"blaming the victim"

In My Humble Opinion
81

Men have to do things to increase their earning potential like repairing equipment inside hot, noisy, dirty factories where deadly hazards like high voltage power cables, hot vats of chemicals, and so on exist. Jobs where there is an explicit risk - where the equipment has to be worked on live, where the safety railings are worn and in poor condition - frequently pay more than jobs where everything is low risk and perfectly OSHA compliant. There is a huge pay premium to working offshore oil rigs for basically this reason. (despite the fact that the oil companies have a lot of money to buy safety equipment, the actual rig is often handling enough hydrocarbons to incinerate everybody on the rig if something goes wrong, and it’s in the ocean, and there are long falls and rusty metal and confined spaces and all sorts of other inherent hazards that no amount of safety equipment can eliminate)

Is dying or getting permanently maimed better or worse than being raped? I can’t answer that but from a “what can you physically do after the traumatic event” perspective, it sounds like rape is a lot better than ending up paralyzed, dead, or missing a hand.

There are communities online where men vent about this, because complaining about the risk of rape sounds whiney if you contrast it with the risk of severe burns and/or death. Similarly, virtually no women are willing to work these jobs. The extra 30% pay isn’t worth it to them. Yet, those same women then whine that statistically they make a bit less than men…

82

Wait. Are those my options? This choosing a gender thing is getting tricky.

Unless you intended it as just a complete non sequitur. In which case, my apologies.

83

I’d like to read the article entitled “College guys, stop getting drunk”, where it frames drunkeness in terms of rape. I (as well as all the college guys who are this very moment are getting drunk) must have missed it.

84

But, a scenario in which neither men nor women drink to excess is the safest scenario of them all. But men are not asked to keep things to “two drinks, no shots” (or, to account for the body mass difference, lets say three drinks, no shots). So my question to you is this: Do you think it’s because we have a cultural history of expecting women to be the more moral, controlled sex? Do you think women are more moral, more controlled, and are better at keeping sober in a party situation that a man of the same age?

Does the idea of asking a 20 year old male to abstain from getting wasted with his frat buddies strike you as silly or unrealistic?

85

Women, throughout history, have died in childbirth at astounding rates. Even with the ultra modern medical advances in 2013, worldwide a total of 293,000 women died giving birth. Imagine a hundred years ago. Imagine five hundred years ago. And yet, there are still communities of men online, whining that they don’t get equal custody rights…

Oh, I’m sorry. Was this completely irrelevant to the thread? Yes, yes it was.

86

I’m guessing a guy who turns down a beer for fear of being a rapist (or being raped, robbed, or physically assaulted) would hear a lot more shit from his friends than a girl turning down a beer for fear of being raped.

Just like a girl who asks someone to escort her to her car isn’t ridiculed, but a guy who makes that same request isn’t so lucky.

So I think it is really guys who need more training in risk aversion than women do. Women hear “BE CAREFUL!!” the moment they step foot into the world. While men are often raised to think only women are vulnerable and that “BE CAREFUL!” is for wussies.

87

Unless, of course, you are uncouth enough to let a guy realize he is the one taking precautions against-that you always leave the office with the next to next to last person so as not to work late with man, which includes him, or that you come up with excuses not to ride in his car alone even though it’d make the most sense with an odd size group traveling somewhere with two cars, or you insist that you aren’t really needed on a business trip ve ause it’d just be you and he, and you barely know him. Then you are treating him le a potential rapist and mortally insulting him.

88

So true.

I’ve told this story before, but here it is again. My father–who is fundamentally no different from all the other fathers who have posted on this thread, in that he wants her daughters to always be careful and never do anything that could attract the “wrong” guy–once told me that he gets very angry when he tries to do nice things for women and they give him the cold shoulder. Nice things like offering to take their grocery carts back to the corral for them. He said, “They always look at me like I’m a serial killer! Guys can’t be nice to women anymore without them giving them the stinky eye! It’s not like they’re that attractive anyway!” (Then he went on to disparage black women, because in his narrow mind this is only a black woman thing. But I digress…)

I promptly let him know that I’m the same way when strange men offer assistance, except that I don’t give them a stink eye exactly. I just say no thank you and keep on walking, just like I do with Jehovah’s Witnesses and people trying to sell things. Because I don’t want to deal with “nice guys”. Nice guys turn out to be stalkers–who suddenly start popping up everywhere, wanting to do more nice things for you even when you tell them to go away. Nice guys think handing over your shopping cart is an invitation for something more–and not just dinner and a movie. Nice guys sometimes end up being the guy who shoves you into your car, with tragedy ensuing. And of course, often times nice guys are just guys who just want to help out a nice lady. But if you’re thinking about personal safety, as my father wants me to always do, you can’t afford to make allowances for “just this one time”. Because that’s when shit happens.

When I told my father this, he seemed to understand. The idea that his daughter might be friendly with an dirty old man and get hurt in the process brought it home to him. But I’m guessing he still has a hard time imagining how he could come off looking like a “dirty old man” just by offering to help someone in a parking lot.

89

  1. If you note my example did not include telling my daughter “do not ever walk alone” … indeed the risk there is exaggerated because our popular consciousness is so much more comfortable with the unknown boogieman causing harm. Specifically my advice included “be aware” and that “most are not rapes by boogiemen but someone the woman knows and may have even been dating but who forces sex without consent often with the aid of alcohol and/or drugs.”

  2. In point of fact long before my boys went off to college, and while in, we have had multiple conversations about the dangers of binge drinking as well, but the risk to them of being a sexual assault victim are much less, and not part of their conversation. And amazingly I am more likely to consider and worry about the possibility of my kids being victims than of them being perps. That said we have also had conversations about “hooking up” culture and current sexual etiquette. And I wonder if it might be a good idea for parents to have conversations with their boys entering the adult world not only on healthy relationships but the risk to them of getting themselves into a situation which could result in an accusation of rape and the consequences if an arbitrary school board decides that there is anything over a 50% chance that their version of events is not true and there was anything less than full mutual consent. Hooking up in a context involving alcohol or drugs is risky in many many ways.

  3. Rape Prevention. The big picture is of course larger than my talking to my kids. And silly ass handbooks that focus on boogiemen. I am with the CDC here:

Males and females, straights and gays and bis, need to be targeted all, and before college-aged and even more so if not going to college as non-college environments are of greater risk than college ones. (I am sure that experts can come up with better campaigns to young men than my imagined “No means no, bros.” and “If you don’t hear 'yes” do not undress.")

Hey I get that it is “unfair” that young women need to worry about being victims of sexual assault more than young men do. And that it sticks in the craw of some parents to have to tell their daughters abut how to deal with the unfair reality. But that is the world. The parallel I am thinking of is the fact that it is horrible that we live in a society in which a young Black man has to advised by his parents to behave differently around police than he would if he was a young White man, that he is at greater risk of violence from police than a young White man is. A young Black man in a hoodie killed by police afraid that his reaching for his driver’s license was him reaching for a gun is not “at fault” … but dang if I had a teen-aged Black son I’d still want to have a talk about the risks of our unfair world and hope that he acts in a way aware of that risk and minimizes it. The world has risks that unjustly and unfairly fall on some and not others and while we can and should address the root causes, alter the culture that creates the perps, punish the perps, it is not offensive of a parent to discuss how to lower the risk of becoming a victim to my child at increased risk in this unjust fucked up world.

90

A few random thoughts on this topic:

(1) Far and away the worst possible kind of victim blaming would be actually trying to deflect legal responsibility away from the attacker… ie, presenting the victim’s dress or presence at a frat as evidence which lessens the likelihood of conviction, or lessens the severity of a sentence. I hope this doesn’t happen any more, but I’ve heard of it happening in the not-too-distant past.

I also think that a lot of people bristle at any language suggesting that the victim’s choices may have been partially responsible because it implies a lessening of responsibility for the actual attacker, but I don’t think it has to. Someone who commits a rape is 100% responsible for that decision, which is true whether the victim was cautiously observing every last risk-mitigation-behavior or not. Responsibility in that sense isn’t a zero sum game

(2) Another key point to me is the difference between discussing this and related topics in the abstract, and talking about them to an actual victim in the aftermath of an actual attack. I may think that it’s a terrible mistake for any girl drink even the slighest amount at one of the football team’s post-game parties, and I may choose to vigorously debate that issue on a message board or in some advisory literature or what have you, but that doesn’t mean that, if I were talking to a woman who had just gone to one of the football team’s post-game parties and been raped, I would immediately (or ever) bring up her actions.

But I think it’s certainly wrong to treat what we’re doing in this thread as just part and parcel of telling an actual recent rape victim why she really has no one to blame but herself.

(3) Many women have said something in this thread along the lines of “do you really think we don’t already know all that advice?”, to which my response is, well, everyone had to learn that stuff for the first time at some point. If advice is important, then you have to communicate it frequently in lots of different media, to ensure that it gets to people who haven’t yet heard it. That will inevitably result in people hearing it over and over and over again. That doesn’t strike me as a cohesive argument against every giving that advice at all. Should we just stop telling people that smoking is bad for them? After all, everyone has heard it a zillion times.

(4) Manda Jo posted this:

I’d like to think that that’s hyperbole. The first thing out of everyone’s mouth? If nothing else, I would have thought that several decades of raising-awareness-about-victim-blaming would cause a fair number of people not to say anything of that sort out loud, even if they were thinking it. On the other hand, this may be a case of my male privilege. So… I’m curious to what extent other people agree that the problem is as all-encompassing and pervasive and Manda Jo is describing it.

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I’m pretty sure it happens in all prominent rape prosecutions–or it contributes to would-be prosecutions not happening.

This doesn’t quite make sense, you know. If the rapist is “100% responsible,” by definition, that has to mean that nobody else has any responsibility. Percentages are zero-sum.

How is it different? You think actual rape victims aren’t reading this? Potential future rape victims? Potential future rapists? Every time this old, old line of thinking is argued again, in any context that isn’t purely private, it is reinforcing the culture of victim-blaming.

So yeah, Mando Jo is pretty much right. The problem is so pervasive that the people who are themselves perpetuating it can’t even see it.

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And–in line with what I said about would-be prosecutions–potential prosecutors and jurors. Or, people who talk to all of the above.

There is no such thing as an “abstract” public debate on the subject. The ideas you put out and pass around, have consequences.

93

Yep. And as with almost everything gender-related, one’s initial orientation to the issue determines how they see just about everything that relates to the subject. Is it OK to talk with a family member or close friend about risks? Obviously yes, and how would that become a matter of public debate, anyway? So is that the context in which the issue of victim-blaming ever comes up? Not to my knowledge. There are obvious differences between that and pretty much every context in which the issue does come up, which seems like it should be important.

Meanwhile Habeed’s up there literally saying that domestic violence is caused by women who seek out people who will beat them up, in the middle of a conversation where a larger group of people are essentially saying that real victim blaming never happens, and why do we make such a big deal out of a parent who wants to tell his preteen daughter to be aware of her surroundings. And DSeid’s confused by all the strawmen, presumably because he’s never heard anyone say anything like what Habeed just said.

I am sure that to almost everybody participating in the thread, the things they’re arguing just seem obvious and inevitable based on their own life experiences. It’s weird how hard it is to try to reorient and look at this stuff any other way.

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An important observation. Those life experiences make some things that to Person A are bloody obvious no-brainer truths self-evident, be not so to Person B, without need for malice. And merely saying “you’re wrong, here’s the truth” does not magically change that. It takes longer than we think.

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No not because of that.

The idea that other conversation cannot be had because there have been stupid comments made by others is to me a bit idiotic.

The idea that one cannot have a broader (even abstract) discussion about risks and risk reduction at a variety of levels of analysis because a rape victim might read it and take it as blaming her also seems very dumb and counterproductive.

The idea that discussing the subject of reducing risk becomes verboten lest anything be taken as offending someone or of blaming a (potential or past) victim is not a useful one.

Having an adult conversation that addresses what we can do at various levels to reduce the problem of sexual assault of young women in our society (a significant public health issue) is something that must be able to occur even if some victims (and offenders, some of whom may not even think of themselves as offenders) might be uncomfortable with the conversation. Yes that includes the systems level discussion (primary prevention with High School level outreach … yes, comes off a bit abstract), doing a better job discussing the risks associated with binge drinking and drug use, in this context related to sexual activity and the risk of sexual assault and of being accused of assault … males need to hear that a drunken hook up is not only wrong because the female is not actually giving consent that counts if she was impaired, but risky for them because even if they hear a “Boy. Let’s go screw!” it may not be remembered. Not even considering that if he is drunk he might be mishearing “Boy, I’ve had a few!” And young adult females need to be aware of the risks, that they are not small, and that getting shit-faced places them at disproportionate risks that males have to worry less about. Sucks but that is the way it is.

Avoiding having conversations has consequences as well.

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I didn’t say “cause”. But, if you read accounts of actual DV survivors who are honest, in many cases the hitting didn’t just come out of the blue and was part of a pattern of behavior. I knew a girl who eventually took a few whacks before leaving, but she (1) choose a violent man who she knew had PTSD from Iraq, *knew *had operated a machine gun over there and literally mowed other men down (well, ok, more probable that he just fired a few thousand rounds in their direction and doesn’t know if he ever hit anyone), *knew *he was on anti-psychotics, during early fights in their relationship he would yell at her and punch holes in the wall next to her head.

She stayed and married him. It’s not like she didn’t have other choices.

Are you going to say she is blameless? That 100% of the fault is on the man?

Domestic violence isn’t the same as rape, but (1) it is easier to talk about than rape and (2) similar “don’t blame the victim” bullshit arguments get made. Nobody’s saying the victim is solely responsible, just that a substantial portion of the responsibility (less than 50%, more than negligible) is theirs.

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For those of who you are just bewildered about where the rest of us got the idea that people like this exist anywhere: here you go.

98

Attack the post, not the poster. Let me rephrase using something unrelated to women. You’re saying if you go walk the street in a high crime area at 2 am while drunk and with money hanging out of your wallet, you will feel totally blameless when you get beaten and or mugged.

If you travel to Somalia and drive around unescorted in a rented range rover, and you are robbed, you believe you are totally blameless, or that the blame is not substantial.

When I say “less than 50% but more than negligible”, I’m saying that (1) yes, when it comes to a court proceeding, finding the rapist more than 50% responsible for a rape, when such proceeding is held years later, is sufficient to punish them, assuming that the evidence is sufficient to find the rapist guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. (2) The victim probably still screwed up, and should probably modify his/her behavior if he/she wants to minimize the chance of a rape in the future. Sure, once in a blue moon someone gets jumped while walking to their car and raped, just like you can get run over on the highway when you do things perfectly. This isn’t the normal cause of an accident, however.

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Yes, I would say “totally blameless” and “entirely not responsible for.” When there is a voluntary bad actor who actually perpetrated harm, then the blame and responsibility are 100 percent with that voluntary bad actor.

Even if we were to say “engaged in behaviors that increased certain risks,” that still does not equate to a share of blame or responsibility.

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I’m not attacking you or your post. You’re just one of the very few in this forum with the courage of your convictions when it comes to victim-blaming, and it’s useful to have you here as an example.