# Where's the line between advising someone to take steps to protect themselves and victim-blaming? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 3, 2019, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322 "2019-12-03T19:55:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322/101 "2019-12-04T19:16:54Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > 2, 4, 5 is victim blaming. For #2, it depends. Did you step out in front of a moving car that couldn’t possibly stop in time? There is an idiotic assumption that men are animals and are driven by lust. We just can’t help ourselves, don’t you know. People who hold to that might use the moving car that can’t possibly stop in time analogy, but it’s bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322/102 "2019-12-04T19:23:43Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I’ve been looking at some legal stuff, and came across this concept called contributory negligence. The specific example on Wikipedia is identical to #1 and #2 in the OP. From what I can tell, this legal doctrine is in fact victim-blaming: it is raising the victim’s negligence as a defense to a tort claim. > > I agree with that article that the doctrine should not be available if the tortfeasor’s conduct rises above negligence and into intentional and malicious wrongdoing (for example, rape). > > This was touched upon early in the thread and I hope I am putting the correct name on it. > > ~Max I think there’s a similar concept with auto accidents, in that if you could have reasonably done something to prevent the accident and you didn’t, then you are partly to blame for the accident. For example, you have a green light and a car from the cross street pulls into the intersection. Even though you have the right away, you are expected to take reasonable actions to avoid hitting the car, such as using the brakes. If instead you willfully drive straight through the intersection and hit the car, you might be found partly to blame. Obviously the judge will take mitigating circumstances into consideration (not enough time to stop, road conditions unsafe to slam on the brakes, etc), but the court expects you to do what you can to safely avoid an accident. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322/103 "2019-12-04T19:58:52Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > So, if I tell both my daughter and my son the same thing, it stops being “implicit victim blaming”? How does that work? > > I wouldn’t tell my daughter, or my son, any of those things. For me, at least, the problem with victim-blaming as it relates to sexual assault is that women are expected to substantially modify their lives in ways that men are not in order to avoid becoming a victim. When you tell a woman that she’s not safe alone outside in the dark in a quiet neighborhood, that’s blaming female victims of sexual assault because women, in particular, aren’t safe at night alone. A man who gets mugged in the same situation won’t be asked why he was even there. General safety advice doesn’t have the same connotation to me. The problem is when it’s “as a woman, it’s not safe to do these things, and you’re at fault if you don’t adapt to that.” ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322/104 "2019-12-04T20:00:01Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I’ll pick up the torch, then. > > The only action I can think of that might be considered entrapment would be inviting the “perp” to play out a rape fantasy, failing to set up or use a safeword, and then accusing him of rape. Obviously this doesn’t apply for children, regardless of how they present themselves. That’ll teach me to ask for hypotheticals that I don’t want to deal with. 🙂 I don’t have the answer to this, but I’m willing to mull it over as a theoretical exercise rather than dismiss it out of hand. > [@Max\_S](#): > > I don’t think there’s a difference between property crimes and assault crimes when it comes to victim blaming. In the money-on-the-windshield example, if the judge lightens the perp’s sentence due to the victim’s negligence, that is victim-blaming. If people tell the victim that he or she asked to be robbed, or imply that it is partially their fault _for being robbed_, that is victim-blaming. If people take pains to differentiate between “don’t leave money on your windshield, you dope” and “it’s your fault you were robbed”, it doesn’t have to be victim-blaming. > > In a case of sexual assault, if the judge lightens the perp’s sentence due to the victim’s negligence, that is victim-blaming (I am assuming there was real negligence because sexual assault does not imply victim negligence). If people tell the victim that he or she asked to be assaulted, or imply that it is partially their fault _for being assaulted_, that is victim-blaming. > ~Max As I intimated in earlier posts, just as there are shades of grey in the types of scenarios people fall victim to, so are there shades of grey where victim blaming may be more permissible. Where it is not permissible is when it comes to assaults, particularly when it can be shown that no reasonable amount of caution would/could have prevented the assault. > [@Max\_S](#): > > If people take pains to differentiate between “don’t [be so negligent], you dope” and “it’s your fault you were assaulted”, it doesn’t have to be victim-blaming. > > ~Max What is the objective in having this conversation? What is it meant to achieve? ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322/105 "2019-12-04T20:17:42Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > As I intimated in earlier posts, just as there are shades of grey in the types of scenarios people fall victim to, so are there shades of grey where victim blaming may be more permissible. Where it is not permissible is when it comes to assaults, particularly when it can be shown that no reasonable amount of caution would/could have prevented the assault. > > What is the objective in having this conversation? What is it meant to achieve? Just as with **Manda JO** , I think you and I agree where the line is between victim-blaming and not-victim-blaming (shifting blame from the perp to the victim). I also think **filmore** and I agree. I thought most if not everybody in this thread actually agreed with each other. It’s blowing my mind. Well, maybe not **Velocity** and **BigT** who made the before/after distinction. Then you appeared to disagree with **filmore** about something. Two people who I thought shared my opinion apparently had different and mutually exclusive opinions. That can’t be right, can it? So I followed your responses, but **filmore** bowed out. So I jumped in to fill the void. …does that make sense? ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322/106 "2019-12-04T20:19:06Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > For me, at least, the problem with victim-blaming as it relates to sexual assault is that women are expected to substantially modify their lives in ways that men are not in order to avoid becoming a victim. When you tell a woman that she’s not safe alone outside in the dark in a quiet neighborhood, that’s blaming female victims of sexual assault because women, in particular, aren’t safe at night alone. A man who gets mugged in the same situation won’t be asked why he was even there. General safety advice doesn’t have the same connotation to me. The problem is when it’s “as a woman, it’s not safe to do these things, and you’re at fault if you don’t adapt to that.” Sure. And I have no issue with “victim-blaming” being a problem and a thing not to do. I just took issue with the ‘any advice is implicit victim blaming’ stance. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322/107 "2019-12-04T20:21:06Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Sure. And I have no issue with “victim-blaming” being a problem and a thing not to do. I just took issue with the ‘any advice is implicit victim blaming’ stance. The vast majority of gender-specific advice is implicit victim blaming and serves more to limit women than to increase their safety. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322/108 "2019-12-04T20:22:57Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > But nagging at someone to follow best practices is different than blaming them for their problems. > > Contrast “Lock your doors and be aware of your surroundings at all times” with “This is the third time you have been a victim of crime. What the hell are you doing wrong?!” They are different. But we’ve had you and another poster write that nobody will learn anything from posts on the internet, which is incorrect. Well, you didn’t write that explicitly, choosing to just ask a question instead of outright stating a position. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322/109 "2019-12-04T20:24:58Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > As I intimated in earlier posts, just as there are shades of grey in the types of scenarios people fall victim to, so are there shades of grey where victim blaming may be more permissible. Where it is not permissible is when it comes to assaults, particularly when it can be shown that no reasonable amount of caution would/could have prevented the assault. Actually, I disagree with you here. _Sina qua non_ is not a good line to draw when determining whether or not it is OK to shift the blame from the perp to the victim. I ask you to consider, as an alternative, the perpetrator’s state of mind. If the perpetrator acted with malicious intent, no amount of negligence by the victim should remove blame from the perpetrator. If I was texting while driving, that should not soften my ex’s sentence after she tries to shoot me. Not even a bit. If I was texting while driving, that might soften a hunter’s sentence when he accidentally shoots me instead of a duck. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322/110 "2019-12-04T20:28:34Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > The guy who blows a couple of fingers off his hand because he was horsing around with powerful fire crackers is a victim of his poor judgement and actions. I have no qualms about victim blaming in this case. It’s my understanding that those packages are properly labeled and there exists a reasonable expectations that pro That’s not even victim blaming; the guy lit his own firecracker - it didn’t do anything except what it’s supposed to do- if the guy in question chooses to not use it properly, then it is his fault. Nobody blames the firecracker/chainsaw/acetylene torch when someone misuses them, unless there’s also some element of manufacturing defects or something along those lines. I think the concept of victim is centered around the idea that there’s a person who had something negative _done to_ them that’s essentially out of their control. So if you’re misusing a tool and get injured, that doesn’t make you a victim, while if you’re properly using it and get injured because of poor/unsafe design or manufacturing defects, that does make you a victim. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322/111 "2019-12-04T20:37:01Z")
A woman is raped after she accepts a coworker’s invitation to visit him in his hotel room during a conference. Peanut gallery: What the fuck did she think was going to happen?! She is either a lying whore or she is monumentally stupid. Explanation: She wanted sex to happen some time that evening. But instead of giving them the chance to build up some chemistry over a bottle of wine and some smooth jazz, the guy started ripping off her clothes the moment he shut the door. So the advice “Don’t go to a man’s hotel room alone” only makes sense if you believe women should never seek out sex. It is anti-sex advice framed as anti-rape. And that is why it sucks. Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322/112 "2019-12-04T20:44:33Z")
> [@bump](#): > > That’s not even victim blaming; the guy lit his own firecracker - it didn’t do anything except what it’s supposed to do- if the guy in question chooses to not use it properly, then it is his fault. Nobody blames the firecracker/chainsaw/acetylene torch when someone misuses them, unless there’s also some element of manufacturing defects or something along those lines. > > I think the concept of victim is centered around the idea that there’s a person who had something negative _done to_ them that’s essentially out of their control. So if you’re misusing a tool and get injured, that doesn’t make you a victim, while if you’re properly using it and get injured because of poor/unsafe design or manufacturing defects, that does make you a victim. I think that’s a good clarification of victim in this context. One example I thought of that’s more abstract is raccoons getting into trash cans. Someone who moves to the country may not realize that raccoons are very good at getting into the trash, so they may initially be surprised when they find their trash turned over. Initially, I wouldn’t put any of the blame on them because they weren’t aware of the risk. After two or three times, they should begin to figure that something is up and try figure out why the trash is turned over, how to lock the lid, etc. But if they never do anything differently and continually have their trash turned over, I will assign most of the blame to them since it should be easily predictable that there will be a negative outcome and they are doing virtually nothing to prevent it. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322/113 "2019-12-04T20:53:43Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > The vast majority of gender-specific advice is implicit victim blaming and serves more to limit women than to increase their safety. I can agree with that. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322/114 "2019-12-04T21:02:54Z")
I think the concept of victim blaming only represents a real problem when the person was victimized by another person. If a person is victimized by a raccoon, or a hurricane, flood or other non-human phenomenon, then we don’t see the “you should really do X to avoid this problem” as an attack on the victim. It’s just good advice (depending on whether or not it’s actually good advice, of course). When a person is victimized by another person, giving them all sorts of tips on how to avoid having another person harm them directs attention away from the person who’s actually to blame. Add to that the fact that it’s usually women who are the victims, and they already change their lives substantially to avoid being attacked by men. Giving them even more advice on how to restrict their lives so that men won’t attack them is simply egregious. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322/115 "2019-12-04T21:12:16Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > Actually, I disagree with you here. _Sina qua non_ is not a good line to draw when determining whether or not it is OK to shift the blame from the perp to the victim. I ask you to consider, as an alternative, the perpetrator’s state of mind. If the perpetrator acted with malicious intent, no amount of negligence by the victim should remove blame from the perpetrator. > > If I was texting while driving, that should not soften my ex’s sentence after she tries to shoot me. Not even a bit. > > If I was texting while driving, that might soften a hunter’s sentence when he accidentally shoots me instead of a duck. > > ~Max I don’t believe we are in disagreement. I was not clear in the statement you quoted about the type of scenario under which one can legitimately be (victim) blamed for an unfortunate consequence of one’s own ill considered actions or caused by unpremeditated actions of another, i.e. stepping into traffic. These actions are entirely different because they involve no external malicious intent. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322/116 "2019-12-04T21:23:23Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > if you say to a child to look both ways before crossing at a zebra it’s because you recognize that even though the child is 100% in the right to cross and vehicles should invariably stop the reality is that the world doesn’t work like that, the reality is that for whatever reason (carelessness, impairment, malice, etc) someone, somewhere will not stick to the rules and combining that with the naive expectation that everyone, everywhere, every time will do ends up in a disaster. The reality is that the laws of physics say that even a driver who’s behaving properly may not be able to stop the car in time. Rape is not a law of physics. > [@Jragon](#): > > Victim Blaming behavior doesn’t per se strictly say the person is at fault for being raped, but it is continuously fostering and approaching discussions in such a way that focuses on how the victim could have prevented it. > > Now there’s a lot of reasons for this As Thudlow Boink said, I suspect that one of the reasons is that people want to believe ‘if I/my loved ones do everything right, then I/my loved ones won’t get raped.’ When people do get raped anyway, this only adds to the damage. > [@BigT](#): > > Saying not to get blackout drunk is good advice for your own health and safety, even if rape wasn’t a thing. Yup. There are multiple reasons why nobody, of any gender, at a frat party or not at a frat party, should be getting blackout drunk; at least, unless they’re in a confirmed safe location and accompanied by an at-least-mostly sober friend who can and will make sure they’re still breathing and not aspirating their own vomit, or walking into traffic, or breaking something they’ll be horribly upset about later, or about to fall down the stairs and possibly break their neck. But the advice is mostly given specifically to women and specifically in regards to rape. And it’s often given along with a lot of other advice that’s not remotely comparable, because it’s advice to avoid doing things that aren’t in themselves harmful and may be beneficial, and which, as has been pointed out, may well not increase the risk of rape in the first place. (I’m not even entirely convinced that not getting drunk at a frat party reduces the chances of a rape occuring; at least, unless it’s the rapist who doesn’t get drunk and therefore, due to a better awareness of consequences or a lack of reduced inhibitions, possibly doesn’t commit a rape. The rapist who can’t find an easy victim may just rape somebody who requires more work to find or to subdue. That might be a different person; but there might still be a rape.) > [@Ale](#): > > Regarding your last paragraph, something that I’ve read about a few years ago, a girl committed suicide after fleeing from a tantric yoga retreat, or something along those lines, it turned out IIRC, that sexual abuse by the “Guru” was rampant and disguised as a spiritual experience; that girl again IIRC had been abused, left, returned was abused again and ended up killing herself. Between the first instance of abuse and her return to the place and person who abused her should everyone around her refrained from telling her to not go back? after all you are quite definitive that they shouldn’t: _“Advice on how to avoid rape is not appropriate after a rape has occurred, period.”_ > How about other women who may had been contemplating going to that place under that “guru”, should everyone who knew about the situation refrained from advising them against putting themselves in a situation where they could end up being sexually abused? Telling somebody who’s dealing with a specific situation ‘wow, that guy was entirely out of line, that’s not proper yoga technique, and it would make more sense to call the cops so he doesn’t rape somebody else than to go back there, please don’t go back there’ would be one sort of thing. Telling women in general that they should never go to yoga retreats would be something else entirely. > [@Max\_S](#): > > If I was texting while driving, that should not soften my ex’s sentence after she tries to shoot me. Not even a bit. > > If I was texting while driving, that might soften a hunter’s sentence when he accidentally shoots me instead of a duck. Whether you were texting while driving would have nothing to do with your being shot, in either instance, and shouldn’t affect the sentence. If you were texting while driving and therefore were unable to avoid a car accident that a person paying attention could have avoided, then even if a different driver also did something wrong that was necessary to cause the accident, your behavior was also reckless driving and a contributing factor. That’s not the same thing – your behavior in texting while driving was both related to the incident and wrong in itself. > [@monstro](#): > > A woman is raped after she accepts a coworker’s invitation to visit him in his hotel room during a conference. > > Peanut gallery: What the fuck did she think was going to happen?! She is either a lying whore or she is monumentally stupid. > > Explanation: She wanted sex to happen some time that evening. But instead of giving them the chance to build up some chemistry over a bottle of wine and some smooth jazz, the guy started ripping off her clothes the moment he shut the door. > > So the advice “Don’t go to a man’s hotel room alone” only makes sense if you believe women should never seek out sex. It is anti-sex advice framed as anti-rape. And that is why it sucks. She might also quite reasonably have gone to the man’s hotel room because she actually thought they were going to discuss an issue brought up at Meeting X; or a project they’d been working on earlier that week and would have to return to after the conference. Or, for that matter, because she thought they both wanted to watch a particular movie on the TV in his room. I have been in a whole lot of men’s rooms, hotel and dormitory and just plain housing, without sex being part of anybody’s expectations at all. I agree that even if she started off wanting to have sex that night, it’s still rape if he insisted on having sex in a fashion that she didn’t want – including jumping right to taking her clothes off without permission. But the advice isn’t only wrong because it’s anti-sex advice. It’s also wrong because it assumes that the only plausible reason for a man and a woman to be in the same room is because of sex. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322/117 "2019-12-04T21:24:40Z")
To clarify, you wrote: > [@Max S](#): > > If people take pains to differentiate between “don’t [be so negligent], you dope” and “it’s your fault you were assaulted”, it doesn’t have to be victim-blaming. > > ~Max I replied: > [@QuickSilver](#): > > What is the objective in having this conversation? What is it meant to achieve? I asked because for some reason I’m having a difficult time parsing your statement. Which part doesn’t have to be victim-blaming? Under what circumstances? Probably just me having that issue. Still, can you help clarify what you mean? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322/118 "2019-12-04T21:29:45Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > I think the concept of victim blaming only represents a real problem when the person was victimized by another person. > > If a person is victimized by a raccoon, or a hurricane, flood or other non-human phenomenon, then we don’t see the “you should really do X to avoid this problem” as an attack on the victim. It’s just good advice (depending on whether or not it’s actually good advice, of course). > > When a person is victimized by another person, giving them all sorts of tips on how to avoid having another person harm them directs attention away from the person who’s actually to blame. Add to that the fact that it’s usually women who are the victims, and they already change their lives substantially to avoid being attacked by men. Giving them even more advice on how to restrict their lives so that men won’t attack them is simply egregious. I don’t know about that first part; if someone was seriously injured as a result of a plane crash, it would be equally wrong to push blame onto them because they didn’t sit in the exit row, or in the back of the plane, or wear fire-resistant clothing, or safety shoes or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322/119 "2019-12-04T21:33:53Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I don’t know about that first part; if someone was seriously injured as a result of a plane crash, it would be equally wrong to push blame onto them because they didn’t sit in the exit row, or in the back of the plane, or wear fire-resistant clothing, or safety shoes or whatever. We normally don’t blame passengers of vehicles. Unless they’re kicking the back of the driver’s seat or fighting with their siblings. Then all bets are off. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322/120 "2019-12-04T22:02:26Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Whether you were texting while driving would have nothing to do with your being shot, in either instance, and shouldn’t affect the sentence. > > If you were texting while driving and therefore were unable to avoid a car accident that a person paying attention could have avoided, then even if a different driver also did something wrong that was necessary to cause the accident, your behavior was also reckless driving and a contributing factor. That’s not the same thing – your behavior in texting while driving was both related to the incident and wrong in itself. I was thinking like, I’m texting while driving and go off the road into a cornfield where some absent-minded hunter is shooting ducks and listening to loud music in some restricted area, and with his earphones in he doesn’t hear the car coming and shoots me in the arm. But not for his shooting in a no-hunting cornfield, my arm wouldn’t be in a sling. But not for my texting while driving, my arm wouldn’t be in a sling. But neither party had malicious intent. ~Max [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-line-between-advising-someone-to-take-steps-to-protect-themselves-and-victim-blaming/844322.md?page=7)