Michaela Coel called out over comments on 'responsibility' and sexual assault

Does accepting some responsibility make you less powerless.

To some women it does, I've talked about it with them. Others not. Ultimately, as a sexual violence survivor, there's no right or wrong way to deal with it, but you shouldn't assume that your experience speaks for every woman.

I'm not keen on these comments, tbh. But she has the right to express them.

I really, really hate the whole victim culture in which people are called out for say, suggesting that women should learn to fight to protect ourselves from rape and other violent assaults

Of course women should learn to fight! If I was in charge of sports ed in this country all girls (and boys) would learn fighting skills, including weapons training.

Obviously this kind of thing can go too far, I am not advocating teaching children a culture in which problems are solved with violence, but what the hell is wrong with teaching kids about the risks you face in life as you grow up and how to defend yourself against them?

What is wrong with teaching kids to learn about discipline and respect for others whilst gaining confidence learning how to deal with potential problems?

There is also a balance to be had.

It seems to me that there is a continuum of beliefs in this respect.

On the one hand, warning women to watch our drinks or suggesting that taking up boxing or martial arts is condemned as victim blaming. This is, IMO, counterproductive. The very first thing any fighter does is to assess the opponent and his / her weapon/s. There is a saying "To know your opponent - know his sword". This is just rational and sensible.

On the other extreme, there is the New Thought movement in which people believe that anything that happens to you is because you chose it at some level. People who drowned in a tsunami chose to drown. People murdered in genocidal atrocities brought it on themselves in some way. An acquanitance years ago once told me that I was ultimately responsible for being sexually abused by my father because my spirit had chosen to be reincarnated in my family of origin. This is disgustingly victim blaming IMO.

Surely there is a Goldilocks zone of culpability in which we accept that we may consiously or unconsciously sometimes expose ourselves to risk, but that also there are some things we have no power over and that sometimes bad things happen to good people?

Surely the strongest path is to identify potential probems and to identify ways of either avoiding them and / or dealing with them effectively?

I see what she's saying. I guess, it's like seatbelts in a car accident. Wearing one won't stop me being rear ended, and it doesn't make the accident my fault if I am not wearing one and end up going through the windshield... But if I do take a simple precaution and put one on, I can make myself safer in the event someone does do something to me.

Great example

I see what she's saying. I guess, it's like seatbelts in a car accident. Wearing one won't stop me being rear ended, and it doesn't make the accident my fault if I am not wearing one and end up going through the windshield... But if I do take a simple precaution and put one on, I can make myself safer in the event someone does do something to me.

Iyswim. Hard to articulate.

So women should be hyper vigilant to avoid feeling powerless?

I would have thought most of us are hyper vigilant anyway. And it's not to avoid feeling powerless. It's to avoid being assaulted.

People just love to “call out” other people these days. Even if we agree with someone on 99 things but not on the 100th, then they have to be “cancelled” and debounced. Fuck, we really can’t hold own opinions anymore.

On a related note - I've been in an abusive relationship before and find it very hard to have a conversation about it for this exact same reason. Any time I try to talk about what I did to allow (or even encourage) the abusive behaviour I'm told I'm victim-blaming (myself). I find this really frustrating because I want to arm myself against this kind of thing happening to me again. In fact I've changed a lot of the way I engage with relationships now to make myself less vulnerable to abuse. And yet all of this soul searching I've had to do on my own because no one wants to insinuate that anything was "my fault".