Rape Culture, Institutional Betrayal, and the Erosion of our Democracy

By Dr. Sarah Harsey
Assistant Professor of Psychology, Oregon State University – Cascades

It has been nearly one year since the 2024 US presidential election. As we approach this anniversary, I find myself overwhelmed by the current administration's actions. ICE’s mass detention and deportation of community members (including US citizens), the illegal deployments of military troops to US cities, and the wave of executive orders seeking to erase transgender people’s identities and access to gender-affirming care are horrifying. Equally chilling are the continual attacks on higher education, research, and free speech.

Many of these actions are unprecedented and are significant forms of institutional betrayal. Unsurprisingly, discourse about whether the US is hurtling towards autocracy, authoritarianism, or fascism is growing.

How did we get here? While there are many reasons why a majority of American voters opted for the current president and, consequently, a weaker democracy, one explanation stands out to me: rape culture. First identified by second-wave feminists, rape culture describes social environments in which sexual violence is denied, minimized, and implicitly (or even explicitly) permitted to occur. In environments like this, perpetrators successfully employ DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) and rarely face accountability.

For too long, rape culture has permeated our political institutions. When misogyny, exploitation of power, and lack of accountability are normalized through the sociopolitical environment that rape culture creates, a permission structure for impunity becomes standard. Within the realm of politics, allegations are therefore summarily dismissed or downplayed, and attempts to hold sexual offenders accountable are reframed as unjust partisan attacks. As a result, individuals with alleged histories of sexual misconduct are elevated to powerful offices.

The way rape culture has been allowed to shape our political landscape in ways that undermine core democratic principles is a stark institutional betrayal by the US government. But there is a way forward – institutional courage offers a course of action for both elected officials and citizens to follow that addresses the harms caused by institutional betrayal.

Individuals with power in our governmental institutions must do:

• Acknowledge and take responsibility for harm. Lawmakers must condemn wrongdoing loudly, persistently, and publicly instead of minimizing or concealing it.

• Commit to transparency. Ensuring open records, independent reviews, and clear communication about decision-making processes promotes accountability in governmental processes.

• Protect whistleblowers. When individuals in the government speak truth to power, strong non-retaliation policies must be enacted in order to protect those who expose misconduct.

• Reward moral courage. A key aspect of institutional courage is taking risks for the sake of doing the right thing. Recognizing and promoting leaders who act ethically, even when it carries political costs, encourages behavior that prioritizes the health of the institution over reputation and personal attainment.

What we, the public, must do:

• Demand oversight and transparency. One way to do this is to support journalism, watchdog organizations, and reforms that strengthen institutional accountability.

• Listen to survivors. Rape culture and other systems of harm thrive on the negligence of survivors. Listening to and amplifying the voices of survivors takes power away from individuals who benefit from such systems.

• Model moral courage in our communities. Much like our lawmakers, we must also speak out against denial, retaliation, and harm—even when doing so is uncomfortable.

• Educate our leaders. We can educate our elected officials about institutional betrayal and institutional courage, and urge them to integrate these principles into policy and practice.

These concrete steps, adapted from Jennifer Freyd’s 12 steps of institutional courage, compel us to act with courage and root out both rape culture and anti-democratic processes within our government. By taking action, we can better fight for a society that protects democracy and dismantles the systems of harm that erode it.