English

Noun

rape culture ‎(uncountable)

1. (agriculture) The cultivation of rape.

Etymology 2

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

Noun

rape culture ‎(uncountable)

1. A culture, environment or society where rape 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, Lacy, Suzanne, “"Three Weeks in May": Speaking Out on Rape, a Political Art Piece”, in Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, volume 2, number 1, JSTOR 3346109, 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, Buchwald, Emilie; Martha Roth, Pamela R. Fletcher, Transforming a Rape Culture, Milkweed Editions, ISBN 9780915943067, OL 15492861M, 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, Boswell, A. Ayres; 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 0891-2432, JSTOR 189830, 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, McEwan, Melissa, “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-**** in movies and television shows and on the covers of romance novels that convey violent urges are inextricably linked with (straight) sexuality.

   • 2011, Lizzy Davies, The Guardian, 30 Sep 2011:

     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.