Your above claim that women fail in not saying  to themselves, "I don't want to be raped tonight. Therefore, I am going to do everything in my power to make sure this doesn't happen." Wow. Will not respond.

 'Rape culture.' What you're not getting is that 'culture' in that phrase does not refer to the WHOLE of society but to a SUBsection of it, as we might refer to a corporate culture or musical subculture.  'Rape' in the phrase is a strident rhetorical tag that puts a grim face on everything from unwanted gropes in offices to full on rape because women are sick of that spectrum of actions and want it to stop.  But by all means, dwell on the denotative particulars and miss the point and strategy of the phrase.  If a woman I knew got groped at work (or worse) and didn't use what I thought was the apt phrase? I'd concern myself with the problem, not her choice of words in describing it. The columnist spoke out, knowing she'd get heat, and you parsed her words, negatively. Well done...?