Think rape culture is a myth? Think again.
Poet and justice advocate FreeQuency used the power of spoken word to explain the most infuriating and unjust aspects of rape culture in her poem, "I'm Sorry."
The powerful poem lays out many of the ways in which rape culture affects the day-to-day lives of women, creating an atmosphere in which everything from the length of women's skirts to how much we drink is monitored.
"Forgive me please for not getting the memo that if I drink a little too much I go from being a woman to a ho," she says. FreeQuency also breaks down the darker implications of these microaggressions, or, as she puts it, "outbreaks of slut-shaming and victim-blaming mentalities."
The poet references the Steubenville rape case and the 2012 New Delhi gang rape, the rampant sexual abuse that women face in the US military and the overall way that sexual violence -- and rape in particular -- is spoken about by political leaders. In 2012 Missouri congressman Todd Akin infamously said that if a rape is "legitimate," then the "the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." That same year, former presidential hopeful Rick Santorum defended his anti-abortion beliefs by saying that female rape victims should "make the best out of a bad situation" if they become pregnant. In 2011, Wisconsin lawmaker Roger Rivard said that some women "rape easy." FreeQuency references all of these disastrous statements in her poem.
"See, this disease has reached the top of our nation's leadership to the point of being endemic," FreeQuency says.
She also lays out a simple four-step regimen to ending rape culture. The most important point being: "If a person is raped, look for the rapist -- not the reason."
Boom.
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