What rape culture looks like

"The world should be safe for everyone."

“It was her fault.”

This is the contention of many regarding the gang-rape of a 16-year-old girl in Tondo in the early hours of March 19.

The victim’s best friend invited her to a drinking session with seven men. Sometime during the party, she lost consciousness, was brought to another room, and assaulted. 

Police surmise she was drugged, and that she was not the first victim of the group calling themselves the ‘Tondo F**ckboys.’

What makes this crime even more abhorrent is that the group took videos of the assault and posted images of the young woman’s intimate parts to their private online chatroom while proudly boasting of the rape.          

On Twitter, feminists of all genders said that a woman should be able to drink or do what she wants freely without being molested or harassed by men. Dissenters, mostly men, felt that it was the young girl’s fault, that she was looking for trouble by being the lone female in a drinking session with seven men. 

One of the most engaged commenters, @IAmTholits, disparaged the feminists’ views with, “To think ok lang makipag-inuman sa 6 na lalaki. Wow eh di ikaw na hindi puta.” 

He excused the men’s behavior by blaming the alcohol they consumed: “Kung aware yung babae sa effect ng alak sa katawan I don’t think papayag siya na mag-isa lang siya.” 

He shamed the victim for her predicament by casting aspersions on her character: “Kung disente ka di ka makikipag-inuman sa 6 na lalaki.” 

He said the rape was practically inevitable given the context: “Kung prayer meeting yung pinuntahan may mali talaga kung nangyari pa rin but the fact na inuman yun tapos mag-isa lang siya.”

He accused the victim of deliberately inviting the assault by going alone: “Socializing with men tapos mag-isa ka? Kabobohan 101.”

Not content with that, he blamed her for existing: “Kung wala siya, may rape?”

Rape, a word used also to mean ‘sexual assault’, is conducted with use of force, coercion, threat, or intimidation by someone in authority. Sometimes the abuse is carried out against people who cannot defend themselves or are incapable of giving consent, such as unconscious or incapacitated people or those who are mentally disabled.

Rape is rape when there is a lack of consent. Consent is a freely given agreement to sexual activity. In the case of the 16-year-old from Tondo, there was no consent given because she was unconscious.   

In feminist theory, male-female rape is not so much the urge for sexual release, because masturbation can satisfy that. It is an abuse of authority and power, a need to manifest dominance, male superiority, and control. 

Rape is also related to male sexual entitlement, and this is where many of the apologists for the Tondo rapists are coming from. They believe it is men’s right and privilege to access women’s bodies when they wish, framing their actions as ‘normal’ particularly when given a situation where a woman is ‘asking for it,’ for instance, by being the lone woman in a group of drinking men.

@IAmTholits’ views and mindset are not unusual for Filipinos, both men and women. This ‘rape culture’ is a result of the patriarchal nature of society that privileges men and considers women fair game. 

A question for women is going around Twitter: “If all men had a 9:00 p.m. curfew, what would you do?” The majority of answers are, simply: “I’d go for a walk.” That is because women feel unsafe in a world with men in it. 

This is not how it should be. The world should be safe for everyone. Women, just like men, should feel confident about walking out at night, about being the only female in a group of drinkers. As Vice President Leni Robredo said, “Rape exists because of rapists,” and even that simple sentence was too difficult for many men—and women—to comprehend. 

If the situation had been reversed and it had been a a party of one man and seven women, would he have been raped? Mostly likely, if he had passed out drunk, the women would have just lifted him onto a couch and let him sleep it off. Why can’t men care for the women in their company? Why can’t men control themselves from molesting and hurting women?

Men all over the world are asking themselves these hard questions, and some are mobilizing to end violence against women with education and training, through such organizations such as HeForShe and Men Can Stop Rape. 

Such advocacy groups should be established here because women need men as allies in the struggle for women’s rights and an end to patriarchy. There must be an end to sexual aggressiveness, toxic masculinity, and misogyny. There must be an end to male-on-female violence—and only men can do something about it. 

‘Rape is a special kind of evil,’ TV Tropes says. It’s the crime that writers ascribe to villains of the darkest character. /FB and Twitter: @DrJennyO