As I’ve written before, I think of society as about 10 percent heroes or saints, 10 percent villains and 80 percent who can go either way. This online image — I apologize to the creator because I don’t know who to credit — sums it up very well.
For every predator there’s a lot more men who contribute to rape culture, the set of behaviors and assumptions that give tacit support to rapists and none to the victims. And to be fair, some women too — plenty of conservative women will insist that certain women were “asking for it.”
Lately I’ve been pessimistic thinking about the 80 percent. As we see so many people grovel before the Felon or otherwise sell out, it feels hopeless — that the 80 percent are perfectly happy to see others illegally sent to a black site if it means they have a chance to escape the same fate. As the image points out, the 80 percent aren’t a monolith. The guy who gets some sort of satisfaction out of rape but wouldn’t do it himself isn’t in the same headspace as the guy who underestimates the issue. The person who doesn’t like seeing what’s happened but is too scared to act isn’t at the same point along the 80 percent spectrum as the one who engages in pre-emptive compliance or who’s cool with Muslims and Palestinian rights activists getting dragged off — “I’m not one of those, why should I stick my neck out?”
For the person on the left side of the chart, the question is how to encourage them to act. A little further right, it’s about changing their mind to shift left. On the right-hand side the issue is how to stop them from taking action, as their actions are likely to be on the wrong side.
Defining the problem doesn’t provide an answer, I know. But I still think it’s a better way to grasp what we’re dealing with.
