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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

"You're not like a rape victim"

133 replies

BasilBabyEater · 07/06/2012 21:52

That's what someone said to me years ago, when I pulled him up on some shit he was saying about rape.

I can't remember what shit he was saying exactly; it was probably some rape myth stuff and I pointed out to him that I might be a rape victim for all he knew. And he came back with that. He dismissed out of hand, even the possibility that someone like me could be a rape victim. I was obviously so far from what his idea of a rape victim was, that he could dismiss the idea that I might be one, with no hesitation.

I decided to write something about this - the public perception of a rape victim - and then realised that I didn't have the faintest idea of what it is so decided not to bother. But I wanted to pursue the question.

What is a woman who is "like a rape victim" like? What did you think she was like before you came across feminist ideas? What do you think the general public think a rape victim is like? Do they still have a fixed idea of this? Was this bloke an unusually neanderthallic specimen or was he voicing quite a common perception? Wossitallabaht? Any ideas?

OP posts:
CailinDana · 07/06/2012 22:26

I think people expect rape to devastate you and make you unable to function with the assumption that if you function normally then it mustn't have been rape, it couldn't have been that bad.

BasilBabyEater · 07/06/2012 22:25

L&L - interesting. So a rape victim is extra vulnerable in this boy's opinion?

I was also thinkig of that appallng episode of Question Time where some of the panel went on about how we have to raise our girls to have high self-esteem so they don't get raped. It was as if they thought that having high self esteem, would stop a rapist raping a woman - so in their confused thinking, they must think that rape victims have lower self-esteem than women who are not raped.

OP posts:
BlackOutTheSun · 07/06/2012 22:24

Sorry Basil that post was erm, a bit short Blush

What I meant to say is that you wouldn't say that to a victim of another crime, so I do think it is linked with the myths.

LurkingAndLearningForNow · 07/06/2012 22:11

I've actually been told by a useless male 'psychologist' (I use the term loosely for the incompetent twit) that the reason I was attacked a second (and third) time was because of my appearance and demeanour. Meaning that, according to him; the way I dressed and walked told potential predators that I had been attacked before and was thus vulnerable. Angry

I have a very unique style as like to wear designer shoes and salvos clothes I patch together. According to him by trying to be different (AKA being myself) in the way I dressed was a red flag to rapists that had suffered attacks? Confused
Needless to say at the tender age of fourteen I sad words to him I have never since repeated. Grin

Birdsgottafly · 07/06/2012 22:05

I think that before i had a real understanding of DV, i would have made the same stupid statement about that as his 'rape' comment, tbh.

BasilBabyEater · 07/06/2012 22:02

BlackOutTheSun, do you think if I'd said to this guy that I had been burgled, he would have said "You don't look like a burglary victim"?

That's what I'm getting at. In order to tell me that I didn't look like one, he must have had a very strong (if subconscious and not particularly carefully examined) idea of what a rape victim was like.

Do you think people have a strong image of what burglary victims look like? Do you think they have a strong image of what rape victims look like? And if not, what was this guy on about?

That's what I'd like to discuss here.

OP posts:
Birdsgottafly · 07/06/2012 21:57

I don't usually post on this board, but, i am in my 40's, when i was growing up 'rape victims' were women that were 'moral', everyone else was 'asking for it', or being raped, for them, wasn't really a great hardship.

I meet men of my age group that still believe that and will perpetuate that myth.

BlackOutTheSun · 07/06/2012 21:55

What is the victim of any crime suppose to look like?

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