… is Worth a Pound of Victim Blaming
I’m going to start this post out by saying that this is entirely my opinion, and the way I process things in my head. I know that not all rapes are about what you’re wearing, and that in many cases the only thing one could have done to prevent it from happening is to have stayed home (and even then that’s not a guarantee), but there are some scenarios where a rape could have been prevented, and it’s these situations I’m talking about. I am never going to blame a rape victim for being raped, because that is a horrible event that no person should ever have to experience.
There are a few things that I want to touch on, and I’ll start with what you’re wearing. You absolutely have every right to wear what you want. That’s one of the fantastic things about living in the United States; having that freedom. However, like just about everything else, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Should you have every right to wear a micro skirt and tube top out to the club? Absolutely! Is it a bright idea to do that when you’re going to be drinking and possibly leaving to go home alone? Probably not so much. While you may be the most morally sound and nicest person in the world, if you dress like you’re looking for a quickie behind the bar, you’re most likely going to be treated like you’re looking for a quickie behind the bar. This stands true for just about everything, though, whether it’s the color of your hair, having piercings or tattoos, or choosing to wear pajamas to the Opera. How you dress sends out an impression of who you are, even if you’re only dressing that way for fun.
Now that you may have rethought your outfit a little bit, let’s talk about how you’re getting home. Obviously, the best way to do things if you’re going to be drinking is to arrive in a group, stay in that group, and have that whole group leave together to go back to one single location. And obviously again, this isn’t always how things work out. Keep an eye on your surroundings while you’re out, and keep an eye on your drinks (alcoholic or not) if you’re not in a group. If you’re at the bar, going to the grocery store, or even going to the library, you should still pay close attention to your surroundings, especially if you’re walking somewhere alone. If you’re out at the club, and you’ve been doing a lot of drinking, you should call somebody for a ride rather than trying to walk home alone. If you do have to walk, do your absolute best to stay in bright, well lit areas with a lot of people. I know cutting through that dark alley will save you 20 minutes, but it could also set you up for a world of trouble that you don’t really want. I know that this isn’t always feasible, but if you have to walk through an area that seems a bit sketchy to you, you shouldn’t do it alone, if you can help it.
Drinking and other possible recreational drug use has been a very hot button issue on the topic of rape and sexual assault for a long time. On the one hand, you said yes. On the other hand, you probably weren’t in any state to be legally consenting to anything. This is another really touchy issue for me to form an opinion on, because I find it often changes based on the specific situation being discussed. Has alcohol been used in the past to ply a “yes” out of somebody who initially said “no?” I have no doubts whatsoever, and that’s a super shitty thing to do. However something I have seen happen alarmingly frequently, and what I take most issue with, are the women who have gone out for a night of fun, had a bit to drink, agreed to sexual activity after both partners were intoxicated, then cried rape after waking up in the morning and regretting their decision. I know women who have done it, and it really bothers me. That falls into the category of “oops, didn’t want to make a drunken hookup, and I should learn from this situation”, where you should just admit a mistake was made, figure out how to learn from it, and adjust your actions in the future to avoid repeating it. I can see how a drunken hookup would make a largely negative impact if you had ended up being unfaithful in a relationship, or you were embarrassed and word got out anyway, but crying rape is not the way to handle it. You may think your life is ruined and over because of a bad hookup or two, but crying rape or sexual assault when you still made the decision to engage in sexual activity ruins the other person’s life for a lot longer. Being raped or assaulted is something that should be taken seriously, and is not an excuse for cheating.
I know that I haven’t talked about all of the different situations that one could be assaulted in, but I don’t really think I need to. My goal was more to share my thoughts and feelings on a few of the things that come up nearly every time somebody is assaulted, whether it’s their fault or not. And for the record, I don’t believe fault with rape lies with anybody but the rapist. However, I will think of things that could have possibly been done differently to try and prevent the situations. I know there’s no point in telling a victim what they could have done differently. It happened, and now all they can do is try and heal from it, and telling them “you should have done this” or “you shouldn’t have done that” isn’t going to do a single productive thing for the healing process. I know my opinions aren’t often in the majority in regards to this particular topic, but I appreciate you taking the time to read them all the same.
[box]What do you think? Let us know in comments or write a post of your own! We’d love to hear what you have to say.[/box]
That Queer Poet
So you start off this post, saying you aren’t blaming the victim, then go on to explain various flawed “techniques” that women can use to avoid rape, thereby implying that if they don’t do these things and get raped, it is their fault. This article is the very definition of victim blaming.
The first bit of flawed advice, is encouraging women to dress more modestly, if they’re going to be drinking. Rapists are actually more likely to look for women dressed modestly, and who are more introverted, because they are less likely to report a rape. Also, the majority of rape victims know their attacker. Various safety tips like avoiding dark alleys, don’t generally help women avoid getting raped. Mugged maybe, but not raped.
Also your bit about women falsely reporting rapes, is a highly over-played phenomenon. Because of the victim blaming like your article, women don’t want to report rapes, so if they do, there’s a pretty good chance they actually were. It may seem to an outside party that it is just a regretted drunken hookup, but in many cases it was actually date rape. The woman may have even agreed to let the man into her house, but when she refused to have sex with him, he raped her. This pervasive idea that men “deserve” sex creates situations where a rape may have occurred, and the rapist didn’t even think of it as a rape.
If you want to prevent rape, you need to encourage the rapists to change their behavior. In short, we need to be talking to men, not women. Rape is not some force of nature, like a hurricane, that as long as women buy storm windows and dress modestly, then they’ll be safe. Rape is something that real men are doing, and can be taught not to do, if we’re willing to focus our rape education on them, instead of on the victims.
Vegan silk
@that queer poet. thank you. I am far to angry to respond myself.
Bhevarri
Thank you
Jul!a
I’m not implying that by not doing any of these things they’re to blame for being raped. And I’m not saying that all of the cases where there there was a drunken hookup that that’s all it was and there wasn’t date rape. I’m not even talking about a majority of cases. I’m saying that sometimes, things can be prevented. Not all of the time of course, but sometimes small things can make a difference.
I’m not completely seeing how we can focus all of our efforts on educating the rapists and encouraging just them to change their behavior though. First we’d have to figure out who may be raping people, and then we open ourselves up to a whole bunch of profiling because it isn’t just men that rape people. Women rape and molest too. Maybe not as much as men, but it does happen and saying that we should focus our efforts on “real men” when there are plenty of “real women” who offend too is ridiculous.
Realistically we should be focusing our rape education on everybody; potential victims and potential offenders alike. We don’t try to educate and encourage the change of the behavior of muggers, or car thieves, or serial killers; at least no more often than we do for rapists. Most of the effort is focused on how you can try to protect yourself from being mugged, or having your car stolen, or not being killed. I fail to see how educating people how they can help avoid being in positions that could cause them harm in any way is a bad thing, especially when it comes to rape.
That Queer Poet
Well first of all, as I explained in my original comment, many of the methods that you described don’t actually work. Like dressing more modestly. And yes, I recognize that sometimes women are the perpetrators of rape. We should be educating everybody about what rape is, and the importance of consent. I imagine a great many rapists don’t even realize that they are, because they are so indoctrinated by the rape culture that we live in.
Yes, we don’t try to educate muggers and murderers to change their behavior, but maybe we should be. Being aware of your situation, and being safe while out and about are definitely good ideas, no matter what the reason. But the fact of the matter is, a large proportion of rape victims know their attackers, and telling women to avoid dark alleys isn’t going to do much to decrease the rate of rape.
Sarah
The thing is, I think there is far less focus on trying to educate people on how to protect themselves from being mugged, having their car stolen or being murdered as there are “non-victim blaming” articles about how women should prevent their own rapes. Every few months, sometimes more frequently, someone comes up with a new brilliant way to say “Hey ladies! Wear more clothes, walk in large groups, don’t get piss drunk and hang out with skeezy guys! Voila! No more rapes!”
Only it’s not actually that clever or original. In fact, you are pretty much repeating, verbatim, what every other non-victim-blaming-just-trying-to-help-a-woman-out writer has ever written.
Now, had your article focused more on situational awareness and ways to protect yourself if you become the victim of a violent crime of any sort (not just rape) then it might not have come across as blaming the victim. But when you single out rape victims and preach to them about what they should try doing to prevent themselves from being raped while you say that you’re not doing exactly that, it kind of makes it sound like you are doing that and makes people angry.
Jaimes Lee
My hope is that the real point of this article was to advocate situational awareness. We aren’t all Novel Laureates, and it is a difficult thing to step up and eloquently and effectively talk about an issue like rape; especially when you are emphasizing responsibility as part of prevention. While we can’t run out and stop every person that is going to commit this heinous crime, we can stand up and talk about little things that may just help save someone from this horrible experience. If punishment by the law isn’t enough to stop someone from committing rape, then a modest blog article won’t either. I don’t believe this author was trying to lecture anyone about what could have done to prevent what happened to them, but instead, they wanted to talk about how women can try and protect themselves from a few of the different kinds of rape. There are situations that simply can’t be avoided, but there are some that can; and we can either be angry and take no responsibility for our own safety, and then receive due support if something does happen, or, we can be accountable for what we can control, and hopefully prevent the trauma from happening in the first place, but receive the same love and support if, god forbid, it does. A victim is never to blame, and they deserve every ounce of support we have to offer; but as women, we should all take a little responsibility to do what we can to prevent becoming a statistic, because it will make us appreciate those that were not so lucky even more.
We can’t blind ourselves to the fact that there are instances of women who have falsely use the word rape, and it should anger people because it cheapens the trauma of real victims. Yes, it is my grand hope that these instances are few and far between, but we can’t be oblivious to their existence. Once again, this was a tricky issue to touch on, so lets all be at least a little forgiving of one another and assume they had the best possible intentions. No one is here to say that rape isn’t a bad thing, we’re just here to offer support, and hopefully raise a little awareness and prevention.
Kkay
Wording is very important when talking about a topic like this, and I think ‘crying rape’ is a turn of phrase that could have been thought through better.
D Scandal
I definitely agree.
Adriana
I concur. You say you won’t blame the victim but.. then you do.
Hot 'N Sexy TexasMama
I thought you did an excellent job on a touchy subject and I enjoyed reading what you wrote. I admit that I agree with much of what you wrote as far as the clothing, etc. but the part of the article that I thought was especially good was when you talked about being aware of your situation and about being in a group.
No matter how you choose to dress, there generally is safety in numbers and if you go out and know that you will be drinking and have to depend on others for a ride home, then I think you should make sure you have someone that you can depend on with you.
I know I come from a different generation than many folks on Eden – I’m in my 50′s. But I felt your article was well written.
Stormy`
I’m proud of you for voicing your opinion on a highly touchy subject. I could just hear you and I discussing this face to face.
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Smokedawg
The way I’ve read this article is not to blame or to provide perfect advice, but to throw up some cautions and common sense to add to one’s list of things to consider.
Is it new advice? No, but neither are exhortations to wear a seatbelt or not to drink and drive…yet those things must be repeated because, frankly, common sense isn’t always that common.
All I know is that sometime in the next week or two, an article of my own touching on rape and date-rape and responsibility posts here at Eden Cafe, so I guess based on the responses here I’d better get my metaphorical body armor ready…
Wrmbreze
I honestly have had this kind of talk with my daughters. I don’t believe that she was blaming the victim per se but merely stating that you should be aware at all times. I don’t allow my daughters to go out to parties yet but I want them to understand before it ever happens that they also contribute to situational violence possibly without ever realizing it. I have told them to keep an eye on their drink( preferably never have it out of your hand), be aware of who is around them and if you come in a group to leave with that same group. I also have told them to not go anywhere alone if at all possible. If you have to ask a friend to go with you then so be it. Men and women alike can do many things to protect themselves from situations like rape. No it will not prevent all rapes from happening but if it prevents 1 rape from happening I feel like the advise worked.
Wrmbreze
I honestly have had this kind of talk with my daughters. I don’t believe that she was blaming the victim per se but merely stating that you should be aware at all times. I don’t allow my daughters to go out to parties yet but I want them to understand before it ever happens that they also contribute to situational violence possibly without ever realizing it. I have told them to keep an eye on their drink( preferably never have it out of your hand), be aware of who is around them and if you come in a group to leave with that same group. I also have told them to not go anywhere alone if at all possible. If you have to ask a friend to go with you then so be it. Men and women alike can do many things to protect themselves from situations like rape. No it will not prevent all rapes from happening but if it prevents 1 rape from happening I feel like the advice worked.
Wrmbreze
sorry didn’t mean for it to post twice. little computer glitch happened