The (NOT SO) Skinny Girl

Maybe it's just me and my upbringing, I mean Italian mothers/grandmothers are top notch at laying on the guilt. God forbid you made ANY plans on a Sunday, or any other day designated as a family day, that didn't include getting together at Mom or Grandma's house for a 3 course (or more) army-sized meal. As I grew up and became aware and independent, I felt 'guilt' more and more. Not just for not spending time with family. For not thanking them enough. For not doing enough around the house. For not offering to do enough. For not having better grades or being better at something. For not having enough money for things. All sorts of guilt. I've carried this childhood notion of always feeling guilty about everything into my married, established, adult life.  Interestingly enough, where I thought it was just a "ME" thing, I'm starting to realize our culture, as a whole, is very geared towards placing guilt on people unnecessarily. It comes in a lot o...

There is no culture to rape.  Rape is, in essence, anti-culture.  I wasn't sexually assaulted becaus e of any sort of culture, but I could attribute it to lack of culture.  "Rape culture" is a term coined by feminists in the 70's, designed to show the ways in which society blames victims and normalized male sexual violence.  Let's not forget that if we are going with the definition of rape culture- blaming victims and shaming them and demeaning them- this can be done by both men and women. It can be just as detrimental to the mental and emotional state of a person as a physical attack. A wife who hears what her husband is accused of may think to herself that he is not capable of this and thus the attacked must be a lying shameless whore who initiated the event or worse- dreamed it up.  A mother who hears her son raped a girl at a college party could blame it on alcohol, booze, not enough supervision, the girls choice of clothing or over use ...