rape culture

From rape (“non-consensual sex”) + culture.

rape culture (countable and uncountable, plural rape cultures)

1. A culture, environment or society where rape (a form of sexual assault) is common, and in which social attitudes or practices work to trivialize sexual violence, make rape seem normal, or shift responsibility from rapists to rape victims. [from 20th c.]
   • 1977 Spring, Suzanne Lacy, “"Three Weeks in May": Speaking Out on Rape, a Political Art Piece”, in Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, volume 2, number 1, →JSTOR, page 67:

     By exposing the facts of our rapes, the numbers of them, the events surrounding them, and the men who commit them, we begin to break down the myths that support the rape culture.

   • 1993 September 1, Emilie Buchwald with Martha Roth and Pamela R. Fletcher, Transforming a Rape Culture, Milkweed Editions, →ISBN, →OL, page vii:

     In a rape culture both men and women assume that sexual violence is a fact of life, inevitable as death or taxes.

   • 1996 April, A. Ayres Boswell with Joan Z. Spade, “Fraternities and Collegiate Rape Culture: Why Are Some Fraternities More Dangerous Places for Women?”, in Gender & Society, volume 10, number 2, →ISSN, →JSTOR, page 134:

     To prevent further incidences of rape on college campuses, we need to understand what it is about fraternities in particular and college life in general that may contribute to the maintenance of a rape culture on college campuses.

   • 2009 October 9, Melissa McEwan, “Rape Culture 101”, in Shakesville‎, retrieved 2012-04-05:

     Rape culture is regarding violence as sexy and sexuality as violent. Rape culture is treating rape as a compliment, as the unbridled passion stirred in a healthy man by a beautiful woman, making irresistible the urge to rip open her bodice or slam her against a wall, or a wrought-iron fence, or a car hood, or pull her by her hair, or shove her onto a bed, or any one of a million other images of fight-fucking in movies and television shows and on the covers of romance novels that convey violent urges are inextricably linked with (straight) sexuality.

   • 2011 September 30, Lizzy Davies, The Guardian:

     Women's rights activists in Britain and the US have accused Facebook of promoting rape and "rape culture" after the social networking site refused to take down pages on which users made jokes and apparent confessions about sexual assault.

   • 2011, “Backpackers”, in Camp, performed by Childish Gambino:

     Or "I wrote on rape culture my junior year at Brown / So I'm allowed to say what all his raps are about"

• rapism

From rape (“Brassica rapa plant”) + culture.

rape culture (uncountable)

1. (agriculture) The cultivation (growing or production) of rape.
   • 1873, The Canada Farmer, page 216:

     It may be added, as a final recommendation of rape culture, that this plant is valuable for its yield of honey.

   • 1899, GW Koiner, Report of the State Board of Agriculture of Virginia:

     The progress in rape culture in this country is one of the marvels of latter day husbandry.

   • The Farmer's Magazine (page 280)

     In Flanders, where rape culture is practised upon the most extensive and economical scale, the stubble is ploughed twice […]

• rapeseed culture