We find it useful to begin a discussion of rape culture from a context that is less personally threatening. A historical introduction is one way to do this, while at the same time providing students with the necessary understanding of how deeply-rooted the institutions, ideas and practises supporting gender- based cultural violence are.

It is also important to not reinforce simplistic dualities of guilt and innocence or female victims and male perpetrators. One way to start is to examine how men are harmed by the violence done on the women they care about, but we certainly go even deeper and explore the devastating impact of hyper-masculinity on men, and on the women and men in their lives. Discussions of male on male rape (and the gendered messages they carry to to the victim), as well as women’s own complicity in upholding patriarchal ideas and practices and their capacity to engage in gender-based violence are also important. 

This is not about encouraging a relativist “everyone’s responsible, so no one is” perspective; degrees of responsibility and agency vary to be sure, and this should be drawn out through the material being studied and not simply by the students themselves-