Now, should we treat women as independent agents, responsible for themselves? Of course. But being responsible has nothing to do with being raped. Women don’t get raped because they were drinking or took drugs. Women do not get raped because they weren’t careful enough. Women get raped because someone raped them.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that women's actions do not cause rape; rather, the responsibility lies solely with the perpetrator.
In this quote, Jessica Valenti highlights the critical issue of victim-blaming in cases of sexual assault. She asserts that regardless of a woman's choices, such as consuming alcohol or drugs, these factors do not justify or cause rape. The quote calls for a shift in perspective, recognizing that the responsibility for sexual violence rests entirely on the aggressor, not the victim.
In practice
This quote can be used during discussions about sexual assault awareness events.
Wanting to be liked means being a supporting character in your own life, using the cues of the actors around you to determine your next line rather than your own script. It means that your self-worth will always be tied to what someone else thinks about you, forever out of your control.
It's not always easy being a full-time feminist - especially as a young woman - when you're constantly being told that what you do is irrelevant. I'm on the defense all the time.
Sex for pleasure, for fun, or even for building relationships is completely absent from our national conversation. Yet taking the joy out of sexuality is a surefire way to ensure not that young women won't have sex, but rather that they'll have it without pleasure.
When women's sexuality is imagined to be passive or "dirty," it also means that men's sexuality is automatically positioned as aggressive and right-no matter what form it takes. And when one of the conditions of masculinity, a concept that is already so fragile in men's minds, is that men dissociate from women and prove their manliness through aggression, we're encouraging a culture of violence and sexuality that's detrimental to both men and women.
Present-day American society-whether through pop culture, religion, or institutions-conflates sexuality and morality constantly. Idolizing virginity as a stand-in for women’s morality means that nothing else matters-not what we accomplish, not what we think, not what we care about and work for. Just if/how/whom we have sex with. That’s all.
The widely held belief that the heterosexual nuclear family is best for children has long been used as a smoke screen for homophobia and as a talking point to quash marriage-equality efforts.
All advocacy is, at its core, an exercise in empathy.
Introverts are capable of acting like extroverts for the sake of work they consider important, people they love, or anything they value highly.
Trusting someone was like holding a little water in your cupped hands - it was so easy to spill the water, and you could never get it back.
I feel what they feel. And people who listen to me know that, and it makes them feel like they're not alone.
She was trying to say something else; she was trying to say that the inability to articulate what one feels in any satisfactory way is one of our enduring tragedies. It wouldn't have been much, and it wouldn't have been useful, but it would have been something that reflected the gravity and the sadness inside her. Instead, she had snapped at him for being a loser. It was as if she were trying to find a handhold on the boulder of her feelings, and had merely ended up with grit under her nails.
I do not think homosexuality is immoral.
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