Can we do anything about this?

Yes, a child is far more likely to be abused physically, sexually, emotionally or murdered by a member of its family. So that was a good example, TheBride, of how campaigns can steer attention away from the real issues.

It's important a child knows not to go with strangers but that's it: nothing more, nothing less.

This stranger danger business actually demonizes all men, good men included. There was a mumsnetter who said she came accross a man in a park who'd found a lost child and he told her to please take the child off his hands in case someone found him with her and thought he'd taken her and was a paedo. The stranger danger hype means a good man might be frightened to look after a lost child in case he's accused of being a paedo, but in fact the child's father is more likely to sexually abuse her than a stranger.

Stranger danger is all part of the culture of fear, I think, and again it's mostly directed towards little girls, even though boys are quite likely to be abducted too.

Stranger danger is an incomplete picture as well though. Most abuse happens in the home, so by concentrating on the "stranger" aspect, children who are being abused are not given the means to maybe tell someone/reaise what is happening as thei attacker doesn't fit the "stranger" idea.

Ditto rape - most happens with people that the victim knows but there are no campaigns to tell anyone that - it's all stuff about not walking home after dark or getting into cabs on your own - activites that are relatively safe.

All it does is keep people perpetually scared, and not actually stop people being attacked.

let's face it, if a man is so intent on rape that he goes around the streets pretending to be a cab, then if victims are denied to him that way, he will simply find another ruse.

As long as there are men out there who are predatory rapists, then women are not going to be safe, no matter what "safety behaviours" they employ.

Paedophiles are not the only people who snatch kids.

Plus the idea for children is, do not go off with strangers, full stop. If a child does go off with a stranger, does everyone berate the stupid child and say they brought it on themselves if something bad happens?

Do we really think that grown women who have grown up in our society need to be told even more about all of the activities that they should avoid? And the message is things that TBH most women can't avoid anyway - going out after dark, being alone with men, that sort of thing.

I have still not seen any stats to back up the idea that illegal minicabs are more dangerous for women than other modes of transport. Like others have said, it's an advert.

maybe better to draw an anaology to an advert showing a child beign attacked, with an advert for a tracking microchip underneath.

So what about "stranger danger" campaigns. By telling kids not to go off with strangers rather than saying "paedophiled: don't snatch kids", are we telling them it's their own fault if they are targeted by paedophiles?

Here's an example of a poster aimed at the criminals

So we do it for other crimes, why not rape?

Yes. Like menstruation. Nothing to do with men. A bit icky to talk about and best brushed under the carpet.

Exactly ISNT. There should be a picture of a man there, driving the cab, to show that rape is about the rapist, the perpetrator, the person who makes the decision to committ this disgusting crime.
I'D go so far as to say that the poster makes out that rape is all about women. A sort of "woman's problem".

In the poster it is very clear that the women in the advert is undergoing some terrible unspecified ordeal (rape? torture? murder?) and that it is entirely her own fault as she got in the wrong cab.

The person who is subjecting her to the ordeal is not even shown - thus they are completely out of the thoughts of the observer. The ad is all about the woman, what is happening to her, and what she did wrong in order to allow this to happen to her.

Read most and skimmed the last

I want to know

Is it statistically more likely that women will be raped after taking a ride in an unlicenced minicab, as opposed to a licenced cab or a black cab?

I have not seen any statistics that show that. I have heard stories of women being raped by icenced and unicenced cab drivers. And of course there was john worboys.

I am unconvinced. And the poster is utterly horrible. Nice thing for the kids to see when they're on a day out in London.

saying that rape is condoned by society is the worst kind of generalist BS"

Do you read the papers? Do you read the comments written by the public on the online papers? If you do, you'll find a lot of articles and comments that are very unsympathetic to rape victims. Supposedly most are liars that just changed their minds. Some are malicious and just make these things up to slander a man's character.

In my case, both men are "fine, upstanding members of the community". Neither would break into your house or steal your car. If you met either of them, you wouldn't think they would do anything like that.

Of course, I reported neither incident. One because I had no witnesses so it would have been my word against his. The other I chose not to report because I was in a foreign country where the law, police and judiciary probably don't support rape victims. I wasn't hanging around to find out. I got a flight out. With the second incident I may have reported it if it had happened in the UK, but only because I had a creditable male witness.

TheBride:

"Happysmiley- maybe you just need to change the company you keep"

So it's happysmiley's fault, then?

Seriously, how is that response not victim blaming?

The Bride, of course I know rapists aren't going to take notice of the "DOn'T rape" sign. BUt it will still be just as effective in alerting women of the problem, don't you think? WHile at the same time not apportioning the responsibility onto women? IT does rather sound like you are responsible for whether you get raped or not. But we don't say a man's responsible for being glassed just because he walked into a pub full of scallywags.

rationality, the phenomenon of blaming the victim for rape is as old as God's dog. It's a major issue for feminists, as is the culture of fear. This poster is part of that.

Thankyou rationality.

Knowing something is wrong and caring about it are two different things but I dont know anyone who thinks it's okay to go round attacking anyone - men or women. As I said, that's possibly just the company I keep. I know these awful people exist. Maybe one day I'l be unlucky enough to find myself alone with one of them, but saying that rape is condoned by society is the worst kind of generalist BS. Even the criminal fraternity rejects rapists FFS.

Happysmiley- I assume you reported your friend to the police and the other man to both your company and the police, or did you think it was pointless because "the police are part of the conspiracy to keep rapists on the streets."

HS

I fully doubt that either of the men thought it 'perfectly acceptable' to attack you.

Neither of them will have had in their head "oh it's totally okay for me to do this, no one cares, its only rape and not against the law"

They will have known it was not acceptable to attack you but just not *cared8.

And it's that kind of people that simply don't care that are the kind of person that attack women.

And I totally disagree that society is reluctant to condemn men that attack women. Sorry but that's complete bullsh*t, and your statement "as evidenced by the fact that you chose to question my acquaintances and my response to being attacked rather than their behaviour in attacking me." is totally illogical and means absolutely nothing.

Actually TheBride, we know why they both thought it ok to attack me. Society seems to say it's ok as it seems reluctant to condem men that attack women, as evidenced by the fact that you chose to question my acquaintances and my response to being attacked rather than their behaviour in attacking me.

TheBride, one was known to me for many years and was a good friend of mine. The other was employed by a company to "look after" me and a group of other people travelling in a foreign country (a part of Africa where you generally don't travel alone).

As for fighting back, much as I tried, I'm 4ft 11in and a size 6. I don't have a great chance against a 6ft tall man who has me pinned down on the ground.

But the question is not why I trusted either of these people or why I didn't fight back hard enough. The real question is why both of them thought it perfectly acceptable to attack me.

sorry- that was a bit harsh but where do you find these guys?

Believe me, a poster campaign telling men that rape is wrong will solve nothing. They know that. We've had "no means no" since frikkin 1985.

Dont cry next tim- give him a black eye instead. Let him explain that to his mates

Happysmiley- maybe you just need to change the company you keep.

TheBride, I think that there is a lot that can be done by way of education of men in this. Most rapes aren't committed by men jumping out from the bushes but by men known to the victim. A lot of men think it is acceptable to coerce a woman into sex and to push her boundaries.

I think of a couple of times when I've been in nasty situations with men who wouldn't stop even when firmly told "no". One only stopped when I started to cry. The second, when another man walked in and immediately knew something was wrong because he thought I looked scared. Both men knew I didn't want to have sex with them, but for whatever reason they thought it was perfectly acceptable to pressure me into "changing my mind". I think there is a lot of education to be given to men about what constitutes consent.

Sakura, please read above:

"My main gripe here is the funny concept a lot of complainants here have about apportioning blame.

It is a solid, irrefutable fact that a lot of crime (including but not limited to rape) is avoidable. The presence of a dependable police force and justice system prevents crime from being committed by all but the most determined - the kind of people who would be prevented from offending merely by the lack of an opportunity, and care little about any repercussions they might face.
So, all that is left to be done is reduce the opportunities these offenders get. This poster, along with the ones I've linked above, are part of an initiative to reduce opportunistic crime.
No one's likely to to try and steal your phone from a securely zipped inside pocket on a busy street, but if you're jabbering away on it noisily in a deserted alleyway after dark, the likelihood of an opportunistic miscreant to attempt to remove it from your possession greatly increases.
Similarly, you're less likely to get raped if you go home with a large group of friends or in safe transport, than if you go home on your own or, for example, an unlicensed minicab.

At no point do these posters even suggest that it is the victims fault that (s)he got raped, and I think it does your intelligence little justice to read that into it. You're putting two and two together and coming up with the number you want, but whatever it is it isn't 4. No one will deny that in a rape incident, the rapist is in the wrong and his/her actions are totally inexcuseable, but.. well, better safe than sorry, no?

Perhaps conversely to this argument, I think if I walked down a dodgy district of a major city, drunk, after dark, browsing the internet on my smartphone, few people would have much sympathy for me if it got stolen."

Yeah- because rapists are really going to take notice of that. I don't imagine they'd thought that raping people might be a nasty thing to do. but once they see the advert they'll say "Oh my God. I should so stay home and play on my Wii tonight instead"

I'm sure that "Don't murder people" or "Don't burgle houses" would be equally effective in tackling the crime rate.

Apart from anything else, if they did a campaign saying "men, dont rape" that would be extremely offensive to the vast majority of men (and cab drivers)who dont go round raping women.

Minicab attacks are a serious problem in London. There is at least 1 a week. If they are looking at crime stats and saying "X% of reported rapes by a stranger are committed by illegal minicab drivers" then I can't see how that's a bad thing to alert people to that fact.

A campaign with a poster saying
"Men, DON'T RAPE!" would be more desirable, with perhaps a picure of a man driving a cab.

THe victim message that poster reinforces is out of order.

Yes its very important to prevent people getting raped. I'm not sure that targeting the potential victims i.e all women is the best way to go about it, though.

Perhaps best to shift the focus onto men who rape. The majority of rapes are committed by a man who the woman knows personally.

It's true- the most likely victim of a random attack by a stranger is a man under 30, not a woman. However, there is a different risk/reward pay off.

Far more men walk down the street alone and don't get attacked by a ned than women get into illegal minicabs and dont suffer some sort of attack or intimidation. It makes sense to target a very preventable crime.

Also, I'm not sure what feminist activists want. There are loads of threads on here about how rape isnt taken seriously by "society", but if they do a campaign to reduce attack rates by targeting a very discreet but high yielding area, they still get slated because they're making women out to be victims. Surely it's better to prevent people getting raped than to let them get raped and lock people up afterwards.

Yes, logically what you're saying makes sense.
But there's something iffy about this poster. Awareness can be raised in other ways. The "Oh Stop, please stop..." is very gauche and the main problem for me is that this poster perpetuates the culture of fear. It is a big issue for feminists. The fear itcreates among women, with the explicit implication that they are all potential victims, is a major form of social control (for more info on this perhaps everyone could read the latest book suggested by the feminist book club??
To put rape into context, I think I read somewhere that men are more likely to be beaten and mugged or seriously injured on a saturday night than a woman is to be raped. But men are not targeted and treated as victims by public campaigns.
Where are all the ads of a bleeding man shouting "Oh stop, please stop" as some thugs beat him up on a Sat night, then a message telling men they shouldn't walk on the streets alone, or go into pubs alone?