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Maura Carroll
Jessica Morton
UWRT 1103-066
07 April 2016
How Social Media Positively Affects Rape Culture
With the use of social media, rape culture has captured the attention of many.
Stories are being shared across websites like YouTube, Tumblr, and Facebook. People
whose voices had once been taken are now re-gaining them. Several campaigns have
been created and brought upon by using mass media, news, and social media. Although
there are plenty of negative affects of social media, social media is opening many doors
for widespread awareness such as celebrities speaking out, hashtag movements, and
men/women using media to express their feelings and share their stories, and TedTalks
and Slam Poems which is reducing rape culture and allowing social media movements to
radically reduce rape culture.
Celebrities have been playing a major role when it comes to rape/sexual violence,
especially within the past few years. Female celebrities have become role models to
victims of sexual violence because they see how the celebrities can speak out and it gives
them more confidence to do the same. Demi Lovato is a feminist who frequently speaks
up for rape victims. Lovato has said multiple statements but one of them was, the focus
should be on the topic of victims sexual/physical abuse being afraid to come forward with
their stories (Spanos). Kesha is a celebrity who is a victim of rape. This past year, she
tried motioning for her recording contract with Sony to be ended to try getting away from
her producer as well as alleged rapist. Her producer supposedly started abusing her at age

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18 (now 27), by giving her sober pills which were date rape drugs. He also emotionally
abused her by telling her she needs to lose more weight and degrading her looks and
talents. The judge that had her case denied her motion of ending the contract and said she
has to stay with Sony until her contract ends officially (Redden). Due to the judges
decision, many millenials and feminists began to speak up for Kesha and let her know
they supported her. Judge Shirley Kornreich stated, Every rape is not a gender-motivated
hate crime (Redden). This statement made Kesha fans furious and they started standing
outside the courthouse during trial protesting in support of Kesha. This story of a rape
victim and the negative outcome is just one example of how rape culture is occurring. It
shows that it can occur with celebrities just as easy as it can with non-celebrities.
Hashtag movements are a huge part of social media that is helping fight
rape culture. Hashtags are mostly used on Twitter. The past couple years, people have
used them to start movements and campaigns against sexual violence and rape. For
example, #YesAllWomen is a hashtag and social media campaign where users share
examples or stories of misogyny and violence against women. Thousands of women used
this hashtag to share about everyday sexism and how it affected them as well as other
people. It became a national movement and even the most famous women tweeted the
hashtag. Another hashtag movement example is #WhyIStayed. This hashtag movement
was created after the Ray Rice domestic violence scandal came out and people began
asking Janay Rice why she had stayed with her husband. This lead to many other women
writing this hashtag and sharing their own personal stories of domestic violence. The
hashtag movement called #SurvivorPrivilege was created after conservative columnist
George Will claimed that rape victims have a coveted status that conveys privileges

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(Chittal). These three examples are small ways that women have fought back rape culture
and sexual violence.
Social media is a place where people can express their feelings, opinions, and
stories however they please. Tumblr is a social media website where people create blogs
and can post whatever they would like or re-blog from other peoples blogs. Many
feminists and people who protest rape culture have blogs specifically directed at rape
culture and sexual violence. One Tumblr blog that focuses on rape culture is
raisingrapeawareness. This blog has pictures, gifs, texts, and other works that deal with
raising awareness for rape. For example, the blog has a picture that says to stop slutshaming women. It also has a cartoon post that explains just because a man buys you a
drink does not mean you owe him (Audrey). Another Tumblr blog that focuses on rape
culture is upsettingrapeculture. This blog has mainly posts about the news and media
and the public and how they are upsetting rape culture. One post calls out an officer who
was sentenced to prison for multiple rapes. In the news, they call him an ex-officer and
in the post, they cross out the ex-officer title and write rapist in big capital letters
(FORCE).
Texts and writings and pictures are all ways the media is changing rape culture.
However, videos are becoming a way as well to change rape culture. For example, there
is a YouTube video of two young women performing a slam poem entitled American
Rape Culture. This video speaks mostly towards celebrity men and their song lyrics and
how they are demeaning towards women and provoke rape culture. The poets call the
celebrities out by name and describe their lyrics. The main objective the poets try to get
across is how society teaches men to take, take, take and how society teaches women to

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take it, take it, take it (ButtonPoetry). This video is an example of how the media and
technology in todays society is being used to make rape culture well known and make it
clear why it is so significant and wrong.
TedTalks also influence rape culture and sexual violence greatly. For example,
one TedTalk entitiled, A Life of Rape Culture discusses multiple different experiences the
speaker has had. The speaker, Brynne Thomas, speaks about slut shaming and how her
first time experiencing a part of rape culture was in first grade when a teacher told her to
pull her sleeves up higher because she looks slutty. She speaks about how she realized
how her brothers were treated differently than her. Brynne describes while her brothers
spent their allowance on whatever they want, she would have to spend her allowance on
taxicabs because she could not bus or subway at night. She was told what she could not
wear and could not do. She goes on to describe an incident where these two men
attempted to kidnap her, yet a stranger walked out and spooked them away. This is when
she realized even though she was scared, there was nothing she could have done and this
made her realize that she did not want this incident to be normal for women. Brynne goes
on to explain how rape culture is prominent and everyone is involved in it. Girls are
viewed in such a negative way for their sexual identity and boys are seen as impressive
and/or experienced stated Brynne Thomas (TEDxTalks). Another example is a video
that narrates a story of rape and rape culture while having a slide show of different
pictures that are examples of rape culture. The story the narrator is telling is describing
and incident where a girl was raped and the rapist tells her she better not file a rape report
because no one would believe a girl that wore a slutty top with ripped jeans. The narrator
also states how womens bodies are not up for mens selection. The slideshow of pictures

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showed company ads that degraded women such as naked women working for a man of
the company. Many of the pictures show half naked women on beer ads, which make
people, wonder what naked women and alcohol have to do with each other. Also, the
pictures showed a Arab woman and a list of commands she gets from men such as she
needs to be put in her place, women need to be disciplined, and women need to be
controlled (Burwell).
Another way to radically reduce rape culture by using social media is for victims
to speak up and tell their stories. By doing this, they show other victims who are too
scared to speak that it is safe and okay to admit what happened to them. 44% of victims
are under age 18 and 80% are under age 30. 68% of sexual assaults are not reported to the
police and 98% of rapists will never spend a day in jail (Statistics). Duke Breaking Out is
a Facebook page campaign of a photo exhibition featuring student survivors of sexual
violence, holding posters that illustrate their stories of survivorship. This demonstrates an
example of how victims are speaking out. This page has many pictures of victims holding
up posters with each one saying something different about their rape/sexual assault. Some
pictures are kept anonymous by hiding the victims face behind the poster. This page
started off as a small campaign just for the Duke University campus and now has become
a national campaign where other colleges and people want to share their stories. It states
that their mission is to encourage healing through art, and counter the culture of silence
that shames, blames, and isolates survivors of sexual violence. This Facebook page has
even grown by creating a website. The website is connected to the Facebook page and
has a blog part on the site that has information about patriarchy and sexism and feminism

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and sexual violence. The website also has a section that describes what they are about and
ways to contact them and become apart of the campaign (Duke Breaking Out).
Despite how social media plays a major role in creating positive change with rape
culture, social media can also cause people to rape and create negative outcomes for rape
victims. @wavechild_ tweeted two pictures stating Females I wanna rape vs. females I
end up raping and the first picture was of a beautiful girl while the second picture was a
picture of a less attractive woman. This is an example of rapists or potential rapists use
social media. Social media helped an attacker hunt down his victim. Jenn Gibbons began
a 1,500-mile journey around Lake Michigan for Breast Cancer Awareness. She
documented her journey on social media almost everyday by posting statuses, pictures,
and videos of herself on the water. Her boat also had a GPS on it that anyone could look
up and see her location. This is how she was attacked one night. Her attacker found her
sleeping on her boat one night and went on to explain to her that he knew exactly whom
she was and he knew exactly where to find her. He then went on to ejaculate on her and
chase her up the dock until she finally got away. Her attacker was never found though
(Dubin). Rapists also use social media dating apps and sites to meet their victims and
meet up with them in person and rape them. People need to learn to be more cautious of
what they post online as well as whom they trust online.
We have all been socialized into a society that accepts, normalizes, and ads humor
to sexual assault. How can society even expect equality when there is such a difference
between the acceptance of male and female sexuality? Although men are victims too,
most rape and sexual violence victims are women in which are too afraid to speak out
about their traumatic incidents. Social media gives women a chance to set free their

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stories and help other women and victims with their stories as well. Social media
continues to change rape culture for the better and eventually may even get rid of rape
culture for good. More and more people are beginning to take rape and sexual violence
more seriously and less and less people are just standing on the sidelines watching it
happen.

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Works Cited

Audrey. "Raising Rape Awareness." Raising Rape Awareness. Web. 07 Apr. 2016.
<http://raisingrapeawareness.tumblr.com/>.
Burwell, Rachel. "Rape Culture in the United States." YouTube. YouTube, 29 Apr. 2014. Web. 07
Apr. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FYJBdjkln4>.
ButtonPoetry. "Desire Dallagiacomo & FreeQuency - "American Rape Culture"" YouTube.
YouTube, 19 Dec. 2014. Web. 07 Apr. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=dM9EB1_5sEk>.
Chittal, Nisha. "How Social Media Is Changing the Feminist Movement." Msnbc.com. NBC
News Digital, 06 Apr. 2015. Web. 30 Mar. 2016. <http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/howsocial-media-changing-the-feminist-movement>.
Dubin, Julie Weingarden. "How Social Media Helped This Woman's Attacker Find Her
#Hunted." Marie Claire. 01 June 2014. Web. 07 Apr. 2016.
<http://www.marieclaire.com/politics/news/a9711/social-media-gives-stalkers-yourlocation/>.
"Duke Breaking Out." Security Check Required. Duke Develle Dish, 2016. Web. 07 Apr. 2016.
<https://www.facebook.com/dukebreakingout/?fref=ts>.
"FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture." FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture. FORCE. Web. 07 Apr.
2016. <http://upsettingrapeculture.tumblr.com/>.

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Redden, Molly. "Judge Rejects Keshas Sexual Assault Case: Every Rape Is Not a Gendermotivated Hate Crime." Raw Story. The Guardian, 6 Apr. 2016. Web. 07 Apr. 2016.
<https://www.rawstory.com/2016/04/judge-rejects-keshas-sexual-assault-case-everyrape-is-not-a-gender-motivated-hate-crime/>.
Spanos, Brittany. "Demi Lovato Speaks Out on Behalf of Rape Victims." Rolling Stone. 23 Feb.
2016. Web. 07 Apr. 2016. <http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/demi-lovato-speaksout-on-behalf-of-rape-victims-20160223>.
"Statistics | RAINN | Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network." Statistics | RAINN | Rape,
Abuse and Incest National Network. RAINN. Web. 07 Apr. 2016.
<https://rainn.org/statistics>.
TEDxTalks. "A Life Of Rape Culture | Brynne Thomas | TEDxYouth@TCS." YouTube. YouTube,
31 May 2015. Web. 07 Apr. 2016.