Over 17 million American women have been sexual assaulted, and 73 percent of those assaults were committed by someone the assailed knew. Yet AR Wear has started a campaign for shorts to protect women from rape when they are “going out on a blind date, taking an evening run, ‘clubbing,’ traveling in unfamiliar countries and any other activity that might make one anxious about the possibility of an assault.”
The garments work through a series of locks on the thighs and the waist that can only be unlocked through clocklike movement of different parts. Additionally, the material on the waist and the thighs as well as the area covering the genitals are tearproof and cutproof.
Good intentions aside, this product exhibits some fundamental flaws. For starters, marketing clothing as an item meannt to prevent rape keeps focus on what the victim should or should not wear to avoid sexual assault. As an article in Think Progress notes, this apparel furthers the “fundamental premise upon which rape culture rests” — that the victim should have been more careful. Most likely, the product will further increase the belief that it’s the victim’s responsibility to protect himself or herself from possible abuse, rather than the rapist’s fault for attacking someone.
The producers market the shorts as empowering and giving women and girls “more power to control the outcome.” Yet shorts cannot stop a person from attempting to harm another — they do not work as a weapon, and if someone is assaulting you, the shorts might stop the intercourse but not the attack itself.
But more than that, such shorts make women even more insecure about their bodies and safety. As Amanda Hess sarcastically writes in Slate, “nothing makes a woman feel comfortable in her own body like a constant physical reminder that she’s expected to guard her genitals against potential sexual assaults at all times.”
The product spreads the myth that sexual intercourse is the only action that constitutes sexual assault. The undergarment only protects women’s genitals, yet sexual assault can also take place orally, whether through verbal abuse or forced fellatio. Does that mean that in order to protect ourselves from rape, we also need to walk around with locks on our mouths and ears?
The garment is advertised as “wearable protection for when things go wrong,” transforming rape into something circumstantial, rather than premeditated. Rape is not an accident or something that “went wrong.” It is a deliberate attack on another person — and that mentality is not going to change because someone is wearing special underwear.
Though AR Wear might make assault more difficult, if people go out with the intention to hurt another human being, they will achieve this. Maybe the undergarments will decrease the instances of rape, but they will not protect people from being verbally harassed or beaten. The clothes we wear do not change other people’s intentions, which is fundamentally what the producers of the line do not seem to grasp. As Louise Pennington writes in the Huffington Post, “rapists rape because they choose to, not because they are confused.”
More than anything, AR Wear does not tackle the real problem of rape but attempts to cover it up — literally. A “modern day chastity belt,” as the Guardian’s Vicky Simister called it, does not make me feel like I am invincible and can evade rape. It makes me feel like we are not comfortable, as a society, with really dealing with rape, so we try to appease it.
For starters, the source of the problem is not gendered, — men also suffer from sexual assault — but AR Wear only focuses on women. There is no “male model” in the company’s three-minute infomercial, and AR Wear does not even mention a plan to create this type of clothing for men.
Moreover, the real way to prevent rape is through education and justice. As long as we continuously lead victims of rape to believe the attack is their fault, rapists will continue to act. By removing blame from the perpetrator, society inevitably commends their actions. The stigma that surrounds being sexually assaulted means that not only do most rapes go unreported, but victims are left to suffer the emotional and physical trauma in silence.
There needs to be greater focus on making people understand that they are not to blame for what others do to them. More than that, blame shouldn’t be placed on a victim’s actions or choice of clothing, but rather on understanding that assaulters act based on their own desires. The only one to blame for sexual assault is the rapist.
The creators of AR wear have the best intentions at heart. Granted, these shorts can be a useful tool to prevent rape, but they go as far as protecting a woman as pepper spray might — they might help delay it, but they do not eliminate the intent. The solution to rape should not only focus on the victim’s actions. It should aim to avert the occurrence of directed violence in general.
That’s why the biggest problem does not lie with the creators of this product or the product itself. The real issue is in the way we address rape — by blaming the victim and not fully understanding that rape is not random. Under these circumstances, AR Wear makes perfect sense. If society is serious about decreasing instances of sexual assault, what needs to change is not what we wear, but how we deal with it.
Sami Isman ’15 doesn’t think anyone should have to live in fear.
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