Lots ofcoverage of the Steubenville rape case got me thinking about how do we change this? Part of the horror of this is just how unsurprising it is. Living in a culture where this kind of assault is expected to happen is a core of the problem. It's called rape culture and there's tons of blogs, tumblr posts and videos on the topic. Everything from the idea that short skirts, flirting and getting drunk are all ways of saying "yes" to sex, to thinking that "boys will be boys," to blaming the booze instead of the people who did the crime, are part of rape culture. Everything that makes it seems like the natural order of things that a woman or girl in this situation was raped is part of rape culture.

What we need is to change expectations so that the perpetrators dont feel entitled, and the bystanders don't feel powerless, and the people who hear about it later don't shake their heads and say "what else do you expect when a girl gets drunk?" It isn't invevitable that this happens. People should be able to get stupid drunk and not get raped.

A couple of things I saw out there really point to solutions:

Laci Green's video is awesome- i love how fast she talks and just lays it out, what the expectations should be. Fierce!

Tonally different but also righteous is this letter from a Mom at askmoxie.org, to her sons, advising them how to step in and help a person who is being raped. It's tough to speak up when others are silent and the popular kids are doing wrong, but that's what heroes do.