This seems incredible.
To clarify, are you really asserting that if 100% of women took precautions regularly that the overall rate of rape would not be affected? Or are you just saying that the existence of rape is more important than the rate?
No, I’m talking about the real world, not magical circumstances in which 100% of all people will make good decisions 100% of the time. If we’re talking about fantasy solutions, then I’ll use my mind control powers to eliminate the desire to rape from all people for all time.
In the real world, giving advice to women who already know all this stuff does nothing. Some women will sometimes not make the best decisions all the time, especially when they’re young. This will never ever change as long as humans exist. There will always be victims for rapists to target. The focus of how to prevent rape and reduce the rate of rape should be on the rapists (and potential rapists). Too many young men think it’s okay to do what they want with passed-out drunk women, or feel they are otherwise entitled to intimacy when their partner may not give clear consent. This isn’t satisfactorily emphasized in schools, churches, by parents, etc., and this should change. That’s where efforts to lessen rape should be focused, not on giving women advice that they all know already.
Yours is a council of dispair. you are basically saying that women are powerless in their ability to lessen the chance of rape, and even worse, we shouldn’t even discuss the subject. I don’t buy into that for a single second.
I can get hit by a car driven by an idiot at any point. I can’t personally make them any less of a shit driver but I can certainly watch my speed, watch my safety zone, check the road, keep my car in good condition and make an informed choice regarding the vehicle I choose to purchase.
I can do all of that and recommend that we all do that without it being perceived as a slur or a blaming exercise on the driver that gets hit. According to you I can’t (or shouldn’t) make recommendations of a similar nature regarding sexual assaults and rapes.
Why?
Also dumb: the fact that the people constantly decrying the fact that you aren’t allowed to talk about measures to reduce the incidence of rape and sexual assault are the people the least likely to know or care what actually works to reduce the incidence of rape and sexual assault.
And be entirely undeservedly condescending toward the people who do. You know what the most effective sexual assault prevention advice you can give to women is? Recognize the attitudes and behaviors from men that make them a higher risk to commit a sexual assault, and get the fuck away from them. Those behaviors include sexual entitlement, aggressiveness, tolerance of violent and possessive interpersonal conduct, participation in dominance-favoring social groups or environments, and use and abuse of alcohol and drugs, among other things.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but, in other words: don’t hang around the kind of people who are quick to tell women what they should and shouldn’t do.
I’m struggling to think of any area of human activity where we would not equip people with the knowledge to lessen risk. Seeing as we do live in a world of imperfect actors, human frailties and utter shits.
Now you say that women know this advice already…so do you accept that by heeding that advice they can lessen their own personal chance of rape, yes or no?
If yes, that was good advice was it not and worth giving.
I was illustrating the idea.
But just for you: are you really asserting that if [an additional X%] of women took precautions regularly that the overall rate of rape would not be affected? Or are you just saying that the existence of rape is more important than the rate?
This seems contradictory. There’s no reason to say that there will always be available victims and this will never change, but suddenly deny this same fact when it comes to rapists.
ISTM that what you’re attempting to do here is to malign anyone who maintains the position opposed to yours as a potential rapist.
But just subtle enough to avoid a Warning. Nice work.
In case you missed it originally, I did mention that the boys were given the same rules. They accepted it as part of being safe getting to go out. As time went on they agreed even more with them having heard stories from “buddies”.
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I would think there is a big difference between the loss of mere property and a physical assault on the body. You can replace what is in a wallet or home but you may never be able to repair the damage done from an assault.
That is why we have tried to teach both sexes to be careful with their personal safety because, very unfortunately, there are some bad people out there. We have always tried to explain that is the actions of others that are feared.
What is disappointing is that the girls now view it as a personal attack on them. Despite out best efforts to explain otherwise, it is now slut shaming to them.
So we have stopped saying anything, they have been taught over the years about the scary, demented things some people do. And the best we can hope is that they will show good judgement when the time comes and not end up a statistic.
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I would suggest that 100% and 0% as absolute statements are extreme, and that I doubt that andy really means that, for example, state and national coalitions against rape shouldn’t publicize information about how to make yourself safer against sexual assault, or that there shouldn’t be self-defense training available or anything like that. So yeah, not 0%, but I think andy probably isn’t talking about that.
But with respect to your metaphor, there’s just not an equivalence. In order for there to be one, it would have to be the case that after the majority of hit and run accidents or drunk/distracted driver crashes (i.e. vehicular accidents where there’s a wrongdoer and a victim), the person who didn’t cause the accident was told what they did wrong and actually blamed by at least some segment of the population, sometimes to include the police and the criminal justice system, no matter what percent at fault they were. It would also have to be the case that the history of prosecution of hit and run/drunk/distracted driver accidents was such that for years it actually wasn’t even illegal to wreck a certain class of person’s car, and that in certain such accidents the person who wasn’t responsible was pilloried and humiliated and sometimes actually killed for having been crashed into. It would have to be true that crashing into people was often acceptable, as long as it wasn’t a very severe accident. Etc.
Once you had all those elements established, then maybe it would be equivalent to tell some 17 year old kid who got rear-ended “you have to keep your eyes on the road!” Still pretty useless advice for their circumstances, but at least technically true. And once all those things were established, then general prophylactic concentration on what kind of car a person chose to drive might be sort of equivalent.
ISTM that a lot of “victim blaming” statements depend on the timing.
Tell someone, “Lock your car doors” *before *a car theft = not victim blaming, it’s a prudent warning.
Telling someone, “You should have locked your car doors” *after *a car theft = victim blaming.
Oh please. What I’m doing is telling the truth. The thing that actually works, the good advice that prevents sexual assault, is exactly the stuff people in this thread keep whining about – information about patriarchal attitudes and slut shaming and sexual entitlement and aggression are the actual blueprints for avoiding rape. People who think like this, people who act like this, those are the people who raise your risk of being assaulted, because they don’t care enough about your sexual agency. That’s what we want, isn’t it? Isn’t it important that we talk about how women should think if they want to not get assaulted?
Of course, as you’ve identified yourself, that sounds a lot like it’s addressing the people in this thread. Almost like there’s a culture. That condones rape.
A bunch of new words, but it seems like you’re just reiterating the same point.
I don’t see where you’ve said anything new here and have nothing further to add over what I said earlier. You’re asserting that people who oppose your position in this thread have a high likelihood of being rapists, and the best way to reduce rape is for women to avoid such people. OK.
They have, very specifically, made exactly those absolute statements. That is what they are being pulled up on.
None of what you’ve written here addresses my point, The historical blame-game regarding sexual assault does not mean that we should advising people on how to lower their risk. Other posters on here seem to think that such advice should not be given nor heeded.
I’m not saying don’t give good advice to people – feel free to do so. Just don’t pretend that this advice is about fighting rape – it’s about giving individuals (if they’re so mentally impaired that they don’t already know this) a better chance to lessen their own risk. So feel free to give advice, but if you want to actually fight rape in society, then we need to go after rapists and the attitudes that enable rapists to feel that what they’re doing is okay.
Since you are asserting it as a fact, cite?
You are shifting the burden of responsibility away from rapist men and onto women - in other words, you are slut shaming.
Regards,
Shodan
In what way is reducing the incidence of rape not “fighting rape”?
Regards,
Shodan
I don’t believe that giving advice to an individual does anything to lessen the incidence of rape for society. Maybe, if the person you’re advising is mentally impaired and has never heard such advice (or figured it out for themselves), it slightly lessens their own personal incidence, but nothing for society.
So advise all you want, but if you want to help fight against rape in society at large, I think the efforts should be directed towards rapists and the attitudes that help rapists rape and get away with it.
In case it’s still not clear, I’m not saying and I’ve never said that it’s wrong to offer advice.
When the mafia says “Nice store you’ve got there, it’d be a pity if someone robbed it” they aren’t technically MAKING you do what they say. They are just providing a reminder that we live in a dangerous world where people do bad things, and there are measure you can take to stay safe.
When our rape kits sit on a shelf, that’s what’s happening. When our rapists get three month sentences, that’s what’s happening. When we are discouraged from pressing charges, that’s what happening. When threats of rape are accepted as a common response to female bloggers, that’s what’s happening. When people rush to defend rapists, explain it as “boys will be boys”, etc., that’s what’s happening. We are accepting rape as a natural consequence of being female. And when we accept limits to living an ordinary life (and it’s not just getting blitzed-- it affects where we are “allowed” to live blamelessly, what jobs we do, how and if we travel, and more), we are accepting the mafia logic.
Different countries have different rape rates. We can do better than we are doing. Women have been told we can’t live normal lives for centuries under the guise of our own safety. It wasn’t true then and isn’t true now.
Do bank security systems reduce overall incidence of bank robbery in society? Sincere, not sarcastic question. AIUI bank robbery attempts are extremely rare today, as anti-robbery measures have advanced greatly.
I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s relevant – rape and sexual assault are not like other crimes, in my reading and in my opinion. The motivations and attitudes that drive them are entirely different from pretty much all other types of crime.
In my understanding, when rates of rape have gone down, it’s been tied to changes in society and policy (like, for example, the prevalence and ease of acquiring online erotic material) that influence those more likely to be the perpetrators rather than the potential victims.