My name is Chloe

My name is Chloe, and I am surviving.

sur·vive : continue to live or exist, especially in spite of danger or hardship (google.com)

I am surviving as a victim of sexual assault. I choose to survive every day in a culture that reinforces and promotes the tool of oppression that threatened my life, took away my livelihood and that left me scared and angry. I am surviving, as many people are, in rape culture.

Emilie Buchwald defines rape culture as “a complex set of beliefs that encourage male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent” (quoted in wavaw.ca, Buchwald). Rape culture is an insidious force that is perpetuated through “images, language, laws and other everyday phenomena that we see and hear every day that validate and perpetuate rape” (wavaw.ca). I use the term surviving because I am inundated with notions that the act of violence that took away my power to decide what happened with my body was okay. I perform an act of sheer will to get out of bed and leave the house only to confront the symbolic denouncement of my humanness, and the objectification that allowed me to be a vessel for someone to inflict their will and abusive power on. Every time I am accosted by the symptoms of rape culture I am angry, I want to scream, I want to shout, I want to hit, I want to punch and I want to rip down the institutions and individuals that sustain them.  I am appalled that we don’t notice that these awful actions are brushed off and preserved by our politics, our education system, our entertainment sources and that the denial of rape culture will leave many people in the same position as I experienced because “most rapes, as women live them, will not be seen to violate women until sex and violence are confronted as mutually definitive rather than mutually exclusive” (Mackinnon 174).

Rape culture is fueled by “widely held false beliefs or ideas” referred to as myths (google.com). Myths can be anecdotes, advice, questions or beliefs that hold the victim accountable for their own sexual assault. Myths focus on the ideology that people should not get raped, rather than people should not rape. Some examples of myths include: “They shouldn’t have drank so much, if they were in control of their body they wouldn’t have gotten raped”, “why didn’t they fight back?”, “that could never happen to me, she must have been wearing something slutty.” The discourse of victim blaming that resonates in situations of sexual assault don’t permeate other forms of violence or harassment. We never here of someone getting mugged or beaten up with a baseball bat being at fault for their own assault. It’s only when sex is used as a tool for violence instead of a weapon that the lines are blurred and confused.

Recently while I was working at a popular downtown restaurant there was a conversation around a recent sexual assault that occurred after a patron had left the bar intoxicated. My boss at the time was loudly recounting the story for all of the staff and guests currently in the bar to hear. He was blaming her for her sexual assault as a result of intoxication, and when I politely challenged him he raised his voice and yelled at me that it was her fault for not being in control of her own body. I would like to conclude with this question, because at the time I wasn’t able to ask it. At the time I was so hurt and upset, and angry and felt like the question was being asked to me about my own sexual assault that I couldn’t voice it. To him I would like to ask: “when was the last time you drank so much you don’t remember the night? Did you have to worry that you were going to get raped?”

My name is Chloe I am surviving. I would like to acknowledge my privilege as a white woman currently enrolled at the university of alberta, and to recognize the resources and agency that I have access to.  

Works Cited

MacKinnon, Catharine A. Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1989. Print.

"Myth Definition." Google. Web. 19 Sept. 2015.

"Survive Definition." Google. Google. Web. 19 Sept. 2015.

"WAVAW Launches a New Campaign!" WAVAW Women Against Violence Against Women. Web. 19 Sept. 2015.