🤕#14: Not That Bad: Dispatches From Rape Culture by Roxane Gay - Book Summary & Key Takeaways
Here are 13 examples of how Rape Culture shows up in our society, from our language to our laws, kids movies to complicity and the secrets we all keep.
Hello courageous people! 👋 Welcome to Edition 14.
This week, our featured book is 📚 Not That Bad: Dispatches From Rape Culture 🖋 Edited by Roxane Gay. This is a collection of essays by 29 different authors, collated and edited to take us on a journey to tell the stories of, and call out rape culture.
I’m not going to lie, this was a heavy, heavy read. But it more than achieves its mission. This summary, which is in essence a summary of many summaries, is an attempt to distil rape culture down to capture its nuance, its forms and its destruction.
Trigger warning: this summary (and the book) contains references and stories that include or touch on sexual harassment, sexual assault, child sexual abuse and rape.
Here we go. All text in italics are quotes taken directly from the book.
🤜 13 Examples of Rape Culture in our society
I knew that rape culture was pervasive before I read this book. I would have been able to rattle off a number of examples with ease, yet sadly I was still shocked, saddened and surprised by some of the realisations I had from reading this book.
In no particular order, here are 13 examples of the various ways that rape culture rears its ugly head through all parts of society.
“If rape culture had a flag, it would be one of those boob inspector t-shirts.
If rape culture had its own cuisine, it would be all this shit you have to swallow.
If rape culture had a downtown, it would smell like Axe body spray and that perfume they put on tampons to make your vagina smell like laundry detergent.” - Aubrey Hirsch, Loc 126
1. 🤲 The stories that rape culture leads us to tell ourselves after experiencing sexual violence
Throughout the book, there were two phrases which came up again and again and again. The first one is obvious, being the title of the book but it just rings so true. I have said it and I have heard countless friends say it as well.
🤷♀️ “It wasn’t that bad”
“When I was twelve years old, I was gang raped in the woods. […] What I went through was bad, but it wasn’t that bad.” - Roxane Gay, Loc 71
“Millie confirmed to me that my mother’s suffering was worse than mine. She’d been raped. Me? It wasn’t that bad.” - Vanessa Mártir, Loc 1175
“If you survive, then it—that, the trauma—can’t have been that bad. Being dead is the only way to prove it was.” - So Mayer, Loc 1435
“I got fondled, at best. Not that bad, right? Lucky, Right?” - xTx, Loc 1410
The thing is, when we minimise our experiences of sexual harrassment, assault or rape to being “not that bad” it hurts us—all of us.
If we buy into the notion for ourselves that what happened to us wasn’t “that bad”, then what does that mean for others around us who have suffered? We end up in this comparative circle of well X wasn’t as bad as Y wasn’t as bad as Z and where does it end?
Here is a quote from a counsellor at a sexual assault clinic who was working with one of the authors:
“The survivor who was raped at knifepoint feels guilty she has taken up the space of a survivor who was raped at gunpoint. Everyone believes there is suffering worse than her own, that they should be strong enough to cope without me.” - Stacey May Fowles’ counsellor, Loc 3034
Any and all experiences from sexual harassment to assault to rape to having to exist in a world where rape culture exists, is all that bad. And it’s ok for us to admit that.
😕 “At least …”
This was the second phrase which cropped up over and over and over again through the 29 essays.
“I told myself it wasn’t rape because we were in a relationship. It wasn’t rape because I still loved him. It wasn’t rape because I didn’t fight him off. It wasn’t rape because I stayed with him after. It didn’t matter that I kept whispering no, no, no. It didn’t matter that I sobbed the entire time. At least I wasn’t raped like my Mom was, I told myself.” - Vanessa Mártir, Loc 1131
“What right do I have to be angry? At least I’m alive.” - Lyz Lenz, Loc 1803
“You’re okay. You’re alive. At least you don’t remember it all.” - Amy Jo Burns, Loc 1998
“That was “real” rape; anything less than that seemed like it was supposed to be tolerable. Anything “less” than that, well, at least you could say it wasn’t as bad as what happened to Sylvia.” - Elisabeth Fairfield Stokes, Loc 3109
“At least you weren’t killed. At least you have access to medical care. At least you have insurance. At least you have wonderful friends.” - Claire Schwartz, Loc 479
Again, when we continue following this logic of “At least …”, where does it end? Nowhere good, that is for sure.
2. 🤯 The student who unknowingly wrote a rape story for class
A male student in a university writing class submitted a story for critique by his classmates and teacher—Aubrey Hirsch, the author of this essay. The student wrote based off of his own experience of the first time he made love to his girlfriend. The critique begins:
“Are we supposed to feel sympathy for this character, even as he’s raping her?”
The student looks taken aback, surprised. “He’s not raping her. They’re having sex.”
You point out that all of the evidence that he is, in fact, raping her. She’s clearly very drunk. She can’t even walk by herself. She never takes any agency, just lies there while it’s happening.
The student cuts you off. “This is, like, based off me hooking up with my girlfriend for the first time.”
It hadn’t occurred to you that the student might not have realized he was writing a rape story.” - Aubrey Hirsch, Loc 165
This story exemplifies how this behaviour is so normalized that it is so embedded, so engrained, so accepted that it isn’t even questioned before being proudly presented in public.
3. 🧨 The retaliation when women change their minds
In one of the essays, Jill Christman recounts a time that she had informed a guy—Jeff—that she had changed her mind about going with him to an event and was instead going with another guy, Kurt:
“He (Jeff) flipped out. His room was just below mine, and all night, he played angry music and hung out his window screaming that I was a bitch, a whore, a fucking cunt. Other boys from the dorm joined Jeff in his righteous fury, smashing things against the floor, pounding on my door and hissing through the crack.
I didn’t get mad back. I felt terrible and guilty, cowering in my room while the whole male population of my dorm rose up with a clear message: I had belonged to them and I had strayed from the pack.” Jill Christman, Loc 326
Jill was so upset that she forgot to take her contact lenses out. She cried so hard she had scratched both her corneas and needed to see an opthalmologist.
All for changing her mind.
4. 📣 How rape culture shows up in our language
“I was raped,” I whisper. I am devastated. I don’t want to be made the object in my retelling.
The victim must learn to make language tell her own truth:
“He raped me.”
- Claire Schwartz, Loc 527
Two sentences. One which happened to a person, one which was done to a person.
Language matters.
5. 🙅♂️ The belief held by some people that boys don’t have to deal with rape culture
This couldn’t be further from the truth, and those who believe it need a wake up call:
“Sometimes people tell you that you have sons so they won’t have to deal with all this crap.
It’s true that your kids, by virtue of both being boys, will be in a privileged position, but the idea that they “won’t have to deal” with rape culture makes you shudder. You very much want them to “deal with” rape culture the way one “deals with” a cockroach problem.” - Aubrey Hirsch, Loc 190
6. 🖥 In kids movies
“My daughters get fed a lot of phony girl power through books and television and clubs at school. And then they go into the schoolyard where they get their real messages, they catch ads in the subway, they overhear conversations at the diner, I take them to The LEGO Movie—much admired, roundly praised, critical darling— and they watch as the main female character is objectified throughout the entire thing.” - Lynn Melnick, Loc 695
7. 😬 Those who are complicit: incredulous publicly, making excuses privately
“If the Harvey Weinstein disaster illustrates anything at all, it illustrates the entirety of the power structure. His behavior and his crimes are so … what? Undeniable? Shocking? Inexcusable? Any culpable man in the entertainment industry can pull up some feigned dignity and state publicly (or privately) “Well, I didn’t do THAT … exactly” as a kind of self-protective blanket of denial.” - Ally Sheedy, Loc 1271
8. 🤫 The way we keep the secrets of sexual violence
The author of this essay, xTx, recalls playing with her neighbours—one girl the same age as her and her two slightly older brothers—when she was seven. Three on one they blocked the door and proceeded to kiss her and touch her.
“I told my parents when I got home. Not everything. We learn not to tell everything. We know telling everything will make them see the bad in us. How it is our fault. How we contributed. We fear repercussions, albeit lighter than the ones we will administer to ourselves; slut, bad, ugly, weak, whore, trash, shame, hate. We tell just enough, if we tell at all.”
- xTx, Loc 1312
Secrecy is a linchpin of rape culture.
9. 😡 How we don’t believe people when they tell their stories, especially young people
When Sharisse Tracey was thirteen, her dad raped her. A week later she told her Mom who was angry with him, but didn’t leave him. The three of them together saw a doctor who was a friend of her dad. A doctorwho believed her dad was a good and decent man.
“The doctor continued to speak to my parents and I tried to tune him out but couldn’t entirely. Divorce is hard on any family, he explained, but it would be a real tragedy for a Black Family to divorce. A broken home is the absolute worst thing that can happen to a child. (Worse than getting raped by your father? I thought to myself.)
Three years later, Sharisse was still living in the same house as her father when he tried to rape her again. Following this attempt, she wrote a series of letters to every adult she could: family including her grandparents, people at church, friends of her parents, using stolen stamps to send them.
“In the letters,I wrote that my father had tried to rape me a second time and I had run away from home but couldn’t stay where I’d been. I asked for each person to send me money because my part-time job after school wasn’t enough to allow me to get a place on my own.”
She didn’t get a single response to her letters that were pleading for help. A few months later, she found out that many of their family and friends had gotten in touch with her mother. Every person assumed she was lying and making up stories for attention.
10. 🥃 How the circumstances of a story change how it is perceived
“Having lived two drastically different stories of sexual assault, I’ve learned some interesting things about responses. When someone hears a story of child abuse, they usually respond in one of two ways: (1) a look of absolute horror and sympathy with what seems to be an almost overwhelming impulse to comfort you (regardless of your actual emotional state at the time) or (2) a look of absolute horror and with what seems to be an almost overwhelming impulse to flee from you.
On the other hand, when someone hears of an adult woman being raped at a house party, the reactions are much more varied. Were you drunk? Had you hooked up before? Could there have been some misunderstanding?”
Now of course there are differences to these two stories and I, nor the author are saying that they are the same, however it must be acknowledged that these two experiences share a common theme:
“They are so intimately intertwined: they both rely on the belief in ownership of the vulnerable body, whether female or child or both.”
- Nora Salem, Loc 1651
11. 🤬 Men are allowed to be angry, but women aren’t
“Jesus is allowed table-flipping rage. We speak of men and their rage as if it is laudable. “Men just get mad and punch each other and it’s over,” we say. “Women are just bitches; they never let it go.”
That’s because we never can let it go. Because where would we put it? What system? What faith? What institution has room? Has patience? Has understanding for an angry woman?
An angry man in cinema is Batman. An angry male musician is a member of Metallica. An angry male writer is Chekhov. An angry male politician is passionate, a revolutionary. He is a Donald Trump or a Bernie Sanders. The anger of men is a powerful enough tide to swing an election. But the anger of women? That has no place in government, so it has to flood the streets.” - Lyz Lenz, Loc 1763
12. 👨⚖️ Rape culture is embedded in the law
In the essay entitled “How I Sat In A Classroom And Listened To My Male Classmates Debate How To Define Force And Consent” by V.L. Seek recounts how she was sitting in her class where an entire term was devoted to rape, just two years after her own rape:
“How do we define force? What does it mean to “resist to the utmost”? How do we define consent? From an evidentiary perspective, can we ask what she was wearing? When can we ask about previous sexual partners, experiences, and proclivities?
In Evidence, we learned how to discredit a witness on the stand. We learned the exceptions that would allow you to introduce a witness’s sexual history to undermine the idea that she was raped.
How much did you have to drink that night? Would you say it was your usual custom to dress in this way when going out? And you gave him your phone number? Do you normally accept a drink from any man who buys you one? Did you have sexual relations with him in the past? How many, would you say? And all of those times were consensual? Did you ever say no? You didn’t scream? And you continued to be in a relationship with him? But it’s hard to remember now what happened on that day, isn’t it?” - V.L. Seek, Loc 2029
And we still question why people don’t come forward. Why they don’t report. Why they don’t press charges.
Because why would they?
Our legal system has never favoured survivors, has never believed them first over the accused.
13. 👁 Seeing the world through a man’s eyes
“Growing up, I was exposed almost exclusively to male narrators and protagonists and found myself inside the male mind, championing his desires, aligning with his frustrations.
Because I’d think Give the man sex, my thoughts indistinguishable from his; He needs to have sex! I’d tell myself, merging obsessions, and assuming, as many do, that hot, hard-core, superlative sex was his God-given right.
Because I was indoctrinated to the point that I demonized my own resistance for getting in between what he needed and how he wanted it.” - Elissa Bassist, Loc 3475
It runs deep. Deeeeeeeeeeeeep.
In Summary:
🤜 “It wasn’t that bad” is rape culture.
🤜 “At least …” is rape culture.
🤜 Not realising when it is rape, is rape culture.
🤜 The violence and retaliation for changing one’s mind, is rape culture.
🤜 Our language is steeped in rape culture.
🤜 Boys getting to ignore these issues, is rape culture.
🤜 Kids movies can and do perpetrate rape culture.
🤜 Those who are complicit and make excuses are enabled by rape culture.
🤜 Feeling the need to keep secrets is rape culture.
🤜 Not believing adults is rape culture.
🤜 Not believing children is rape culture.
🤜 The implication of consent through clothing or alcohol is rape culture.
🤜 Women being expected to be calm about all of this and not be angry, is rape culture.
🤜 Our laws and systems reek of rape culture.
🤜 Prioritising male wants and needs over our own is rape culture.
I have to admit it’s difficult to read this book and not despair at least a little. There is so much work to be done still, and so many people in pain every single day suffering at the hands of rape culture and its infinite ramifications.
The one thing I do know for sure is that the more we can listen to and believe people who have had these experiences, and the better we can get at recognising rape culture in its forms, the better chance we have to change it.
Until next week,
❤️🙏 Eleanor
🧠 Resources & Links
🖥 National Association of Services Against Sexual Violence (NASASV) - Support Services Directory
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📕 Next week’s book
Coming out next Friday 6th May 2022 is edition #15 featuring:
📚 Group: How One Therapist And A Group Of Strangers Saved My Life
🖋 by Christie Tate
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