Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture and What We Can Do about It by Kate Harding

Book Review

Title: Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture and What We Can Do about It by Kate Harding

Genre: Non-Fiction, Culture, Sex Issues

Rating: 5 Stars

Recently I decided to look more into rape culture since I am survivor of rape myself but didn’t have many issues in getting my case brought to court and getting justice like so many other women have had. Asking For It seems to break down what is rape culture, what rape myths are, why these things came into being and what we can do about them. The introduction and the opening chapter introduces us to what rape culture is and where it originated and the seven main rape myths. While Harding briefly breaks down these things she will go into further depth later on in the book. The rape myths are things many women and men have heard many times over the course of their lives, whether they have said it, had it said to them or heard about it from friends, family or colleagues. The fact of the matter is when you look at the numbers very few rapists are convicted, rape reports are low and statistically one in five women and one is seventy one men are likely to be raped at any given time and this will normally be committed by someone known to them. When you look at these bare facts even without going into depth it is hard to understand how rape culture can even exist but we have to take into account that over the decades victim blaming, slut shaming and many other things have prevented women from coming forward and getting justice for what was done to them.

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As we approach the ¼ mark in the book, Harding makes the point that it isn’t just women and girls who need to be educated about consent and healthy sexuality but young boys and men do as well. These myths over time have lea young women to be the gatekeepers of men’s behaviour especially when it comes to sexuality and this shouldn’t be the case. We should be teaching young men that they are worth more and should expect more than this narrow minded view of sexuality and there are healthy ways to achieves that than favouring dominance and aggression over human connection. Harding goes on to discussion how the dismantling of rape culture is going to take a lot of effort on the part of everyone not just the women and men involved. In fact, most rape and gang rapes are witnessed by someone else and Harding provides many examples to this and how they either joined in on the rape or just recorded or in some cases just walked away. Everyone single one of these people has a duty of care to intervene if they can, get help or at the very least not stay silent about it. Women are more proactive in speaking up during these situation because we are taught to be on the defensive all the time but men who are often the offenders in these situations can have a huge impact if they speak up when someone is making a joke or doing something that makes them uncomfortable and it can often shift the power in the situation and defuse it before it escalates into something criminal like rape. Harding also begins to discuss how false accusations can negative impact rue victims and how they reinforces rape myths and rape culture. Although for the most interesting section of this part of the book was how she begins to discuss how the legal system often lets down victims of rape and sexual assault and how many don’t even bother reporting their rape because of the low chance of their case going to trial and the low chance of their rapist being convicted even if the case does go to trial which seriously needs to change.

As we cross the ¼ mark in the book, Harding is beginning to touch on male rape and sexual violence but she is going to go into further depth on this later on since it is repeatedly overlooked when we discuss rape as a general topic. Harding doesn’t just look at rape in general society but within the military as well where most of the sexual assaults that take place are men on men rather than men on women since they majority of those in the military are men and how the chain of command actively prevents crimes from being reported and investigated. This leads Harding to look at the attitude of the police towards rape victims and while she is specifically talking about America it can apply to any police force in the world. Through her investigation she uncovered that many police forces have backwards attitudes towards rape and rape victims and talks about several cases where these women weren’t believed and in some cases charged themselves, one was legally blind, two were women of colour and two were pregnant and the time of their assaults which led police to believe they were lying and Harding does make the point clear that a lot of rape kits while collected aren’t tested when this could easily led to the identification of the attacker. Harding also points out that thousands of rape kits aren’t being tested every year and while some people in government and the police force are working to change this and it is making it difference it is on a small scale rather than a larger one and it leads to more crimes. In one case she discusses Harding found that have one rape kit untested meant that a serial rapist could go on to commit for offences before he was caught and the DNA wasn’t tested for nearly 13 years before linking this first attack to that of a convicted serial rapist which is unbelievable to the average person. Harding also believes that the attitude and training of the police needs to change in order to create a judgement free environment where victims aren’t scared to leave out details relating to their crime. Some of the statistics that Harding present were heart-breaking to read about especially as a survivor who had no trouble getting my rapist brought to justice.

As we approach the halfway mark in the book, Harding does briefly talk about the politics of rape as these are the people who make the laws and enforce them and their views on rape and rape culture are extremely important. She also briefly speaks about reproductive justice and how rape is illegal but in certain places getting an abortion is also illegal even if you are a victims of rape or incest and how these basic facts needs to change. I was also surprised by the number of adults, male and female, that don’t understand what rape is and even how the female body works in regards to pregnancy. Harding then goes on to talk about celebrity figures or those in the limelight who commit sexual assaults and rapes and get away with it because of their fame and the power they hold in society. There are many names mentioned in this book that I recognise despite being so young and I’m familiar with the cases but I was shocked to learn that a lot of these crimes took place under the noses of other people who had the power to prevent them from happening and didn’t because they felt they were entitled to do as they please with whoever they wanted regardless of consent. Harding talks about a few cases in particular and the various factors that led to the case not being brought to trial, downplayed or outright dismissed by both the legal system and the general public where someone famous is involved. This was something interesting since there are more and more of these cases coming to light in recent years i.e. Jimmy Saville and Prince Andrew to name some recent ones and how these crimes have been hidden away and dismissed for decades because of one person’s fame which is ridiculous in my opinion and the mainstream media plays a huge role in this as well as many defend the criminal until it is proven without a doubt that they committed the crime and even then might go on to defend them further as was the case with Prince Andrew who saw no criminal consequences for his actions.

As we cross into the second half of the book, Harding begins to look at rape in pop culture specifically music, movies and TV shows for this section. She looks into music first and while it has been commonplace for rapper especially to talk about degrading women she has noticed an increase in lyrics referring to rape and sexual assault usually by drugging them women and the amount of singers and rapper that have been accused and arrested for these sorts of crimes. Similarly, movies like Crank make rape something that becomes consensual later on which isn’t the case in real life at all and sends out the wrong message to people but television shows have to be the worst out of the three for reinforcing rape myths and rape culture. There are two she talks about that I want to mention, the first is Law & Order: SVU which focuses on sexual crimes and yet has several males characters that repeat rape myths and one in particular in known for interrogating the victims when he should be providing a judgement free atmosphere. There is also a distinct lack of female characters within the show in a position of power and those that are like Olivia have been subjected to rape and torture within the show while the male characters haven’t. Another is Game of Thrones and one particular scene which caused outrage among fans as the director made the conscious choice to change a consensual encounter in the books to a rape scene for the show and even said in an interview that it became consensual later on which isn’t true. While many people will say its just for entertainment or shock value we have to realise that there are younger people who watch these shows and will internalise these messages unless we teach them differently which isn’t being down right now. Young girls will see these messages and believe it isn’t rape when it is and young boys will see it and say if its ok for this rapper or this actor to do it then it’s ok for me when it isn’t.

As we approach the ¾ mark in the book, Harding is staying with pop culture but she turns her attention to gaming and the internet which is where things are going to get really interesting given the digital age we live in. Harding begins by defining certain terms that she uses a lot throughout this section like Men’s Right Activist (MRA), Pick Up Artist (PUA) and Social Justice Warriors (SJW). Throughout this section she looks at how the internet community specifically trolls originated and the havoc they have caused throughout recent years. Some of these trolls have even gone as far as posting people address online or leaking sexual photographs of them in order to get responses for them and the targets are primarily women and rape is often used as a threat against them. Some women especially those working in male dominated industries have also suffered because of this harassment and how it has only gotten worse if more discreet as the digital age continues to evolve. This has become more well known in gamer cultures as female gamers, game developers and many others have been targeted by trolls or men who feel threatened by their presence in the previous male dominated world. If you seen the Queen’s Gambit then a similar sort of environment with women fighting for a place in industries and communities that were previously dominated by men and how men are fighting back hitting at women’s fears and insecurities to get them to back down even though this isn’t the case most of the time especially with more high profile names.

As we cross into the final section of the book, I was wondering what message Harding was going to leave us with especially with the variety of topics she covers in the book. Harding leaves us with messages she has already presented in the book with one more. The final idea she leaves us with is that together we can change society and rape culture as the people involved with the Carry the Weight project did where students from one university left mattresses for the university president each one representing someone that had been raped or sexually assaulted on campus as a visual message for institutions to do better. Harding also talks about her own experience with rape at the end of the book which made me feel for her since she declined the rape kit due to fear and judgement but also had to continue to see the man that raped her because it was a small campus with less than 500 students and that makes her incredible strong in my eyes. If you want to read the no nonsense facts about rape and rape culture in our modern age and historically then definitely pick up this book.

Buy it here:

Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com

Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com