“if rape is inevitable, just relax and enjoy it”
-Clayton Williams
Some quotes should never have existed. Yet statements like this were spoken publicly by powerful men who expected no real consequences.
Every time another story appears about a woman being raped, speaking out, and still being forced to prove her own suffering, it becomes harder to pretend these attitudes belong only to the past. Violence against women is not rare, and disbelief toward women is not accidental. It reflects a pattern that has been built into society for centuries.
Girls are still told to be quiet, polite, and obedient. Boys are still excused with phrases like “boys will be boys.” These messages may seem small, but they shape the expectations placed on women and the leniency often granted to men.
History makes that pattern painfully clear.
“When a woman has scholarly inclinations there is usually something wrong with her sexual organs”
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Ideas like this were once expressed by respected thinkers, philosophers, and leaders. Women’s intelligence, ambition, and independence were treated not as strengths, but as abnormalities.
The consequences of those beliefs are not confined to history books.
In India, a young female doctor was brutally raped and murdered inside her medical college after completing a surgery that had just saved a patient’s life. Her body was discovered in the very place where she had dedicated herself to healing others. The brutality of the crime shocked the country and sparked protests demanding accountability and justice.
Yet even in the face of such horror, investigations were plagued by allegations of evidence tampering, unreliable witnesses, and delayed action. In the midst of these protests, another woman—a nurse returning home from a rally demanding justice-was herself raped.
It raises a disturbing question: how many times must the same story repeat before society confronts the system that allows it to continue?
The words and works of God is quite clear, that women were made either to be wives or prostitutes
-Martin Luther
History is filled with statements that reduce women to objects, property, or moral symbols rather than human beings. While the language may have changed, the underlying attitudes have not completely disappeared.
One of the most horrifying modern examples comes from France.
Gisèle Pelicot spent years unknowingly being drugged by her husband, Dominique Pelicot. While she was unconscious, he allegedly invited dozens of men to rape her, recording the assaults and storing thousands of images and videos.
For years, she believed she was suffering from memory loss or illness because of unexplained symptoms like exhaustion, hair loss, and weight changes. The truth was far worse.
When the crimes were uncovered, she made the extraordinary decision to waive her right to anonymity and confront the case publicly in court. Her reason was simple: silence protects abusers, not victims.
Her courage forces us to confront a painful reality. Violence against women is not limited to strangers in dark alleys. It can exist inside homes, marriages, and trusted relationships.
“One hundred women are not worth a single testicle”
-Confucius
The persistence of these attitudes becomes visible again and again in modern headlines.
Just days before the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, an Australian tourist reported being gang raped by multiple men. France records tens of thousands of rape cases each year, and a significant proportion involve minors. These statistics are not just numbers. They represent lives permanently altered by violence.
The question that remains is painfully simple.
How many more women must be assaulted, silenced, and disbelieved before the world takes this crisis seriously? How many more victims must be dismissed as exaggerating, lying, or being “too emotional”?
For generations, women were told to endure quietly. To whisper their pain behind closed doors. To accept injustice with patience and politeness.
That era is ending.
Women today are refusing to stay silent. They are demanding accountability, demanding safety, and demanding a world where violence against women is not treated as an unfortunate but inevitable reality.
A world where women can pursue their careers without fear of becoming the next headline.
A world where traveling, protesting, or simply walking home does not carry the constant risk of violence.
A world where partners cannot secretly turn a home into a prison of abuse.
This conversation is not about statistics or headlines alone. It is about human lives that deserve dignity, safety, and justice.
And the stories of these women must never become just another forgotten footnote in history.
We will not stay silent.
We will not accept excuses.
And we will not pretend this problem belongs to the past.
She is not “dressed like a slut.”
You are thinking like a rapist.
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