PLAIN TRUTH: Drop the ‘she could be your sister tag’ when talking about rape

‘She could be your sister, wife, daughter or mother’ is a common phrase in conversations about rape. You may have used it. It is the go-to analogy that the average person resorts to when talking to a man about rape. Usually, it comes from a good place with the speaker trying to humanise the victim.

First, let me say I’m glad that we are talking about rape and sexual consent. I don’t think we can have enough talk on this subject. That said, this very popular approach to the topic where we invoke images of female relatives in a bid to draw men’s sympathy is wrong.

Here’s why;

To begin with, all women are deserving of respect. Equally. By telling a man to imagine a rape victim as his female relative, you are being unfair to that woman who is not a mother, who does not have a brother or who did not grow up with a father. It is sexist. It is suggesting that a woman should only be valued and respected by those around her if she is valued and loved by a man. True, that woman who was raped could be someone’s wife or sister. But this fact of her life is not what makes what happened to her wrong.

Saying that rape is bad because a woman could be your sister is akin to suggesting that the dynamics of her experience change when there are no male relatives in her life. They do not. Rape is rape. Period. And its effects on a woman are damaging and deep running regardless of her background. And as a society, we shouldn’t only be enraged when it happens to women we know.

Another important, fact, one that we all seem to forget when we are telling a man to imagine a rape victim as his female relative is that a big number of women and girls are raped by male relatives or men well known to them.  Telling men to thus imagine that the women known to them could be rape victims thus becomes counterproductive.

Then there is the danger of both men and women beginning to rationalize rape. He might start thinking, ‘But my sister would never get that drunk, she would never go to such a party or my mother would never wear such a dress.’ It may get people thinking that since their female relatives could never be in similar situations as a rape victim, then what happened to her can be justified.

Let’s strive to raise our sons to respect all women, whether or not he can see her as a sister, mother or daughter or not.  Let’s tell them that it is not only women who are genetically linked to them who are deserving of compassion, empathy and respect. Tell them not to violate women, because it is wrong. Period.