The more important question

Possible trigger warning: please feel free to question and comment, but we ask for reasoned discussion and thoughtful engagement with the argument.

A few weeks ago, I found myself in the women's bathroom at UNSW staring at a poster. It was a simple design with a blue jelly bean in the bottom right hand corner. Five Words. "This is not a child". Nothing else. The designer of this poster boiled down a very complicated moral and ethical issue to five words. 

I am a 24 year old Christian woman who converted to Christianity in my university years. It is needless to say my opinion on this matter is informed by the worldview I subscribe to. I am sure you've heard the classic reasons why, namely the view of a creator who cares about his creation so much that He would send His Son to pay the penalty of their sin. I am not here to engage in a debate on why I think abortion is wrong. In my opinion that happens best in relationships as you work out the messiness of life. Rather, I am keen to take one step back and ask a more important question. How did you get there? How did you get to the point where you began to think a foetus wasn't a human? How do you work out what is right and wrong? 

We have entered into a time where abortion, same-sex marriage, the use of pornography and the like are widely accepted and so we are now beginning to accept them before actually assessing the moral weight of them for ourselves. 

I spend most of my days on the university campus of UNSW, chatting to university students about matters pertaining to God and life. Something that I along with my colleagues have observed is the shift of our culture where morality is informed by our ethical judgements. It seems to me that we are no longer concerned with the rightness or wrongness of things. The lines have become blurred. We have moved away from upholding our obligation to the truth and moved towards the best outcome for the individual, mainly me. 

The ethical framework of our generation is the increase of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. You make the decisions you do to enhance your experience of life. We all do it, from the small decisions to the big decisions. This is how we're intrinsically wired, right? This seems so evident in the video diary of Emily Letts, who documented her experience  of her abortion. Having the child aborted avoided the burden that child would have had on her life. Her life is better because of it. So abortion is okay. 

Let us take this to it's logical end. If we abide in this framework, we will surely end up justifying all sorts of evils. Lying is justified when I take a sickie because I deserve a day off. Downloading my entertainment illegally is justified because I am entitled to it. Cheating on my spouse is justified because I am in love. This sounds all too familiar doesn't it? 

I am just as guilty as the next person when it comes to making decisions for the betterment of myself regardless of the cost of others. Dan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioural economics at Duke University, aptly identifies that we will rationalise any sort of behaviour as long as we can maintain a positive self image. Where do we draw the line? 

How will you assess the moral value of life? My greatest desire is to see many young people standing up for what is right instead of standing up for what will best suit me. How do we determine right and wrong? We don't. If there truly is a Creator, He does. 

About Kat: 24 years old, shorter than most people. I became a Christian at the University of New South Wales when I was presented with the truth about Jesus from the bible. I studied music education and worked as a music teacher in Western Sydney for a short time. I am currently back at UNSW, in my second year of a ministry apprenticeship at Campus Bible Study. I'm married to Daniel and we enjoy sipping coffee and listening to good music whilst fantasising about our dream dog. 

Revisiting Rape Culture

Rape Culture is an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture. Rape culture is perpetuated through the use of misogynistic language, the objectification of women’s bodies, and the glamorization of sexual violence, thereby creating a society that disregards women’s rights and safety. - Marshall University’s Women’s Center website:

Victims of Amherst rape cover ups and the
hings that were said to them

At some point this week I would like you to look around and notice how many women you’re with. If there are more than 4 then it’s statistically likely that one of those women has been raped or abused either sexually, physically, or emotionally. That's the statistic, but in my experience, it's more common than that.

So if rape and abuse is so common among our friends why do we never hear about it? I think there are several reasons. Firstly, a lot of people don’t even realise they’ve been abused because, as a society, we do a pretty bad job of explaining to women how they should expect to be treated. The second reason is because of slut shaming and victim blaming. In a nutshell, both these attitudes tell women that if they have been raped it was their own fault.

"If you didn't want to have sex with him, why were you sitting on
his bed two weeks before?"

Don’t believe it? I didn't either at first. When I first read about victim blaming I thought it was the love child of feminism and a persecution complex, but the more I thought about it the more I noticed it. Have you ever heard of a woman being abused and asked yourself what she was wearing? Or whether she went to the guy’s apartment, or if she led him on? We seem to think that some women, judging by their behaviour or what they were wearing were ‘asking for it’. When we say this we are not teaching ‘don’t rape’, we’re teaching don’t get raped. You could be walking down a dark alley way in the middle of the night wearing nothing but a ‘come hither’ smile. That still would not make you deserving of rape. Admittedly it’s not a good idea, and you’d be very cold, but it does not justify rape. Nothing does. No one is allowed to rape you or treat you with anything less than respect and dignity. No matter what you are wearing. No matter where you are. No matter how much you’ve had to drink.

Consensual sex is not sex with someone who is too drunk to object, nor is it convincing someone who is unwilling. It is not making someone too scared to say no. It is not making someone feel so guilty for saying no that they eventually agree. It is not hassling someone until they are so sick of arguing that they say yes to keep you quiet. Consent is not gained through persistence. Rape is not a misunderstanding, and it’s not an accident. It’s not something you can feel really bad about later and say ‘I didn’t know what I was doing’.

"C'mon, you go out every weekend. Stop telling people
he raped you or my teammates won't want
 to pregame in our room anymore"

Rape culture is not only incredibly misogynistic, but it doesn’t give much credit to men. What we’re claiming is that men are completely unable to control themselves. Simply by observing a woman walking down a dark street with a short skirt, the man in question is reduced to a frothing animal with no choice but to rape the woman. He is removed from the responsibility of his actions because he was ‘invited’ or ‘tempted’. Guys deserve more credit here. They do have control over their actions and if they don’t want to rape someone, they have the ability to just not rape them. I mean how hard could it be?
Here's my 1 step plan to not raping:

Step 1: Don't rape.

Seems pretty simple to me.

 Unfortunately porn has nurtured the dehumanisation of woman, rendering them an object and making their consent irrelevant. Rape is something that will always be a reality in any society, and no amount of campaigning will stamp it out. But it is a reasnoble expectation of our generation, that we can blame rapists for rape. Not victims.

Rape culture tells me that I should feel flattered by comments yelled from car windows, or by the inevitable groping every time I go out. Sadly we get used to it. The first time I went clubbing I yelled at every guy who touched me. The first one who did it found his hand seized, a finger pointed, and me in his face, mouthing a very eloquent argument that he probably couldn’t hear over the music. His friends thought this was hilarious and proceeded to grope me every time I turned around, high fiving each other and laughing about how hilarious they were being. Many years later I was waiting at a Sydney bus stop with a homeless man yelling at me for ten minutes straight, until my bus arrived, the content of which is not public forum appropriate. I kept looking at the people around me expecting some of the guys to step up and say something, but no one did, even the guy sitting next to him in the bus shelter. Only stony, shame faced silence from the five or six men at the bus stop. Last year I was on a bus to uni when I felt something on my ribcage. I looked down to find the hand of the man behind going in for a sneaky grope. I shoved his hand off but thought that if I was to turn around and yell at him for touching me theres a chance no one would defend me, the man wouldn't change, I'd probably get kicked off the bus. Why do I expect this reaction? Because we live in a rape culture. These experiences are not rare. Ask the girls around you. We've all got stories. AmIrite, ladies?

"Why couldn't you fight him off?"

Men, you might not have realised that this is a reality for women, which I believe is why feminism comes across as paranoid whining. But women shouldn’t be the feminists. Men should be. Not every man is the problem. Only a percentage of men in Western society treat women with less respect than they deserve, but another larger percentage is marked by their silence - the ones that didn't defend me at the bus stop for example. Men need to be a strong voice against rape culture. Stand up for the women in your life and defend their right to respect and decency so maybe the next generation won’t have to campaign for their right to not be abused.

We often compare ourselves to the wrong end of the spectrum. We look to the worst horror stories of abuse and we think ‘my situation is nothing like that’. The Bible tells us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are sons and daughters of the most high God, we are loved and treasured by him. So we need to look at the other end of the spectrum. The one where are people are being treated with the dignity and respect that God meant for us. If you look at that end and can still say ‘my situation is nothing like that’ then something needs to change, and it’s not you.