The Stanford rape case has evoked a poignant reaction from men about rape culture and consent.
Earlier this year, Brock Turner, a student at Stanford University, in California, was found guilty of three counts of sexual assault and sentenced to just six months in prison.
The case has been a prime example of sexual offenders receiving little backlash to their actions and the victim shaming of women.
The details that have emerged from the case, including a letter from the anonymous victim and a defence letter from the perpetrators father, reveal an earth-shattering bias towards the athlete Brock Tuner.
In the wake of the disappointing case, one Irish twitter user has perfectly summarised the reality of rape culture for women.
.@griffski‘s tweets have set off a bomb in my head and I’ve been thinking about what I can do. Some of these tweets are gonna repeat what
— Alan (@alan_maguire) June 6, 2016
I said during the whole UCD200 thing so sorry if none of this is original. We have an echo chamber here and that’s usually great,
— Alan (@alan_maguire) June 6, 2016
The only way, the ONLY way, we can fix rape culture is by teaching our young men about consent and ending banter culture
— Alan (@alan_maguire) June 6, 2016
Young men are so vulnerable to peer pressure and group dynamics. They don’t listen to people like me, they definitely don’t listen to women
— Alan (@alan_maguire) June 6, 2016
We need to make it so that the lad making dodgy comments about women is the outsider in these groups not the one abstaining
— Alan (@alan_maguire) June 6, 2016
And I really don’t know how we do that. Who do young men listen to? Footballers? Youtubers?
— Alan (@alan_maguire) June 6, 2016
I always thought I was a feminist, I knew women could do anything men could do, deserved equal pay, pro-choice but…
— Alan (@alan_maguire) June 6, 2016
I’d internalised LOADS of other stuff though, I read nothing by female authors, I didn’t do gender studies in college because it was
— Alan (@alan_maguire) June 6, 2016
“For women”. I had so many unchallenged assumptions. What changed it was an article called Schrodinger’s Rapist
— Alan (@alan_maguire) June 6, 2016
That article was posted to Metafilter and all hell broke loose. Men were outraged that women could assume that about them but then
— Alan (@alan_maguire) June 6, 2016
dozens of women shared their stories of all the little and huge ways men have made them unsafe and they all said the same thing
— Alan (@alan_maguire) June 6, 2016
over and over, “listen to us”. That Metafilter thread was the first time I read the phrase rape culture.” And once you flick that switch…
— Alan (@alan_maguire) June 6, 2016
it stays flicked. I wouldn’t have seen that article if it hadn’t been posted to a community I wasn’t already a member of.
— Alan (@alan_maguire) June 6, 2016
So, I guess my point is, radical messages can get through when they come through familiar channels. Men can be that channel, they have to be
— Alan (@alan_maguire) June 6, 2016
Alan Maguire is the Humour Editor at Headstuff and host of Juvenalia Podcast.
For more comment on the Stanford case, check out THIS excellent piece by JOE writer Tony Cuddihy.
