Rape Culture: Historical Roots and Social Reflections – 1

Zilan Koçgiri

“I characterize 90 percent of relationships between men and women as rape. There are relationships that are extremely ugly at their foundation. I am not against love and marriage. What I oppose is this rape culture…” *

The patriarchal mentality structure of capitalist modernity, which envelopes society like an octopus, establishes itself practically through violence and power in every area of life. This structure, which institutionalizes itself in all spheres, from the home to the street and back again, operates as an invisible authority that speaks and makes decisions on behalf of women in fields such as media, education, politics, and workplaces, all while being ‘normalized.’ Any objection to an individual father, husband, or state results in severe punishment. The most systematic form of this violence that permeates every moment of our daily lives is rape culture. Rape culture appears as a systematic form of violence against women prevalent in many societies today. This culture is not merely related to crimes of individuals; it actually functions as one of the cornerstones of the patriarchal system’s mechanism for making women secondary and keeping them under control.

Is rape a culture?

Rape and culture are seen as two concepts that should not come together. This is because while culture expresses the common values and accumulation of life that develop with human socialization, rape contradicts this concept with its destructive and deadly nature. Rape eliminates freedom by imposing a one-sided will on another, suppressing the opposing will and forcing submission. So while one concept is constructive, inclusive, and developmental, the other is one-sided, domineering, and dismissive. However, if we consider culture as the entirety of a way of life and values, or by its dictionary definition as “the totality of all material and spiritual values created in the historical and social development process, and the tools used to create them and transmit them to subsequent generations, showing the measure of human dominance over natural and social environment,” we can see that rape has indeed become a culture. In today’s society, rape has been confined to a narrow frame, limited only to the sexual assault of a woman, child, or sometimes a man by another man or group. This narrow definition normalizes rape by keeping its wide scope out of view, rendering it invisible in daily life. Even in the definition of rape and its criminal sanctions, it is treated according to relationship patterns defined by the male subject. Beyond the trespassing of an individual’s inviolable rights, it is more often considered within the scope of violating a man’s property rights since the woman is positioned as a man’s property. Even if the law does not approach it this way, practical application and existing mentality structures are shaped on this basis. After all, the state is an organization designed to protect the rights of men – the powerful. It is primarily responsible for the culture of harassment/rape developed by men against women being incorporated into all social structures. The birth of civilization is also a result of rape, and this characteristic has been embedded in all codes of the system. It is more appropriate to consider rape in this broader scope.

‘Rape is a crime that derives its source from power, not lust’

Feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller, who historically re-examined sexual violence against women and defined rape as a serious social violence against women, observed, “Rape is a historical condition that underlies all aspects of male-female relations. It is a crime stemming from violence and power, not lust.” In her book “Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape,” she argued that the image of the rapist as a “pervert” is incorrect and that marital rape in romantic relationships between men and women is shockingly widespread.

The term “rape culture” has been widely used in feminist literature and social sciences for 50 years. In 1974, women from the second wave feminist movement in America emphasized that rape was not just an individual crime but a product of patriarchal social structure, noting the prevalence of rape cases despite victims’ voices not being heard, society concealing rape cases, and the creation of an environment of impunity. They argued that rape is a cultural problem beyond the definition of “crime and violence,” and can only be eliminated through social transformation. With this understanding, rape was treated not only as a legal issue but as an ideological and political one. Thus, rape culture ceased to be merely a relationship between individual perpetrator and victim and began to be analysed within the framework of gender relations and hegemony concepts.

 

 ’90 percent of male-female relationships are rape’

However, cautious approaches within feminist movements regarding addressing rape culture as a more comprehensive system inquiry have created obstacles to conducting a comprehensive system analysis. The forms of struggle focused on the ‘punishment’ of men within the framework of state-law-rights have rendered incomplete the identification and analysis of the millennia-old historical roots of rape culture.

It was the leader the Kurdistan Freedom Movement, Abdullah Öcalan who put the concept back on the agenda in relation to theissue of women’s freedom in a more comprehensive way. Öcalan, who subjected the issue of women’s freedom to a comprehensive historical, philosophical, and scientific analysis within the framework of his principles of Women’s Liberation Ideology, stated in 2007, “For me, a woman’s freedom is more valuable than the freedom of the homeland,” expressing that the women’s problem is a result of a 5,000-year-old rape culture. He further added

“I characterize 90 percent of relationships between men and women as rape. There are relationships that areextremely ugly at their foundation. I am not against love and marriage. There can be strong sexual drives in love and marriage, these are normal; we cannot deny them. What I oppose is this rape culture. They give young girls to 60-year-old men, and in the face of this brutality, the girl commits suicide. Unwanted marriages take place. Sometimes they even pay money to buy women, literally purchasing them. This is a very immoral and ugly behaviour. Today, 95 percent of marriages are rape. Women are raped every day. Within such a rape culture, neither a woman’s spirit nor her brain remains healthy, nor her sense of beauty, love, or passion.”

 

Rape as a patriarchal tool of domination becomes a culture

As Öcalan points out, there is a millennia-long historical reality of the patriarchal system cementing rape as a culture. To comprehend the roots of rape culture, it’s necessary to recognize that this phenomenon is not limited to contemporary social structures alone, but can be traced back much further, through historical and mythological narratives. Mythologies are important sources for understanding the historical origins of rape culture as they reflect societies’ collective subconscious andideological structures.

With the beginning of the decline of the mother-goddess culture, we encounter the invasion of the female body in one of the oldest known mythological stories that tells of the ‘cunning man’ declaring his power over the values created by women – Gilgamesh. This narrative can also be considered as an archetypal example of the beginning of the legitimization of sexual violence against women. In the story, the Euphrates goddess Ereshkigal figure from Mesopotamian mythology, despite originally having a place in the pantheon of gods on earth, is raped and sent underground, symbolizing the domination of a patriarchal system over the female body and ways of legitimizing sexual violence.

 

Controlling the female body: Ereshkigal, Daphne…

The subjection of Ereshkigal, who is the sister of Inanna, to sexual assault by gods or demigods, is not just an individual crime or tragedy but also a reflection of the general structure of society, practices of controlling female sexuality, and the placing of women under male domination. Similarly, in Greek mythology, the story of Apollo and Daphne clearly reveals the ideological and symbolic dimensions of rape culture. Apollo, as a male god figure who has been educated in the mother-woman culture and stole her knowledge, follows and harasses Daphne against her will. Daphne transforms herself into a tree to protect herself; today, the mythology of the laurel tree comes from this story. This transformation means that the woman changes her own existence to escape sexual assault. However, Apollo’s attribution of sacredness to this tree shows the man’s approach to possessing the woman. Thus, the woman’s effort to protect herself is limited within the framework of patriarchal norms imposed by the system.

 

The cautionary tale of rape culture: Medusa

Greek mythology, as a third version of Mesopotamian mythologies and the most comprehensive of Western mythology, is full of stories of Zeus and other gods raping goddesses. This is a construction; this social order symbolized by gods and goddesses actually gives us information about the structure itself. Perhaps the most striking example of these mythological stories on this subject is Medusa. Medusa is the earth goddess who deals with magic and medical science. Zeus’s son-in-law Poseidon rapes Medusa in Athena’s temple, which he secretly entered to meet his lover. Rape is an attack on the mother-woman culture. Athena punishes Medusa, not Poseidon, for this disrespect, and everyone Medusa looks at turns to stone as her hair has now turned into snakes. Athena, exhibiting the male mindset, being a girl who came out of the head of her father Zeus (who wasalready a rapist himself) preferred to punish the victim rather than the perpetrator. This mirrors those families who kill their daughters who have been raped. Even today, the idea that a woman who has been raped must have committed a crime to deserve this is still engrained in minds. With Athena’s help, and the shield she gave so he can protect himself from Medusa’s gaze, Perseus kills Medusa. Just like laws and the state system that protect killers. Perseus massacres the mother-woman culture in the person of Medusa, and on his way back, he makes conquests, kidnaps women, and rapes them. This is the loot presented to him. Here, the use of Medusa’s head to turn others to stone shows the aim of rape culture: to intimidate, terrify, and break the self-defense of the societies it attacks by exhibiting the women it has murdered as examples.

Helen’s escape and the difference between Troy and Achaea

Democritus, the ancient Greek philosopher known as the ‘father’ of positivist sciences, said, “A woman should not learn to think because this could lead to bad results.” This alone reveals the patriarchal order’s mode of existence in that culture.

Understanding what Helen was escaping from in the Trojan War will be clear from the fact that the Achaeans who came to the shores of Troy for war could not share the women whom Achilles and Agamemnon had taken as spoils even while the war was still ongoing. Indeed, underneath the epic narrative in the Iliad and Odysseus, lies the war between the Trojans, who maintained the egalitarian mother-goddess culture, and the Achaeans, who survived on patriarchal rape and loot. This situation is best expressed in the duel between Achilles and Hector in the Iliad. To Achilles’ threats that “he will bind and enslave the Trojans,” Hector responds: “You Athenians are slaves born of rape, so you do not know freedom. We Trojans are people formed by the voluntary union of free women and men. Therefore, no Trojan bows to the Athenians.”

The history of civilization is in a way the history of rape culture

Loki’s attacks on women in Nordic mythology, and the coercive behaviours of gods towards women in some African mythologies, reinforce the passive victim role assigned to women by the patriarchal order. These mythological figures can be read as symbols of female sexuality being controlled by male-dominated ideology, and of women’s bodies and identities being seen as men’s property. When we examine all the founding myths, stories, and epics of civilization from the perspective of gender freedom, we see that attempts are made to normalize attacks on women’s bodies and identities without their consent, presenting them as natural and inevitable.

From mother-woman culture to war, loot, and rape culture

It is Zeus of Greek mythology, Enki of Sumerian, Marduk of Babylonian, and Seth of Egyptian… Whether contemporaneous or successive, they all took part in the beginning and maintenance of the same tradition. At the centre of their aims was the seizing and dispersing of the sociality formed around the mother-woman; to develop patriarchal power and deepen exploitation by force, violence, deceit, and rape. When legends are examined, it is easily seen how the basic codes of civilization were developed and systematized, and how they were engraved in social memory. In this context, the history of civilization that developed with harassment and rape is also the history of woman’s loss and disappearance. From 4000 BCE onwards, we encounter the gradual killing of women and the shaping of rape culture at every stage of patriarchal state civilization in the founding stories of every empire mentioned in history.

This period also marks the process of the first sexual rupture against women, which was completed around 2000 BCE. In the founding epics of Akkad, Assyria, and Babylon, with the transition to central empires, we see that the mother goddess cult, which had a certain position in Sumerian city-states that came prior, began to transform from mother-woman culture into war-loot-rape culture. Woman gradually lost her position shaped around the mother-goddess culture and was confined to the palace and particular houses, where she was reduced to the position of slave by the rape culture of the power elites.

 

Rome is a civilization of rape

The founding story of the Roman Empire, which was at the center of civilization for a long period, tells us the story of the institutionalization of rape culture. According to Rome’s founding myth, Romulus, who was nursed by a wolf and killed his twin brother for power when he grew up, founded the city of Rome with hunters, fugitives, and criminal men he gathered around him, and because there were no women in the city, he invited neighboring Sabines to a festival, poisoned the men, and kidnapped and raped the women. The children born from this rape formed the lineage of Rome.

The rise of Abrahamic religions and the second sexual rupture

Another phenomenon that reinforces rape culture can be seen in religions. In all Abrahamic religions, rape culture has been reinforced either as a rule or through interpretations. Abraham’s introduction of his wife Sarah to the Pharaoh as his sister when he arrived in Egypt can be considered one of the most important stages in the process of commodification of women. The institutionalized culture of concubines, the stoning of women, most of whom are rape victims, under the name of ‘honour,’ is similar to Medusa being punished after being raped in the temple. With the second sexual rupture, rape culture was institutionalized and made the norm for the survival of power.

The Ottoman Empire abducted 60,000 women from the Balkans

Throughout all ages, every empire established has elevated itself through rape culture by enslaving women, creating slave-concubine armies of women abducted from societies, and turning women into loot-property. Societies could breath more easily the further they were from the central state system, while as they approached the centres of states or faced invasion and plunder, they experienced the most severe form of oppression: bodily invasion. Historical sources write that between 1400-1700, an estimated 60,000 women were abducted from the Balkans as loot by Ottoman Empire soldiers.

 

Rape culture upon which states build themselves

Without analysing the status which women were assigned within the hierarchical system, neither the state nor the class-based social structures it rests upon can be explained. This is why the most basic misconceptions cannot be overcome. We can see this when we look at the origins of concepts such as Sheikhdom, Emirate, Sultanate, power, and state that express administrative status and institutions in our region. For example, the meaning of the word “state,” which has its roots in Arabic, derives from “the night to be spent with a captured woman.” It is quite interesting that even as a word, the state has a relationship with rape and enslavement. All concepts and institutions in Arabic that evoke power suggest maintaining it through nakedness and pleasure. Woman, not as a gender but as a human, has been torn from natural society and condemned to the most comprehensive slavery. All other forms of slavery develop in connection with women’s slavery. In the system of capitalist modernity, which built its existence on femicide in what was called the ‘Witch Hunt,’ women have been subjected to the most multi-layered slavery process throughout the history of civilization.

Therefore, without analysing female slavery, other slaveries cannot be understood. Similarly, without overcoming female slavery, other slaveries cannot be overcome. For thousands of years, the wise woman of natural society brought the mother-goddess cult to life. The value that was always exalted was the mother-goddess. How was the most long-lasting and comprehensive culture of society then suppressed and transformed into today’s one, in which women are like a nightingale imprisoned in an ornate cage? Men may adore this nightingale, but it is a captive. Without overcoming this most long-lasting and profound captivity, no social system can speak of equality and freedom.

Rape culture has taken on a form that glorifies masculinity throughout society, starting with being romanticized within marriage. In our second section, we will address both understanding how this culture is maintained in its subtlest forms and share our analyses on how to escape this uncultured state.

 

*From Abdullah Öcalan’s 2007 meeting notes

 

Bibliography

Susan Brownmiller (1975). Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape. Istanbul: Ayrıntı Publications.

Zeynep Esengül (2019) Democratic Modernity Journal

Halil İnalcık, (1994). The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age (1300–1600). Istanbul: Eren Publishing.

Abdullah Öcalan (2013). Sociology of Freedom. Cologne: International Initiative Publications.

Torah. (n.d.). Old Testament, Genesis 12:10–20. Istanbul: Holy Book Publications.