It wasn’t until I started getting serious about feminist lit as recently as in the last couple of years that I began to realize what I was doing, that I was not alone in taking those steps for safety, and that I shouldn’t have to do that. The fear of being raped was just something that I lived with, without really thinking about. Once I was reading more feminism and learning the depths of the gender problem, there were a lot of things I started getting angry about, but I still felt outside of it. It wasn’t until reading Not That Bad that I saw another aspect to rape culture– the part that my fear fit into, even if fear is the worst that I ever encounter.
This book is about rape, but it’s not only about rape. Many of the writers don’t go into detail about their assaults, if there were any assaults. They talk about coping in the aftermath, about being too afraid or optimistic or shocked to say no or fight back, about being objectified in a hundred ways that are related to rape but aren’t necessarily rape. The power of them comes not from lengthy diatribes and disturbing details, but from the number of women (and others) willing to speak up about experiences of all sorts.
Rape culture is a giant umbrella, and this book of essays shows its size. It’s more than everyday slights, but there’s a commonality in the narrative voices that shows the reader: this is any woman.
