How can rape be a culture?
(03/04/16 6:41am)
Content Warning: Sexual Assault
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Content Warning: Sexual Assault
In response to our last column, one reader posed the age-old question: “Why is there no Men’s Center?” At our weekly intern meeting, we laughed at the question. Exasperated and frustrated, we were amused by its inanity. It’s a question that we’ve all heard before, one we’ve had to answer again and again, and here I am, answering it yet another time.
January 22nd marked the 43rd anniversary of a landmark decision for women’s rights. On this day over four decades ago, one of the most significant Supreme Court cases in American history, Roe v. Wade, came to a close. Citing as its basis a woman’s right to privacy, it overturned legislation that had historically outlawed abortions except in cases in which the mother’s life was in immediate danger. Many hoped and believed that this legalization would end the days of back-alley, coat-hanger abortions and instead make this safe medical procedure (safer than carrying a pregnancy to term and giving birth, in fact) accessible to women who wanted or needed one. It validated the recognition that women deserve the right to make decisions about their own bodies and lives.
Crazy. Radical. Feminazis. These are all words my family used to describe the work that I do for Duke’s Women’s Center. “Feminists are a bunch of angry women who hate men because they aren’t able to find any for themselves” was one of many arguments my family threw into the discussion. They aren’t the only people holding these sentiments, however. The vitriolic reaction often received stems, I think, from a gross misinterpretation of the word “feminism.” Simply put, “feminism” is the advocating of political, social and economic equality for women and men. Yet, in discussions of equality when the term “feminist” arises, I’m met with shock and disgust at the mere mention of that horrid word. God forbid people embrace a title that embodies equality for women. The connotation of the word “feminist” and any related matter have become a sort of taboo.