Within
feminism,
rape culture is a concept that links
rape and
sexual violence to the culture of a society,
[1] and in which prevalent
attitudes and practices
normalize, excuse, tolerate, and even condone rape.
[2]
Examples of behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include
victim blaming,
sexual objectification, and trivializing rape. Rape culture has been used to model behavior within social groups, including
prison rape and conflict areas where
war rape is used as psychological warfare. Entire countries have also been alleged to be rape cultures.
[3][4][5][6][7]
Although the concept of rape culture is used in
feminist academia,
[8] there is disagreement over what defines a rape culture and to what degree a given society meets the criteria to be considered a rape culture.
[3]
Rape culture has been observed to correlate with other social factors and behaviors. Research identifies correlation between rape myths, victim blaming and trivialization of rape with increased incidence of racism, homophobia, ageism, classism, religious intolerance and other forms of discrimination