Rape culture is reinforced by law as well as attitudes. Until the 1970s, every US state allowed a husband to rape his wife without criminal penalty; all 50 states had criminalized marital rape by 1993. Until 2012, the FBI's definition of rape covered only forced vaginal intercourse with a woman, which left out many assaults.
Race has always shaped whose assault is taken seriously. Under slavery, raping an enslaved woman was not treated as a crime. Black women's accusations were routinely dismissed, as when white men who assaulted Recy Taylor in Alabama in 1944 were never indicted. At the same time, false accusations against Black men were used to justify lynching.
Challenging rape culture means changing how institutions respond: believing survivors, ending victim blaming, testing backlogged rape kits and teaching consent. The Me Too movement, founded by Tarana Burke in 2006, centered Black and brown survivors.