Victim blaming vs advice

[Lace Neil Singer]

http://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromoso...m_blaming_for/

Good article, made me think. There's a big difference between telling people, "You deserve to be raped cuz of your actions" and giving them advice on how to stay safe, like "Don't get into unmarked taxi cabs, don't go home with a stranger and don't drink so much you become insensible." In a perfect world, a woman would be safe wherever she is, but sadly in the world we have now, people are not nice.

I wonder why it became the norm to lean towards telling young men to respect young women, and not telling young women to respect themselves. When I was a teenager, the onus was on the woman to keep herself safe; now, the balance has skewed right over to telling men not to commit rape. Surely there's a happy medium?

[BlaqueKatt]

http://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromoso...m_blaming_for/
I wonder why it became the norm to lean towards telling young men to respect young women, and not telling young women to respect themselves. When I was a teenager, the onus was on the woman to keep herself safe; now, the balance has skewed right over to telling men not to commit rape. Surely there's a happy medium?

It skewed because as was pointed out in the comments 80% of rapes are acquaintance rapes, less that 2% are forcible stranger rapes, and this example

[Rageaholic]

I remember a couple of months ago, there were a group of college students who invented this solution that detected date rape drugs in drinks. A small, but vocal minority of feminist extremists took offense to this because they thought it perpetuated rape culture.

I mean, yeah, I get that victim blaming is assholish and counterproductive. When someone is the victim of something, the last thing they need is to be told that they were stupid. But these extremists need to understand the difference between "What were you thinking walking around at night?" and "Bring pepper spray to protect yourself".

I wonder why it became the norm to lean towards telling young men to respect young women, and not telling young women to respect themselves. When I was a teenager, the onus was on the woman to keep herself safe; now, the balance has skewed right over to telling men not to commit rape. Surely there's a happy medium?

Funny thing is that those same feminist extremists who think that being told how to protect themselves is demeaning to women fail to realize the unfortunate implications of "teach men not to rape".

[Gravekeeper]

The third comment down basically blows the whole article out of the water in the vein of what Black is talking about:

It is problematic because it perpetuates the idea of what a real rape is Studies have shown that people have a lot of sympathy with victims of what is perceived as "real rape"; the victim and rapist don't know each other, it happens outside, plenty of violence is used, victim has multiple injuries and victim fights actively back. This does happen, and the common advice given to women probably do, to certain extent, reduce the occurrence of rapes of this type.

What, however, is not taken in count is that statistically speaking this tends to be the most rare case of rape. Hence, the advice is somewhat misplaced. It is like telling someone to be careful when booking a flight but ignore any safety instructions when driving a car. It also serves to keep up the illusion of "rape only happens to stupid/bad/non-careful people". Studies have also shown that many victims who got raped when outside were not coming home from a party through a bad neighbourhood wearing mini skirts. Instead, it was friends having a party and someone in the group raping another person in the same, it was people walking their dogs.

The advice given today is not particularly relevant for what the problem is today Even though stranger-outside rape is not that common this is still where the discussion lies - even when the intent, like yours, is good. And in my opinion this is a huge problem. You don't avoid getting raped by a friend, friend of a friend, partner or family member by not walking home alone, thinking about what you wear (which, some studies argue, isn't even a factor as we think of it as for choosing a victim).

It seems like a common reaction to rape by someone you know is to not recognize it as rape and blaming one self for it on a whole different level. You did everything you were advised against - except you didn't do anything the next person wouldn't have. You were alone with the person, perhaps you were drunk, maybe the to-be-rapist offered to take you home so that you would be safe. The victim basically trusts the wrong person and it is extremely counter-productive and down-right ignorant to say "you shouldn't have trusted him".

I don't have a solution to how to avoid this and that's why I think it is extremely important to discuss this! But every time rape comes up its about psychos luring in a park. It is very rarely about the most common rapist who is someone you know and mistaken for being a decent human being. And maybe they are, outside of the rape. And I've come to suspect that "teach rapists not to rape" is an attempt - albeit not that clear one - to discuss the currently typical type of rapists who are not distinguishable from the Good Guy Gregs out there.

When I was a teenager the onus was on me to not be a rapey asshole and to respect women and consent. But I was raised by a single mother and also grew up in the Canuckistan education system where consent is part of the sex ed curriculum.

I had two friends in high school who were sexually assaulted.

One was by an older male she thought she could trust. Though for the record he was not successful and she actually burst one of his testicles by grabbing and twisting. So one point for self defense guess anyway. However, the other point is that this was someone she thought she knew well and trusted. In a location that should have been safe for her.

The other friend I had who was almost sexually assaulted it was the same scenario. Someone she thought she could trust ( a family friend ) in a location she should have been safe in ( her own home. ). She was more fortunate in that she told her family and put an end to that before anything more serious happened.

Conversely, as far as guys in high school go, we knew too. I mean, we knew who the 2 guys in our grade who were grabby/disrespectful/possibly rapey and we would tell you if one of them was starting in on you. If someone is like that chances are one of his male acquaintances has seen the behaviour before. As that kind of guy tends to think other guys are on his side so to speak.

[cindybubbles]

To me, this means that the woman should absolutely know what she's getting into (BDSM, gentle sex or just cuddling), be sober and be relatively drug-free. That means no illegal drugs, and only prescription drugs that are prescribed for her and not for someone else. No mind-altering drugs allowed, though, unless, of course, they have been prescribed for her and her alone and unless she is VERY CAREFUL with her dosage and schedule.

She also needs to be of age before she can give her informed consent to sex.

If these men went out all of the time with their mothers, and did all of this disgusting stuff in front of dear old Mom, what would SHE say?

[Andara Bledin]

The reason that people go into victim blaming is that if it is somehow the victim's fault, then the person doing the blaming will never be in the victim's shoes because they will never do whatever it was the victim did to become a victim.

It's a defense mechanism used by those who are mentally unable to deal with the fact that the world at large is a cold and harsh and largely random place in which we can do everything precisely as we're supposed to and still end up dead or maimed through no fault of our own.

Then there's the subset of people who are either bigots (sexist or racist, most commonly) or who are, themselves, the type of people who would commit or cause such an act. They're victim blaming because it's more acceptable than being apologists.

As for advice after the fact, it's much better to give the victim advice on how to recover and heal and save the advice on how to avoid such a situation for another audience. Telling someone who has been victimized what they should have done to avoid it isn't generally helpful and is more akin to rubbing salt in the wound.

[HYHYBT]

Especially when what they "should have done" amounts either to mind reading or to trusting nobody at all; that's no way to live.

[s_stabeler]

it depends on what you do. For example, suggesting someone carry pepper spray in future probably isn't victim-blaming- unless they say it "You should have carried pepper spray". Same applies to things like that solution that detects date rape drugs.

[Canarr]

Unfortunately, that doesn't really matter - in the end, both sound the same. "Well, when you go out in the future, carry pepperspray!" translates just as easily to, "If you had carried pepperspray, maybe you wouldn't have been raped!" as "You should have carried pepperspray!" does.

Giving advice to people who haven't been victims of crime is good and sensible. Giving the same advice to people who have already been victimized easily blurs into "rubbing it in" - that goes for rape, assault, robbery, theft, burglary... the list is long.

That said, there are quite a few sensible suggestions in the comments of the article - advice going towards situational awareness, red flags in behavior, trusting one's instincts, not being afraid to be considered "rude" or "confrontational" by setting boundaries and enforcing them. That is good advice that many people will find useful.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Just to get things clear, I'm in no way supporting advice after the fact. That is pointless and also not very helpful to victims. However, I fail to see how advising young people to respect themselves, take care when they're out and about and to trust their instincts in regard to relationships equals victim blaming. All it's doing is allowing people to have some control over the situation and not give all the power to prevent an attack to the attacker.

For example; to avoid your house burning down, you're generally given advice to not leave candles alight, to switch off fires etc before you go to bed and to not smoke in the house. That doesn't mean that if someone's house burns down that they're to blame, just that an ounce of prevention goes a long way to shorten the odds.

[Canarr]

Just to get things clear, I'm in no way supporting advice after the fact. That is pointless and also not very helpful to victims. However, I fail to see how advising young people to respect themselves, take care when they're out and about and to trust their instincts in regard to relationships equals victim blaming. All it's doing is allowing people to have some control over the situation and not give all the power to prevent an attack to the attacker.

Absolutely agree with you there, no question. My post was in response to s_stabeler's post above; sorry if that wasn't clear.

It's important to be aware of your surroundings and the situation you are in - whether you're a woman or a man doesn't really matter much, here. That shouldn't go so far as to turn into paranoia, but a certain degree of care should be taken.

[Lace Neil Singer]

A friend of mine put it quite well. Her take was that not taking steps to protect yourself either out and about or within a relationship was the equivalent of walking thru a rough part of town waving wads of cash around. If you're mugged, it's not your fault but you could have done things to make it less likely to happen. That's not victim blaming; just common sense.

[Canarr]

I've been following Google links on the subject a bit - of course, there's a lot, and it's along the entire spectrum. From the normal, common sense, ideas... to the batshit insane:

http://witchwind.wordpress.com/2013/...lways-rape-ok/

[TheHuckster]

(From Canarr's link)

"The reason we have a vagina is because if we are pregnant, the baby can come out. It’s the physical function of the vagina. There is no other way for the baby to come out than through the vagina, that’s the way it is, it’s natural. Biology ordered it that way. On the other hand, PIV isn’t natural, it’s an action done by men to us. They can choose not to do it, it isn’t necessary. There are many other ways of becoming pregnant than through penetration of the penis into the vagina. For instance, putting sperm on the vulva is enough to become pregnant. Women, if they wanted to become pregnant, could just ask a man for some sperm and apply it herself."

The image of a couple doing this gives me the giggles.

I like how she claims PIV is not natural because it's painful, yet pregnancy and childbirth is natural because that's what the vagina's purpose is... nevermind for the vast majority of women, childbirth is far more painful than intercourse... at least if you're doing it right.

[Canarr]

I like how she claims PIV is not natural because it's painful, yet pregnancy and childbirth is natural because that's what the vagina's purpose is... nevermind for the vast majority of women, childbirth is far more painful than intercourse... at least if you're doing it right.

I tried to follow the logic, but gave up quickly. It hurts. It really, really hurts. How on Earth an (apparently) intelligent, educated person can put forth... this... as a reasonable theory is completely beyond me. It doesn't make sense. At all.