Image credits: cityyear
As the student vote on the use of Blurred Lines throughout the University is announced, Emily Tanner, Deputy Editor, takes a look at the wider issue of rape culture in our society.
“I know you want it, I know you want it. Because you’re a good girl,” is a refrain you must have undoubtedly heard in the bars and clubs over the summer. Not even disguised in metaphor or wrapped in layers of lyrical flair, Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’ explicitly supports rape culture. Even in this modern age where sexism is supposedly dying away and the battles of the feminists and the egalitarians seem to many to have been concluded years ago, a culture in which rape is still accepted by some as funny, light hearted and something to be discussed over a couple of pints in the pub is shockingly evident.
Slogans such as “Nice girlfriend. What breed is she?” from Topman and “I’m feeling rapey,” and “Sometimes no means yes,” from eBay have been covering the chests men across the world this summer. The fact that a popular manufacturer such as Topman or the biggest online sales site eBay feel it is still acceptable to sell t-shirts with such slogans pasted across the front for the world to see, proves that many do not give the matter the respect nor treat it with the severity it deserves. With 85,000 women estimated to be victims of rape in England and Wales each year, 400,000 women sexually assaulted annually and one in five women aged between 16 and 59 suffering some experience of sexual violence in their life from the age of 16, it is clear that rape is still a serious subject in society. Moreover 28 per cent of women who are victims of the most serious offenses never tell anyone – arguably due in part to the trivialisation of the matter in wider society – and only 15 per cent will report the offense to the police.
‘Blurred Lines’ is possibly the smash hit anthem of the summer which maintained its place at number one for a number of weeks and is probably played daily on most national and local radio stations. It would be wrong to say that everyone who listens to the song, everyone who mindlessly waves their arms around to it in a club on a Saturday night, even everyone who likes the song is in support of rape culture. It is a catchy pop record which many, in one way or another, will enjoy, regardless of the lyrics. Yet the issue here is surely this lack of regard for the lyrics, not just on the part of the listeners or the clubbers who scream “I’ll give you something big enough to tear your ass in two,” but the fact that a song with such awful lyrics has been accepted into society and culture with few questions as to why or how. We thankfully exist in a culture which may see problems with songs like this and the T-shirts sold by Topman and eBay and may resent the fact that ‘Blurred Lines’ has become so successful but in which many individuals are willing to either support or turn a blind eye to the trivialisation of rape culture.
Here in Exeter the matter is still as evident as it is in popular culture and the wider society. Were someone to direct you towards Hoopern Lane most students may shrug their shoulders and look baffled at the whereabouts of this location. Were someone to instead direct you towards the colloquially named ‘Rape Alley’ most could tell you exactly where this was. Students barely realise that in naming this lane as they do they are trivialising the matter of rape culture in a way which is admittedly far from the trivialisation of ‘Blurred Lines’ and Topman’s t-shirts, but nonetheless willing to accept matters of rape into an everyday language which decontextualizes the real issues at stake. We are accepting the use of language involved in a culture of rape into our everyday speech without fully understanding the consequences.
Challenges to this blind acceptance of rape culture and the language we use surrounding the matter was, however, taken on at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival by Fosters Comedy Award Winner Adrienne Truscott whose show Asking For It won the Award’s Panel Prize this year. Dressed only from the waist up, Truscott tackled the issues surrounding the acceptance, an acceptance which is now thankfully waning significantly, of rape jokes in modern, popular comedy in a small, insignificant bookshop in Edinburgh and went on to win one of the biggest arts awards of the year. Evidently challenges to rape culture are not going unnoticed – although it should be noted in this instance that these challenges are not going unnoticed at the world’s biggest gathering of liberal, left-wing arts fans – as society begins to accept the prevalent attitude as a serious problem and not a matter to be taken lightly.
‘Blurred Lines’ will never become unpopular, Topman may once again make and sell inappropriate T-Shirts without seeing where the problem is and Exeter students may never learn where Hoopern Lane is, but it seems that battles against an acceptance of the casual, colloquial culture and language surrounding rape are at least surfacing in our society.
Emily Tanner, Deputy Editor
exeposedev 