Why Do So Many Men Feel They Can Make Rape Jokes With Impunity?!

I was shocked when a good male friend made a rape joke, but when I spoke to my female friends, they said these happen very often...!

Trigger Warning: This deals with rape jokes, rape culture, and violence against women, and may be triggering for survivors.

Even though it has been decades since women started coming out of their houses to work somehow the misogyny also managed to follow them everywhere they go.

The recent incident with the actress Trisha Krishnan where a co actor Mansoor Ali Khan made vulgar statements regarding how he wanted to rape her and tried to brush it off as a joke reassured my beliefs that rape jokes are still very prevalent and a lot of men still think its acceptable and justifiable to do so.

Sexist and rape jokes normalised

The normalization of sexist and rape jokes is still prevalent to this day even after many laws and committees are specially made for them. the reason these jokes and comments are slide under the carpet are because they are subtle and are laughed off as joke by a lot of men and even some brainwashed women.

To talk about my experience, wherein I was talking to a friend of mine and the topic came up regarding how his friends made him uncomfortable and stripped him completely of his clothes while they were drunk and he continued to laugh it off by saying “they almost gangraped me!”

I was uncomfortable, but brushed it off and did not want to make an issue out of it like a lot of other women who let a lot of things slide because we are conditioned to let things like this slide since our childhood. it was disappointing to hear stuff like this from a close friend.

Fast forward to a few days and I had a chat with same guy friend and another topic came up regarding a personal experience of mine where I was harassed and an attempt to rape was made. Somehow this guy friend of mine decided to make a joke out of this, and I was too stunned to say anything.

Fast forward to a few more days and the same guy texted me again talking about something else and this time he said “it’s not like I raped her or anything. it was just for fun.”

Never miss real stories from India's women.

Register Now

It was extremely triggering!

I had enough at this point and asked him not to use the word as it was triggering and upsetting for me. The guy continues to overexplain himself and ended the conversation with an apology. The conversation had ruined my mood for the whole day and kept bothering me for a lot of days.

I’ve talked to my close female friends a few days after this and apparently rape jokes are still very relevant and funny to a lot of men, and they still think it’s ok to make jokes regarding such things.

Misogynists think its ok to make rape jokes and want women to accept such filth as jokes but God forbid women make a comment, not even a joke on their masculinity and they crumble like a block of Jenga boxes.

Liked this post?

Join the 100000 women at Women's Web who get our weekly mailer and never miss out on our events, contests & best reads - you can also start sharing your own ideas and experiences with thousands of other women here!

Comments

About the Author

8 Posts | 4,241 Views

Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!

All Categories