“Women Wearing Shorts Deserve to be Raped...”
How Purity Culture and Rape Culture are Two Sides of the Same Coin
“Hey”, my bestie messaged me, “just wanted to let you know there is a story that just came out featuring a pastor that said women who wear shorts deserve to be raped. I know that it hits close, so I just wanted you to be aware.”
I immediately googled a few key words and the latest article from the Roy’s Report popped up. Sure enough, the article shared the original clip of a pastor telling his congregation that women deserved to be raped if they wore shorts and that if he were on the jury of the rapist, the man would go free. He ends by saying something to the effect of “you may not like it, but that’s just how it is…”
Even as I write that short synopsis, it’s easy to float out of my body; I’m stopping every few words to ground myself back into the moment. My friend knows me well; it does hit close to home. In fact, I just shared a brief anecdote about it on the most recent episode of the Wise Jezebels podcast.
If you haven’t listened to the podcast, the summary is this: I was raped multiple times by an individual who claimed to care about me; the day after as I felt constant waves of shame and disgust toward myself, the only thought running through my head was this: it must have happened because I was wearing shorts that were too short.
I’ve done a lot of work around how that (and other experiences of sexualized violence) and the messages of rape and purity culture are embodied, but that thought, the “justification” for why this happened, is still something that floats through my mind whenever I reflect on these experiences.
My friend was right, the story of what the pastor said was deeply unnerving and it landed on me in a different way. I am still in shock when I hear this rhetoric. It’s deeply harmful, and there is still a part of me that slides back into my religious fundamentalism and starts to agree–we often do that: blame and shame ourselves in an effort to try and make sense of something that doesn’t make sense.
But, now there is anger–even rage–that is present when I hear people, especially spiritual leaders, promoting such garbage. Because what they are promoting as “God’s way” is actually just them promoting rape culture.