reports about the terrible and terrifying deaths of civilians in Syria and Egypt. Also, with the Australian election coming up (for the Australians out there reading this that can vote) like me, you may be feeling uninspired and annoyed about the Australian political parties using asylum seekers as pawns in their game to score points for their party, all at the expenses of those who are trying to come to our country for a better life.

Although sometimes it may feel like we can't do much, we have to remember that, in fact, our actions can and do make a difference. That's why I wanted to share some good news with you guys!

After an overwhelming amount of support a 15-year-old girl, who was raped in the Maldives and who had originally been sentenced 100 lashes for 'fornication', has had her punishment overturned completely! You can read all about it here: http://www.amnesty.org.au/features/comments/32579

The Government has begun to remove asylum seeker families who have children, from the Manus Island Detention Centre. 70 detainees have been relocated from the appalling conditions on Manus Island and are reportedly being relocated to Christmas Island. There is more written here: http://www.amnesty.org.au/news/comments/32106/

An Omani activist, an activist for the Arab state Oman in southwest Asia, who had been held in solitary confinement for 23 days has been released without charge after supporters wrote letters to the authorities calling for his safety and freedom. You can read more here: http://www.amnesty.org.au/features/comments/32643

Unfortunately, human rights victories like these don't always make headlines but they do happen, we are able to make a change and help those who aren't as fortunate as we are.

Amazing accomplishments like these are happening every day all over the world.

If you want to help make a difference please check out Amnesty International who are one of the many amazing organisations who are helping to make these much needed changes!

PS. For those Australians voting tomorrow please don't waste your vote! Our ancestors fought long and hard so that we could have this opportunity and many people over the world don't get this chance, so please don't take advantage of the chance to have your voice heard. Please please please make sure you make an informed decision. If  a party isn't telling you its policies or plans now, don't vote for them!

xx