Rape Culture: Historical Roots and Social Reflections – 2

ZILAN KOÇGIRI

“Until the rape culture imposed on matriarchal society is overcome, social truth cannot be fully revealed in all dimensions of philosophy, science, ethics, aesthetics, and religion.”

To understand how capitalist modernity has condemned women to rape culture more than any other era in history through its reliance on women’s labour, one need only examine the contemporary world of ideological-philosophical thought. The rape culture conducted through religious thought systems has been perpetuated in the most vulgar age of capitalist modernity through nationalism and sexism. Positivist scientism, which proceeds with the simplistic logic of “the strong oppressing the weak” presented as natural law, has sought ways and methods to confine to homes and borders that very gender whose labour it rests upon. Leader of the Kurdistan Freedom Movement, Abdullah Öcalan, defined women in capitalist modernity as the “queen of commodities” and made this assessment: “In the capitalist system, women are the most unemployed, powerless, and confined to the home. Women are condemned to live between four walls. The situation of Kurds is similar to that of women. Their situations resemble each other. That’s why I focus so much on this topic. I ask myself why I can’t live with a woman. I’ve known women since I was eight years old. At this young age, the prevailing conception of honour was imposed on me. I cannot stay for twenty-four hours with a woman who is not free. Woman has been enslaved; there is a five-thousand-year-old rape culture at hand. Without seeing this rape culture, you cannot understand yourselves. I’m not talking about official brothels, I’m not talking about rape in private-normal homes, I’m talking about rape culture.”

Rape is the unchanging action of dominant masculinity

Rape culture is founded on a singular power structure. The modern capitalist form of patriarchy, which invented the nation-state to preserve its structure, has created not only uniformity at the individual level but also a uniform mentality and emotional world for all social wholes. In capitalist modernity, which aims to create both a uniform society and a nation-state society by spreading its power throughout society, rape culture has been activated in place of unmasked gods. The man, who sees himself as the system’s operator in every household, relies on a widespread rape culture. With incited male sexuality and suppressed female sexuality, tools for normalizing rape culture in the depths of society’s minds are utilized. In particular, media, popular culture, art, and sports have been widely used for this purpose, and rape culture has been made the unchanging action of dominant masculinity by emptying these realms of their true content or deliberately embedding itself within them.

Perhaps this definition may seem harsh to many of us, so let’s clarify the topic with a few examples of areas where the system’s rape culture operates. Sexism, the greatest weapon used by civilization systems against societies throughout history, has multiplied the multi-purpose colonization of women in the capitalist modernity era. Women have been turned into the most valuable commodity as producers of offspring, unpaid domestic workers, objects of sexual desire, tools of advertising, and can been seen as the constant tool of rape inside the factory of realization of male power. Each of the ideological arguments of the supremacy of the male-dominated system – sexism, nationalism, and religionism – has a separate function in establishing this culture.

‘No’ only means ‘no’!

Rape culture encourages male-sexual aggression and supports and approves violence against women. It sees physical and emotional violence against women as the norm, sees violence as sexy, and equates sexuality with violence. In this sense, the belief that a woman’s “no” has a “hidden yes” underneath is dominant. In written and visual media, rape is frequently portrayed, and in the end, the case is “sweetly” resolved with the woman showing “consent.” Rape culture tells women how to dress, how to speak, how to laugh and/or not laugh. It advises pregnant women not to go out. At best, it suggests that women should mutter verbal violence to men. It decides with whom women can or cannot be friends. It gives ultimatums about how many children they will bear. Rape culture passes on the saying “if rape is inevitable, you should try to enjoy it” as a proverb to future generations.

Rape culture finds the victim guilty. A man tried for raping a child is acquitted because there was “consent.” It encourages child marriages with sentences beginning with “The minor consented…” It defends the rape of children at a Quran course by saying, “For once, nothing happens...” Rape culture begins in “the family, which is the state’s smallest institution and women’s most layered dungeon”… It forces women subjected to incest to remain silent forever. Categorizes women as “honourable” or “dishonourable,” this culture makes people believe that women who do not conform to male-dominated norms “deserve” to be raped. Father, brother, uncle, teacher, imam, doctor, police, soldier… the list goes on. Boarding and day schools, homes, imam hatip schools, dormitories, police stations…

Woman as objectified image

The way a society thematizes rape and sexual violence provides obvious clues about power-hegemony relations and gender relations in that society. The way rape culture is addressed and discussed plays an important role in perpetuating this culture. The woman is the victim, the subordinate, the silent and withdrawn one. In the entire rape crowd, no one asks about or wants to know about the fate, feelings, and experiences of the raped woman. As an objectified image, woman cannot go beyond being a tabloid news story. Although rape culture internalizes sexual violence, sexism in society is not discussed. Therefore, everyone’s voice is heard except the one who cannot be heard, by those who claim the right to speak on behalf of the voiceless. While the rehabilitation of the rapist is discussed, the mechanisms to be operated for the raped woman to overcome trauma are not mentioned.

The colonial state of rape culture

Rape culture is the foremost applied form of the male-state. In the male-state, nationalism and sexism appear as two important phenomena that feed and affect each other, especially during war processes. Emphasis is placed on the masculine character of the colonizer/occupier and the feminine character of the colonized/occupied. As a militaristic war culture, rape culture is a massacre and weapon apparatus. It is practised as a form of violence in detention and prison. The enemy’s land, property, possessions, and women are gang-raped. Rape culture expands its domain of dominance by feminizing the “other” and legitimizing all forms of sexual assault against it, both during war processes and in periods when war is “relatively” absent.

What the ‘Me Too’ campaign reminded us

Rape culture exists worldwide; women are seen as sexual objects from their clothing to their movements and speech; the perpetrator’s actions are legitimized in various ways. Instances of all the definitions of rape culture that we tried to describe briefly above without giving examples have settled in memories. It is a phenomenon that we all experience in our lives, from the mildest to the most severe ways. This is because it is one of the fundamental phenomena that we are directly exposed to every day and that the patriarchal system uses to institutionalize power-violence.

Serious pursuits and women’s struggles have been waged worldwide against rape culture and continue to be waged. These pursuits, which we can describe as the struggle of life against death, although important, require more radical and profound searches. The “Me too” campaign, which started in Hollywood in 2017 and spread worldwide in a short time, revealed the picture of how women are under the threat of rape at work, on the street, and in education.

Solidarity actions with Gisele

More recently, in 2023, women were mobilized by the court process in France after Gisèle Pelicot was subjected to rape by men invited by her husband. In many cities such as Marseille, Paris, Nice, Rennes, and Nantes, hundreds of people, mostly women, took to the squares to support Gisèle Pelicot. Pelicot became a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in the country after being drugged by her husband for 10 years and raped by more than 80 men. One of the organizers of their protests, Anna Toumazoff, said, “It’s very important to be here because we need to talk about rape culture. After seven years of MeToo, we know there is no special type of victim. We are also collectively realizing that there is no special type of rapist.”

Radical struggle, not reform, is necessary

As seen in these two cases, it has revealed that rape is widely experienced by women from all segments, from artists to financiers and politicians. It is important to detect and expose this. However, work limited solely to exposure can also lead to a conclusion such as “everyone experiences it, it’s normal.” Such campaigns developed worldwide must necessarily take the systemic dimension of harassment-rape as a basis and carry out work aimed at fundamental systemic change. With regulations at the reform level, far from overcoming such a systematic structure, a kiss of life is offered to the dying system. The system finds the opportunity to organize more by taking advantage of this situation. Therefore, rape culture cannot be overcome without establishing a women’s system in every field and creating a free living space. The rebellion of the first and last colony is also important in terms of the abolition of all slaveries and the emergence of free relationships. This requires being radical in ideological perspective as well as in organization and action.

‘Our honor is our freedom’ campaign

We see prominent examples of this radical action and organization in Kurdistan. In objection to the system of social values permeated by rape culture from every side, the Kurdistan Women’s Freedom struggle launched a campaign in 2008 with the slogan “We are not anyone’s honour; our honour is our freedom.” In a geography where women are killed every day in the name of ‘honour’, saying we are not anyone’s honour, and our honour is our freedom, was a rebellion against five thousand years of patriarchal culture. Questioning the understanding of honour that has permeated social culture and provided a basis for man’s possessive approach was as dangerous as poking a hornet’s nest, yet it was an important tradition of struggle. Indeed, there is no chance for an abscess to heal without draining the pus. It led to many discussions inside and outside, and it was an important beginning in terms of thinking about the issue and questioning some taboo phenomena. Because rape culture largely produces and sustains itself through the concept of honour.

‘Let’s overcome rape culture’ campaign

Studies and discussions have expressed that without overcoming rape culture, the way for social freedom and women’s freedom cannot be opened. Therefore, on March 8, 2010, a new campaign was launched in Nort Kurdistan and Trukey by the Kurdish Women Movement, with the slogan “Let’s Raise the Freedom Struggle, Let’s Overcome Rape Culture.” The purpose of this campaign was expressed as: “Policies that have been maintained for 5000 years have veiled rape. Initially, women were possessed, then the democratic and freedom-loving values of society were seized and usurped, and all kinds of claims to rights were made over them, all in the name of traditions, morality or religion. Exposing, revealing, and standing against this great lie, fraud, and rape culture formed in the name of traditions and social order is a requirement of women’s freedom consciousness as well as society taking ownership of itself.” Although these campaigns are symbolic processes aimed at drawing attention to the issue, they show how rape culture is multifaceted and profound, and the struggle must be continued and conducted in all dimensions.

‘The first condition of leadership is a programmatic approach to gender relations’

Another conclusion reached in this struggle is that overcoming rape culture is also a prerequisite for creating socialist life. Indeed Öcalan, who brought rape culture to the agenda of the Kurdistan Women’s Movement from 2007 onwards, stated in his letter to PAJK: “The democratic communalist process is the updated form of mother-woman sociality. Social reality can only be reached by this method. Unless the rape culture imposed on matriarchal society is overcome, social truth cannot be fully revealed in all dimensions of philosophy, science, ethics, aesthetics, and religion. My final conclusion on socialism is that the first condition of leadership is a programmatic approach to gender relations. Postponing this, reducing it to biological, psychological needs, or instincts means being deprived of meaning in human species in general and human freedom in particular. When this link is firmly grasped, the right path will be taken regarding ecological destruction, social inequality, and individual freedom.”

The solution is a conscious and organized women’s revolution

Every day, we experience the desire of patriarchal hegemony to crush and destroy anything that poses a danger to it, as it seeks to strengthen itself militarily and politically in this period of the Third World War. Submission and slavery are sought to be imposed on anything that could be an alternative, including women. It is essential for all humanity that women succeed in preventing rape culture with a wise, meaningful, and mature approach while developing their own democratic system. It will only be only be possible in this way, for women to become a social, economic, political, cultural, and ecological power, to have a say about themselves and develop their will, to be able to defend themselves, and to be a solution force for all social problems. In this age we live in – today’s world where there are such intense discussions on social democracy and freedom – no power or authority should expect women to surrender and enter a victim position without this provoking their reflexes. Like every being living in nature, women also have the right to defend themselves and protect their existence. The first and second sexual ruptures tried to condemn women to deep slavery as a product of male-dominated mental codes institutionalizing rape culture. Now, the third sexual rupture that will develop in favour of women has the potential to make the river that civilization has reversed, flow back to its own bed. No man and no system can develop exploitation against a woman who equips herself with intellectual, cultural, economic weapons and defends herself. As a result of all this, values of free life for women, transforming and liberating the sexist society, and developing a contemporary social renaissance are indispensable needs for society and women. Starting from the principle that a free and strong woman enables a free and strong society, it is possible to reach the reality of building a new society with a conscious, free woman and an organized woman. This reality becomes the women’s revolution itself. With this revolution, every woman who has become conscious, organized, and gained the power of action is the greatest blow to rape culture.

THE END

**Bibliography**

– Öcalan, Abdullah. Capitalist Modernity and Women. 2000s.

– Pelicot, Gisèle. Rape Cases in France and Women’s Struggle Against Sexual Violence.

– Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punishment: Power and Gender in Modern Societies.

– Smith, Andrea. Kurdish Women’s Movement and Social Struggle.

– Zeynep Yeşil – Democratic Modernity