Where's the line between advising someone to take steps to protect themselves and victim-blaming?

Great Debates
61

Regarding drinking, there are at least two issues here—

  1. Being a black-out drunk is an addiction-related condition that requires addiction treatment. Most black-out drunks can’t just avoid getting black-out drunk unless they give up alcohol entirely.

  2. Youth culture treats alcohol-centered use and abuse as a kind of secular religion. To get people to use alcohol more safely will require a society-wise rethinking of the role of alcohol in social settings along the lines of what we have done with smoking.

62

I, for one, benefit from repetition and review when I learn. I still repeat lapses in judgement (I put my glasses down in the wrong place last night, again), but less than I used to. Maybe I’m stupid, but I can’t just unstupid. I can be nagged or slowly remember to do things right eventually, assuming the lapses are nonfatal.

63

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?!”

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64

Lots of people are saying some version of this, and I think it misses the point. Implicit victim blaming in the form of advice is not appropriate before a rape, either. Telling a woman not to take a job in a bad area because she might get raped is victim blaming. Being critical of a woman’s choice to go jogging after dark–to her face or to others–is victim blaming. Saying that you are “worried” when you see women wearing clothes you consider in enticing is victim blaming. It’s perpetuating the idea that women who are raped could or should have taken steps like these to prevent those rapes, even though there’s either little evidence that it would be effective or that those precautions are a reasonable way to avoid assault. But when a woman is raised in culture that constantly reminds her of the “rape rules” and implicitly states that she needs to follow those “rape rules” at all times is herself assaulted, all that "before the fact"advice is still in her head, and she feels culpable.

65

“…perch of self importance”, really… :rolleyes:

The example I gave was based on my girlfriend’s brother who was killed in a motorcycle accident because he was not wearing a helmet; the last his family saw of him was n unrecognizable, mangled face as he painfully died over the course of several days.
That was a year or two after he was seriously injured in another motorcycle accident because he wasn’t wearing a helmet.

That is why, contrary to your postulation in your previous post (“…once the lapse in judgement has happened and badness results, there is no need for do anymore lecturing.”), some people absolutely need more lecturing the first time they have a “lapse of judgement” because evidently whatever he got, if any, wasn’t enough to prevent him from continuing to do the same stupid thing until it killed him in his early twenties.
That postulate does nothing, if applied, but increase the likelihood of bad things happening over and over again.

66

Here’s the thing though- to use the theft analogy, just because you were alone, at night with a big wad of cash, it doesn’t make it in ANY way more acceptable for someone to beat you up and rob you.

They are still 100% in the wrong. You may have done things that made it easier for them to rob you, but that doesn’t in any fundamental way, make the act of beating you up and robbing you any more tolerable, and nor does it make it your fault that you got robbed either.

Saying that it does is saying that the mugger isn’t in control of their actions, and we just have to accept it. Which none of us would- we’d cry bloody murder and press charges and want that asshole locked up, and the law would back us up in the case of a robbery.

That’s why victim blaming is so bad; it implies that the key thing is the presence or absence of prudent countermeasures, when in fact, you can leave your doors unlocked, and if someone enters and steals your stuff, they’re just as in the wrong as if you’d locked your door, shuttered your windows and have a big mean dog, and still get robbed. It’s just that having all that stuff makes the person in the wrong less likely to be successful in their reprehensible act. It doesn’t somehow make you more/less culpable in what THEY do.

67

I don’t think that the premise implies that we would just have to accept the mugger’s actions. We’d still lock up the mugger no matter what. Even if the person was carrying the money in his hand for all to see, we’d still lock up the person who took it out of his hand.

In some of these cases, there is a line between reasonable precautions a person should take versus acting in ways that can significantly increase the risk of being a victim of crime. For the person carrying money, how they carry the money can significantly change their risk. If it’s out in the open for all to see, they have a higher risk than someone who has the money in their pocket where no one knows it’s there. Certainly anyone can be robbed, but the person carrying a wad of cash in their hand is going to be at much greater risk of being robbed, and that increase in risk is because of their own actions.

68

But the advice women get isn’t analogous to “don’t carry a wad of cash loose in your hand”. It’s “don’t go out in public alone.” It’s not “don’t leave your house unlocked”, it’s “don’t live in a blue house”. It’s easy to make hypotheticals that are clearly unwise–but those extreme hypotheticals are then used to justify setting up extremely oppressive social rules on women, using “you’ll be to blame for your own rape!” as a pretext.

I mean, if someone says “clearly women shouldn’t go out with their hair or shoulders uncovered, that will drive men mad with lust and they will be raped”, we see that as ridiculous. But when someone says “clearly a woman shouldn’t go out with her thighs or stomach uncovered, that will drive men mad with lust and they will be raped”, people say “yeah, a woman has the RIGHT to wear those clothes and it’s not her fault, but she needs to accept that that is the world we live in”.

69

As I was walking into work, I got to thinking about this thread and how the SDMB is a great microcosm of how many conflicting sermons people get when they have a problem.

Imagine a thread created by a woman who is asking for advice on how to deal with a co-worker she thinks is creepy. He stares at her all the time and says borderline inappropriate things to her.

Poster #1: Ignore him. He isn’t doing anything to you. You are scared for no reason, you dumb feminazi.

Poster #2. The next time he says something to you, tell him to leave you alone. If he doesn’t stop, tell your boss.

Poster #3: Report him to HR right now. This is totally unacceptable. If he loses his job, that is on him.

Poster #4: Ask your boss if you can move your work station somewhere else.

Poster #5: Why is everyone acting like this guy is a serial killer? He is probably just socially awkward. When you catch him staring at you, gently ask him if you can help him with something. When he says something weird, diffuse the awkwardness by cracking a joke. He is just trying to be funny. He probably has a crush on you. Give the guy a break."

Now imagine the woman posts a new thread a month later. This time, she is letting everyone know that her creepy coworker sexually assaulted her.

Poster #1: You mean to tell me you didn’t report this guy to HR the first time he creeped on you? WTF!

Poster #2: Why did you walk to the parking deck late at night knowing that creeper guy was right behind you?

Poster #3: When you told your boss about this guy and nothing changed, you really should have quit.

Poster #4: Sorry, but you really shouldn’t have gone to lunch with this guy when your gut was telling you he was a creep. That sent him mixed messages.

Poster #5: Why are you calling what he did “sexual assault”? He just kissed you and groped you a little. Stop acting like he forcibly raped you next to a dumpster.

Poster #6: It seems like you did everything right. We can do everything right and still be the victim of crime. So I don’t know why everyone is blaming you for this. The only person at fault here is the shitty guy who hurt you. Please don’t listen to anyone who tells you otherwise.

Women are constantly bombarded with conflicting messages. Don’t go walking at night! But still get plenty of exercise so you don’t become a fat whale! Go the gym! But dress modestly while you are there! And don’t go at night, when the rapists are waiting for you in the parking lot! Don’t be overly friendly with guys you don’t know! But don’t be a feminazi bitch! NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO, WE THE PEANUT GALLERY WILL BE JUDGING YOU FOR THE CHOICES YOU MAKE. YOU CANNOT WIN.

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70

So there is no safety advice I can offer my daughter that isn’t “implicit victim blaming”? :dubious:

71

I believe so. When I was assaulted on the street at 8:00 in the morning, I was asked why I was on that street. When a guy groped me on a bus and followed me to that 7-eleven, he told the cops he “just wanted to explain.” No matter what she does, the woman gets blamed. I saw a Montel Williams where a guy in prison for getting a 12 year pregnant said “She had a crush on me and she dressed like Brittany Spears and sat in my lap.” So what? Sex with minors is illegal.

I read Touchpoints for Women, a religious tome that told woman to avoid dressing provocatively or sending suggestive signals to avoid being raped. What the hell does that mean?

72

I would suggest we have this conversation without delving into sexual assault scenarios. Those will be highly contentious and it will quickly derail. There are many other situations that can be discussed that won’t have such conflicts.

For example, at the gym, some people do not lock up their locker. I come across these lockers when I’m searching for one for my own use. I open the closed door and I see their stuff inside. Their pants are there with the wallet visible, phone on the floor of the locker, etc. It would be trivial for someone to steal their stuff. The only reason that it doesn’t get stolen is that a thief didn’t happen to come across it. There is no barrier or protection for their stuff. Not only their wallet and phone, but their keys are there as well. There was a time where people were stealing cars by taking the keys to the parking lot and pressing the buttons on the remote to find the car. While it’s true that a thief can break open any lock, it’s much more likely that a thief is just going to take stuff from lockers without locks rather than take the time and effort to break a lock. If that person gets their stuff stolen, a large contributing factor was that they did not lock up their stuff. I’m not sure what term to use to refer to that person, but it does seem like there are reasonable steps that person should take to keep their stuff safe.

73

You can give her the same advice you give your sons. You can tell her not to get so drunk that her judgment is significantly impaired–which you should also tell your sons.

Beyond that, I think you have to seriously consider whether the safety advice you are giving is reasonable and effective. If you’re telling her not to dress in short skirts, for her safety, that’s like telling her not to go to bed with wet hair, she’ll get sick. There’s no evidence that it’s true. Except telling her to moderate her dress does actual damage to her. If you are telling her not to drive on the interstate alone, not to live in the city alone, not to join a gym but to buy a treadmill instead, not to take a job if she will have to travel alone or with men, not to go to the mall if the only parking spot she can get is far away, then I think you are basically asking her to give up a tremendous amount of quality of life to only very mildly mitigate her risk, and that you should consider if you’d accept the same restrictions on your life for the same reduction in risk.

74

But the details are what matters. It’s like you want to argue about whether someone’s lifestyle choices can negatively impact their health, but you don’t want us to talk about which choices and what aspects of health.

There is no point in debating whether or not, theoretically, the actions of someone somewhere might possibly contribute to being a victim of some sort of crime. That’s so broad as to be meaningless. The question on the table is whether or not the standard set of “rape rules” women are taught mostly function to blame victims, or whether they are a sad but appropriate double-standard, given the state of the world. I’m fine with “it’s probably even more important for women not to get falling-down drunk in public than men, though no one should”. I’m not fine with any of the others.

75

The bottom line is that women get raped because they come into contact with a rapist. They may accept a date from a man who turns out to be a rapist, or they may have the misfortune of walking down a dark street where a rapist is lying in wait.

And there’s not much difference between the two rapists. They might even be the same guy.

Rape is a violent felony. I’m fighting against the misconception that there are circumstances where a normal man can be provoked into committing a violent felony because of the outward appearance of his victim or the way she’s behaving. There aren’t any.

If your date rapes you, it’s because your date was a rapist. Your dress, demeanor or level of intoxication are irrelevant, except as they affect your ability to fight back.

But this is a difficult point for many people to comprehend, especially because we frequently don’t give ourselves enough credit.

I used to own a small business, and I was a authorized dealer for some very expensive home automation equipment. One of my clients, who owned a company that was MUCH larger than mine, had a client that had a trust issue. His client wanted to pay me directly for the equipment because he didn’t trust that my customer would actually use the money he gave him properly.

So, I received a large (50K+) check from his client. I entered it as an account credit to my customer. Whenever this customer ordered something, I would use that credit to pay the bill and send them a paid invoice.

But this went on a long time and their was some turnover in the upper management of my customer’s business. So one day I received a check for the exact 50K+ amount of their credit, along with a note of apology.

Now, if you had put this to me as a hypothetical- I would’ve thought long and hard about it, slept on it, and with regret, I would’ve eventually called them and informed them of their mistake. But that’s not what happened. My reaction was immediate, I called them without a second thought and told them about their mistake. I even had to pull up some documents to “prove” they didn’t owe me money. I never considered keeping it, not even for a millisecond and I certainly had no regrets.

I think some men imagine that if they were alone with a gorgeous underdressed blind-drunk woman, they might be tempted. But I think those men underestimate themselves, or at least underestimate the physical violence involved in rape. And I think when they are actually in that situation, most men would do the right thing, or at least not do the wrong thing.

And the ones that don’t are rapists. There was an article in The Atlantic several months ago on the subject of unsolved rapes. A charitable organization ,The Joyful Heart Foundation, donated funds to law enforcement agencies nationwide for the purpose of running DNA tests on thousands of rape kits that had never been tested.

Now their were many reasons these kits had never been tested. In some cases, the prosecutors did not think they had a strong enough case to justify prosecution. Plus, it sort of seemed unproductive to DNA test samples from date rape cases - the identity of the rapist was known, why bother?

But this project turned out to be very productive. Because the DNA from these acquaintance rapes started to match to other unsolved rapes, the kind where a woman was overpowered in an alley by a strange man. Because it turns out -surprise- that violent felonies are committed by violent felons.

So MOST victim blaming is bullshit. But there is a very small subset of people, men and women both, with serious self-destructive tendencies. I’ve know men that got worked up after a fight with a girlfriend and reacted by taking a long walk through a dangerous neighborhood (or in one case on a camping trip, rappelling down a cliff without a safety harness). Or a woman who gets blind drunk in bars after fights with her boyfriend and leaves with strange men. And if I was a good friend to one of these people, I’d probably encourage them to closely examine their behavior. But that woman, despite all her issues, is still not going to get raped unless she comes into contact with a rapist.

76

There is no advice you should be giving your daughter that you also shouldn’t give to your son.

If you would never think to tell your son to avoid walking outside alone, then you should never think to tell your daughter this either.

If you tell your daughter to not drink to the point of drunkenness, then you should tell your son the same thing.

On Reddit at least, you can’t read a thread about rape without someone posting GUYS GET RAPED TOO! Yes, guys get raped too, and yet rape prevention advice is always targeted at women. It is like men are expected to live their lives without fear or worry. But we women are told we must be constantly on the look-out for danger. And if we slip up, we will be blamed for not following the proper protocol.

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77

Nobody’s saying that there aren’t things you can do to mitigate being robbed or raped. What they’re saying is that if it does happen, you didn’t cause it because your mitigation efforts weren’t complete, or didn’t work, or weren’t the right ones. The robber or rapist is the one who caused it, and the presence or absence of your mitigation efforts doesn’t affect his actions or responsibility in any way.

To take it to a very far extreme, it’s like arguing that that it’s your fault you got mugged because you left your home and went out in public where robbers might be lurking. We all know this is completely absurd, but it’s just an extreme example of victim blaming- it’s the same argument that you didn’t park in a lighted area/dress like a nun/, so it’s your fault that you got robbed, only to a different degree.

Mitigation efforts are separate- they’re acknowledging that these assholes exist and are lurking out there, and trying to mitigate the chance you’ll run into them and/or mitigate the effects if you do.

Think of them like you might think of smoke detectors; they help people get out when there’s a fire. But not having smoke detectors doesn’t make it your fault when a fire breaks out- that’s still the fault of the faulty wiring or pyromaniac child or whatever.

78

One reason - unfair though it is - that society puts the onus on would-be victims to watch their own behavior, rather than that of criminals, is because it’s far easier to modify the former’s behavior than the latter.

It’s the reason the U.S. military trains its soldiers to beware of and avoid roadside IEDs planted by terrorists in Iraq, rather than lecture those terrorists about how IED bombs are wrong and they shouldn’t be planting them. Because terrorists ain’t gonna stop.

79

The advice is the same, the statistics are not. My 1.83m son has less of a risk walking alone outside than my 1.63m daughter, it’s a given. Also, the consequences are different and worse for her should something bad happen. It sucks, for sure, but it’s true.

The risk of a drunken girl being raped are much higher than for a boy. So, it’s always “don’t get drunk” but also realising the real-world differences.

Blaming? I wouldn’t do it to a specific person in most circumstances, never in rape. As a general advice, however, it is sensible to reduce your chances of something bad happening to you by evil people’s hands.

80

Do y’all know the old joke where the punchline is “we’ve established you’re a whore, now we are just haggling over price”? I feel like that’s what this thread is about. Some people are really attached to the idea that conceptually it has to be possible, under extreme circumstances, to say that a victims actions make him/her to some degree culpable. Like, the actual cases don’t matter, just that it must be theoretically true. Then I feel like once that’s established, it can be used as a beachhead to justify increasingly onerous restrictions on women’s freedom of movement and expression.