Melissa Explains It All

(What - you don't get the reference? For shame!)

Once again, I am ever grateful for the existence of Melissa McEwan. She is one of the brightest and most impressive people I have ever encountered, and one of the best writers, too. She can put together a kick-ass dissertation on a wide variety of subjects, and very often I find myself, when reading her words, thinking "YES! Exactly! That's what I wanted to say but couldn't put the words together like this." She has informed my own sense of feminism and who I am as a feminist and a progressive and an ally more than anyone or anything else in my life. For that, I give her thanks and love from afar every day.

Over at Shakesville, the collaborative blog that she runs (and does the bulk of the writing for), she has taken on the subject of rape many, many times. (Those three posts are just a drop in the deep, deep bucket, which also includes some on her own rape and the effect it had on her.) Today, she posted a piece entitled Rape Culture 101:

Frequently, I receive requests to provide a definition of the term "rape culture." ...[M]y correspondents...always seem to be looking for something more comprehensive and less abstract: What is the rape culture? What are its borders? What does it look like and sound like and feel like?

It is not a definition for which they're looking; not really. It's a description. It's something substantive enough to reach out and touch, in all its ugly, heaving, menacing grotesquery.

She goes on to clearly, smartly, and eloquently elucidate and illustrate the bricks that build a rape culture. I really cannot expand upon the brilliance of her writing, and I know at this point I probably have about...hmm, 0.00 readers...but I will just say, on the chance that one day when I do have readers, some of them make their way back here, please - go read it. Now.

As ever - thank you so much, Melissa.