Chrissie Hyndes victim blaming SMH

" However if just 5% less women are raped, surely that is a benefit."

Do you truly think that would be the outcome? Or would these rapists simply choose frailer victims? Or women walking down a quiet path from work where there is no alternative?

Atenco, I understand what you mean and I agree - we should be teaching our children (girls and boys) basic personal safety skills and I think most people do that. But we should also teach them that these skills are not magic and that if they do, god forbid, get assaulted or raped, it is not their fault. Whether they've been following our advice or not, it doesn't matter, it's not their fault. And that telling someone who has been raped, "Well, why didn't you do [whatever it is I think I would have done]?" is a horribly cruel thing to do and not helpful in the least.

Yes, we can teach our children how to be safer, but can't guarantee that they will be safe

Lweji and ugly swan, may I just say that this is totally obvious. However if just 5% less women are raped, surely that is a benefit.

And I don't see why our freedoms should be curtailed. I have always come and gone as I please at whatever time of the day or night.

But I have also known girls who have been extremely naïve and who really could have done with being more street-wise.

Atenco - I get your point, but - and this is just my personal experience - I think women and girls are taught to be street-wise. I know I was. Don't travel alone late at night, don't drink too much, keep your keys in your hand etc. etc. Most people know about that. But rape and sexual assault still happen.

Learning self-defense is not a bad thing (although for a long time I was extremely resistant to the idea that it should be my duty to weaponise my own body just because some people might decide to try and violate it), but if your up against someone larger, heavier and stronger than you, or several people, then it doesn't get you very far. And then you'll inevitably get the "but you took a self-defense class - why didn't you defend yourself?"

Besides which, none of this addresses the fact that a large percent of rape and sexual assault happens at home. And that a large percent of rapists are friends, partners and acquaintances. Scource: rapecrisis.org.uk/mythsvsrealities.php. Being taught street smarts isn't the solution.

Yes, we can teach our children how to be safer, but can't guarantee that they will be safe.
In the same way that we can lock our houses and cars, but they may still be burgled. But many people in many places don't do it because they don't think there are burglars around.

Nothing to do with the article, which is just sad, but surely there is a difference between victim blaming and teaching our daughters to be street-wise?

Nothing absolves a rapist from their guilt obviously, but aren't there things that we can do to lessen the risk to ourselves without going to the extreme of never going out at night for example, without blaming the victims? Like learning self-defense.

BTL is a bad place to be.

Imagine being that awful in real life that you feel the need to display it in public.

NEVER read the comments*

( * a Life Lesson )

Pretty damn hard to run in flip flops, birkenstocks and backless shoes. Would wearing them make me culpable?

Insulting to Women and Men. What a fool she is.

It's always better not to read the comments...yet I always do....

I'm sorry. I hadn't read the comments. I foolishly expected better from readers of The Independent.

The comments on that article render it almost pointless though.

She has entered the list of people whose opinion I need never take seriously again

The response article by Holly Baxter says everything I want to say.

www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/being-sexually-assaulted-was-not-your-fault-chrissie-hynde--please-dont-tell-other-victims-it-was-theirs-10478880.html

Reading what Chrissie said made me feel so sad and like crying. How can she not get it? She's always been one of my rock goddesses - I thought her so fierce.

Lass, I took more exception to his "can you protect yourself? Absolutely!" statement, as countless MN posters have stated, rape risk comes from men you know at a higher rate than it comes from men you don't.

And he's stated elsewhere he's a "boy" so I'm not speculating with the "his" above.

That would be a wonderful thing to see Fay. Tragic that we have to hope to see something so basic and simple though isn't it.

We can't really protect ourselves, no more than anyone can protect their house from being burgled.
If anyone really wants to commit the crime, they will probably find a way to do it. You may not be the victim of a rapist of occasion in search of vulnerable women at night. But you may be the victim, for example, of someone who gains your trust (even marries you) and then rapes you in your own home.
I am safety aware and know self defence and I'm in no illusion that I may not be able to prevent anyone from raping me if that's what they are set out to do. And that despite any "risky" behaviour, I will only be raped if there is a rapist around who is intent on doing it.

I think jsommer was telling us that we can protect ourselves from rape by not doing all the things he listed. The fact he describes clothing as 'provocative' is a bit of a giveaway. Men never dress 'provacatively', for example.

I don't think "Come on ladies" was intended to be read that way but with reference to putting the blame where it deserves to be.

I feel sorry that this happened to her I really do but equally I feel furious about what she has said. More terrifying, is reading the comments beneath the online articles about this. I don't know why I read them, I really don't.

"Can you protect yourself? Absolutely!! Can you blame yourself? Come on ladies!" Yet there you are blaming women.

Jsommer, your post is not helpful. "Can you protect yourself? Absolutely!! Can you blame yourself? Come on ladies!" - seriously?

Oh god.

I didn't know that had happened to Chrissie H. Poor woman.

Something that happens to abused children is that they hold tight to the belief that they are bad and their parents are good because the alternative, that their parents , awful as they are, are all they have, are bad us just too terrifying a thought.

Maybe believing that actually you can control what happens to you (by choosing what to wear) , and pretending to yourself that you made a mistake and are responsible , feels less terrifying (in an abused frame of mind) , than the helplessness. That saying 'I could have controlled this' and taking responsibility makes you feel a sense of responsibility and power where you have none.

I would like to see CH bombarded with 'it wasn't your fault ' rather than hate mail.