Wait. I can easily see a water-cooler conversation like:
“You hear Kable got murdered in his sleep at his place?”
“No! Damn, he didn’t hear them break in?”
“Dude slept with the door unlocked.”
“What? That’s nuts!”
Victim-blaming?
I’d say so, and probably think someone was a sociopath if they were more shocked by the unlocked door than the MURDER and more focused on the former than in the death of someone he knew.
There also isn’t a precedent of constant victim blaming for murder. A murderer will never get off with a year or two if the person they killed left the door unlocked. Rapists do get off with minimal sentences or no punishment whatsoever because of short skirts, drunkenness, past sexual activity of a victim, etc. So:
“I only murdered him because his door was unlocked.” = Insane, won’t hold up in court
but
“I only raped her because she was drunk.” = Also insane, might hold up in court
Do you understand the distinction?
And please read this while you’re at it
To be clear, do you guys even want there to be less rape? Do you want more rapists to be prosecuted, or are you cool with them going free because a woman wore/drank/did whatever and “deserved it”?
:rolleyes:
Could you please point out where anyone said that a women deserved to be raped? You used quote marks as if someone had.
Regards,
Shodan
First, not once has anyone in this thread even implied somoene deserved to be raped, regardless of their behavior - that’s a cheap tactic and you should quit.
Second, I suspect a lot of people in this thread want less rape more than you do. In my case, if the Blue Fairy of the Enchanted Kingdom showed up and said she could guarantee me that if I never took a drink of alcohol again, it would reduce the odds of you or any other woman being raped by some random stranger by 1%, I’d be one non-drinking mofo. No “can I finish this last one?”, no “they’re the problem, not me!” or any of your other curse the darkness because “why should I use my Zippo?” bs. My response is simply “Thanks, BF!”
In an imperfect world, you do what you can, and if something’s important to you, you do everything you can. If you’re not willing to do that, concede it’s not at the top of your list and don’t freak out it’s not as high on anyone else’s.
Rape is a crime, and there’s not a single effective crime prevention strategy in the world that starts with “round up everyone and tell them crime is bad.” Step one is educating people about behaviors that put them at risks, step two is adapting best practices based on what you learned in step one, and step three is understanding that this reduces risk, it doesn’t eliminate it.
Everyone runs into trouble with step two. Pretty much what started the whole thread.
(my bold)
They do??
Pretty sure I want rape not to happen as much as anyone here, having been raped myself more than once and also a victim of childhood sexual abuse. I’ve experienced firsthand being blamed for these crimes, INCLUDING WHEN I WAS 12 YEARS OLD. If you really want me to produce cites regarding how victim blaming affects outcome of rape cases, and failure to report rape, I can. RAINN and dozens of other organizations have easily googlable stats from reliable sources (FBI and other law enforcement reports, etc.).
But instead of looking at a bunch of (scary) numbers, why not think about the reality that women call rape crisis lines and are advised not to prosecute for reasons such as “you had consensual sex with the person before and that will come up in court,” “the fact that you have used drugs in the past, even if this played no part in your rape and you weren’t even high,” etc.–this shit really happens.
And actually, I DON’T think I should have to take more precaution than others (men) in order to not be raped because I KNOW THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT. I have been sexually assaulted as a child with maybe my ankles and neck showing and, on another occasion, because someone started having sex with my passed out body. Yeah, I had been drinking. I also didn’t think that a good friend of mine, who I had known for a decade, would do something like that. Is that my fault? Of course not. It’s an abhorrent act and there’s no excuse.
Every logical argument I’ve made has been left untouched and every more personal rant-y statement has been quoted (YOU KNOW WIMMIN THEY’RE SOOOOOOO CRAZY AND EMOTIONAL!!!) so here is my attempt at an actual illustration of the points I attempted to make that were ignored. Looking forward to being blamed for it and told I shouldn’t have been drinking, had my ankles showing, been born a woman, blah blah blah blah blah.
Can you think for one minute about how not victim blaming is about empathy? I don’t think someone who says women shouldn’t drink to avoid rape is committing a crime or even being an idiot; I mostly just think it’s cruel and thoughtless.
No one said this directly which is why I posed questions rather than made assumptions here. I fail to understand a mindset that doesn’t asking women to take steps to prevent rape as victim blaming. My first question (not assumption, QUESTION) is whether this mindset requires a lack of understanding of what rape IS.
One more thing–sorry for too many posts in a row. The initial question was “why was this met with outrage?”. The reason is that even potentially placing any blame on the victims of rape (regardless of gender though, yes, most victims are women) is bad for victims and reinforces a culture of shame that (further) damages of the lives of people who are victims of this type of crime.
Rape isn’t an abstract idea. It’s an actual, horrible act that takes place every 2 minutes in this country (via the FBI). It can result in serious physical, psychological, emotional, and cultural damage.
Here is Emily Yoffe’s follow-up to her original article and a fascinating (audio) interview she did with Q’s Jian Ghomeshi (it’s dated October 31/13, is the first interview in the podcast and lasts about 20 minutes).
And here’s a quote from her original article with which I wholeheartedly agree:
“Let’s be totally clear: Perpetrators are the ones responsible for committing their crimes, and they should be brought to justice. But we are failing to let women know that when they render themselves defenseless, terrible things can be done to them. Young women are getting a distorted message that their right to match men drink for drink is a feminist issue. The real feminist message should be that when you lose the ability to be responsible for yourself, you drastically increase the chances that you will attract the kinds of people who, shall we say, don’t have your best interest at heart. That’s not blaming the victim; that’s trying to prevent more victims.”
This clarifies her reasoning, and it’s a sound enough argument. However, I think an extremely emotional (angry/upset) response is predictable given the culture of victim blaming that we live in. I’m sure Yoffe was well intentioned and, as mentioned before, I think “do not get wasted” is good advice for everyone. I just don’t think it’s difficult to understand the response the original statement got.
Again, though I’d blame the murderer even if you left your door unlocked while you slept, I’d still suggest locking your door while you sleep – and that’s still my advice even if you say “Oh, yeah? Oh, YEAH, smart guy? Well, I know someone who got murdered DESPITE locking the door! So there!”
I recommend you wear a seat belt when you’re riding around in a car. That said, I’ll blame the drunk driver who slams into your car regardless of whether you’re wearing that seat belt. And if you come into this thread to note that, as it happens, you were once hit by a drunk driver and it made no difference whether you were wearing a seat belt – look, I’m offering “bulletproof vest” here, and you’re saying “but sometimes blameless people get shot in the leg, no matter what they’re wearing.”
I’d leave that untouched, because I can’t really address it – except to say well, this ain’t a panacea; I’m not talking “cure-all” but “cure-some”.
We don’t live in a culture that blames victims of gun violence. Victims of gun violence aren’t afraid to press charges because they can safely assume they won’t be blamed.
One act of rape exists in the context of a culture that often protects rapists and punishes victims. That’s why it’s easy to take offense or feel outraged when something even begins to resemble victim blaming. I see a clear distinction between recommending not getting super drunk as a safety measure and saying “she was asking for it,” but I also have an immediate negative reaction to this stuff because this is a big, systematic, cultural problem and women are being told how to not get raped instead of men being told not to rape.
And men get mad because “well I would never do that” but women commit a tiny fraction of rapes and violent crimes in general.
That doesn’t say what you are asserting. It says that fifty percent of the sample offenders of sexual assault in this study blamed their victims; it said nothing of the ultimate legal fate of the perpetrators.
That is an article full of implausible and outrageous claims, such as that 10% of young Americans have commited sexual assault, and that the most common type og “assault”, which it states to be guilting someone into sex, constitutes assault. It also says the villains consider the victims to be responsible half the time.
What it doesn’t say is anything supporting your statement that people get shorter sentences or no punishment at all by blaming the victim’s clothing or lack of sobriety.
We live in a world that blames victims of every crime except child molestation to some extent, and even then you’ve got some dodgy issues people mention. Adults are held responsible for their safety and the safetly of their charges, and when something happens, we’re looking for the chinks in their armor - its how people reassure themselves, as well as how we develop best practices for protecting ourselves.
Victims of gun violence aren’t blamed? I did jury duty on a case where the victim was arrested - he’d fought off his attackers who were pistol-whipping him after he was mugged, and in wrestling the gun away it discharged. The muggers ran away and when the police arrived they found a bleeding man with no money or ID and a weapon; he was given medical treatment and placed under arrest.
But that doesn’t address the issue of the extreme outrage…an issue that you prob don’t want to address.
IMHO the answer is that women are a protected social class and this type of outrage by them and their protectors helps their cause.
Please forgive if the all of this was addressed in the prior 5 pages.
I object to the OP’s use of “extreme outrage”. SOME people are offended. More people are irritated. No one seems to be extremely outraged. Not here or elsewhere.
Why is it that people can’t simply disagree/be irritated with/or dislike something without being painted as hysterical shrill-harpies?
“Extreme outrage” would be throwing a garbage can through a pizzeria window and starting a riot. As far as I can tell, most people are just rolling their eyes a little. If there’s someone who’s being hypersenstive here, I’d say it’s the person who is throwing around the word “extreme outrage” to describe constructive criticism.
Please characterize what you mean by the lack of social instruction re “men being told not to rape”. I was on a grand jury for 4 months and we had a number of sexual assault cases come before us and they were all very aggressively prosecuted. The penalty for rape is typically years in prison, and in many cases being shunned socially for the remainder of their lives when they are on an offender registry. It would seem the legal and social consequences for the perpetrators of rape are very negative and severe.
Rapes still occur and excessive intake of alcohol is often in the mix. Please give some notion of how you anticipate men should receive additional instruction in “not raping” that would balance the scales so that telling women not to drink to excess would be an equitable statement and not out of balance.