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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

I didn't challenge my colleague on this horrible thing she said AIBU?

79 replies

bupcakesandcunting · 16/12/2010 11:46

I have a work colleague who I thought was a really nice girl. She is younger than me, only 24 and she seems really level-headed and intelligent. However, we were chatting at work yesterday about our respective partners/husbands and how we worry about them getting involved in fights when out in groups. I said that I feel that men tend to attract negative attention just for being men and that girls are less likely to be physically attacked than men. Then my colleague said this;

"Yeah it's more rape with girls than fights. But most of them ask for it." Shock

I did a shocked face and went quiet and carried on working. Then she went "They go out in belts. That's asking for it."

I was in shock. Honestly shocked. I didn't challenge her on it and I feel angry at myself because I won't see her now until after christmas and I don;t feel like almost 3 weeks later I can go up to her and go "you know what you said about women who get raped asking for it? Well you're wrong..." But I am so cross Angry It took me totally by surprise. Was notm expecting that from her.

OP posts:
kreecherlivesupstairs · 16/12/2010 11:49

YANBU. She sounds ridiculously juvenile. I think when someone makes such a lunatic statement it takes your breath (and mind processes) away.

SheWillBeLoved · 16/12/2010 11:50

I'd have probably done the same as you to be honest, although I'd wish I had said something like "Nobody asks to be raped, regardless of how they are dressed, you stupid, stupid girl. [disgusted face]"

Shocking.

Curiousmama · 16/12/2010 11:51

What a silly girl. She obviously hasn't been raped unlike a lot of my friends. I'd just give her a wide birth and be careful what you say to her if it were me.

LC200 · 16/12/2010 11:55

She sounds to me as though she is parroting something she has heard somewhere, and is not fully thinking it through. Probably your shocked silence will encourage her to engage her brain a bit and she will be shocked at her own stupidity.

When I was 18 I thought that anyone with HIV should be sterilised. Suffice to say I do NOT think it any more!

deaddei · 16/12/2010 11:59

Why do you worry about your dh's/partners getting involved in fights?
Where do you live?

Original poster
bupcakesandcunting · 16/12/2010 12:05

deaddei, I live in the midlands but DH went to uni' in Birmingham which is quite a popular venue for random street-stabbings. In the last couple of years men on nights out with friends have been stabbed in pubs for no apparent reason. A guy I know died after getting beaten up by 5 twats after he was walking home from a night out. DH and his mates are unassuming nerds, bless 'em. I think that there are gangs of men out there that go looking for a fight and generally they pick blokes like my DH rather than the big meatheads with fat necks working the doors in pubs IYSWIM?

OP posts:
monkeyflippers · 16/12/2010 12:06

It's weird isn't it how you can not realise what a dick someone is until they say something like that.

minibmw2010 · 16/12/2010 12:06

I think I understand the point you mean re your partners .. my DH is 6ft4 and a broad man, but the most unlikely man to ever get into a fight, he's very gentle. BUT I do worry about other peoples behaviour when they are drunk as often they'll see a big bloke and think "right I can have him" or similar. That is what would worry me, not his behaviour at all.

Original poster
bupcakesandcunting · 16/12/2010 12:09

I understand, mini. My DH is tall too. Then his best mate has a shaved head then another is big built... One of them attracts fights because he looks muscular (he's a kickboxer) so people try their luck. Just worry that DH is going to be in the wrong place/wrong time one day. I can honestly say that my friends and I have never experienced this type of thing. I just don't think that women do it as much as some men do.

OP posts:
madonnawhore · 16/12/2010 12:11

Staggeringly ignorant thign for her to say but I don't know if I would have bothered to get into a debate with her about it. At work isn't really the time or the place to tackle a subject like that in depth anyway.

I'm still kicking myself for not saying something to the younger sister of a friend of mine when they were both at my house and she mentioned something about 'Paki shops'. I was so stunned, I just sort of wordlessly gaped my mouth a couple of times and then the conversation had moved on.

I wish I'd had the presence of mind to have kicked her out of my flat tbh.

Don't berate yourself too much. Sometimes when someone comes out with something as blatantly ignorant a view as that, we have to check ourselves to make sure we hear correctly because those kind of views are anathema to reasonable people.

Original poster
bupcakesandcunting · 16/12/2010 12:13

madonna that's what I was doing; checking that I'd heard correctly then she said the thing about wearing belts... Then I started constructing arguments in my head to prove her wrong but I was too weirded out by it.

Worrying when a woman thinks like this.

OP posts:
Curiousmama · 16/12/2010 12:17

Don't get me started on 'Paki shops' or 'Chinkies' Shock I always say to people would you say that whilst in the shop?
Sadly some would. I was in my local chinese when I lived elsewhere and a man on the phone was telling someone he was in the 'chinkies' Angry Poor lovely woman who owns it was stood there he didn't give a toss Sad I had to help her out one night when a gang of yobs were hassling her. Luckily they went but it couldn't turned really nasty?

Anyway rant over Wink

Original poster
bupcakesandcunting · 16/12/2010 12:20

I used to say "paki shop" Blush I soon stopped when I started going to school with "pakis" and they became my friends. Growing up in the 80s, it was just popular vernacular, I don't know if there was any real malice in it. But now, in this day and age, we know better. Or should do.

OP posts:
Curiousmama · 16/12/2010 12:23

At least you stopped bupcakes. Funnily enough the 2 shops I've lived close to who were run by asians were Indian not Pakistani.

theevildead2 · 16/12/2010 12:31

Unfortunalty I think you will find that the MAJORITY of people feel the way your friend does to an extent. There are numerous articles on people's beliefs that women "ask" for rape by the way they dress, where the hang out, dating a lot.

So there probably wouldn't be much reason to have a go at her, she's just voicing what most people think and I don't you shouting at her would change her opinions at all.

theevildead2 · 16/12/2010 12:35

Maybe when people say "ask for it" they mean it in the sense that you wouldn't go flashing loads of cash about after dark.

Obviously you don't want to be robbed and obviously you don't deserve to be robbed.. But the fact is it, it does happen and its naieve to think it won't happen to you? Just musing here..

I'm going to have a baby girl soon and I wish I could live in a world where she could wander the streets naked and never have to be scared of anyone.. But not likely.

Curiousmama · 16/12/2010 12:41

theevildead2 who are these most people you know of? I just hope it's baby hormones making you say such tosh?

StealthPolarBear · 16/12/2010 12:42

But there is a difference between "taking responsibility" - i.e. actions and behaviours which make it less likely something bad will happen to you and "being responsible" if that bad thing does happen.
Today I am out of the house, our laptop is visible through the window from our back garden. If I had been more responsible, it would be out of sight. If someone smashes the window and grabs it, they are responsible for that. That seems so clear when it's about burglary but less clear to most people about rape.
(NB If you are thinking about it, I wouldn't bother, it has milk and crumbs in the keyboard and keeps dying :o)

LaraJade · 16/12/2010 13:12

My BF's bro is a policeman - shocking when he tells us how many serious fights, beatings + stabbings go on round town.
Would be much more scared to let out a son or DP than a girl at night.
BUT from mine + my sis + mates' experiences :( tell your DDs to never be alone with a man (unless you want to be IYSWIM). IME even male friends / colleagues.

theevildead2 · 16/12/2010 13:15

Curiousmama please don't be rude and go read a newspaper. There are articles on this out every couple of months and they are usually discussed on mumsnet. Seriously google it.

I'm not saying everyone I know, because to be honest it isn't something I discuss daily with my friends. There is a reason most rapist don't go to jail and that is that to a certain degree many people seem to think women shouldn't have put themselves in situtations where they are likely to be raped.

As I explained I don't believe this is the case.

Yes, I agree Stealth but just musing on if that's where people get confused. although where DO you live?

Original poster
bupcakesandcunting · 16/12/2010 13:20

I think that the reason that most rapists do not go to jail is because the British justice system is shit at dealing with rape trials. The victim is often made to feel like the onus is on her to prove that the rape happened. The woman is put through so much trauma after the rape that I can see why many women are reluctant about seeing it through to court. Sad but true.

OP posts:
theevildead2 · 16/12/2010 13:23

Yo're probably right cupcakes that is why most don't make it to trial but even those that do don't seem to go very far in getting justice for the victim

theevildead2 · 16/12/2010 13:25

Just noticed Lara's post, it's so sad that it comes to that isn't it?

sethstarofbethlehemsmum · 16/12/2010 13:25

I am not surprised you didn't challenge it at the time because your jaw completely drops at things like that.
I think you can still challenge it 3 weeks later though - 'You probably don't even remember but you know when we were talking about rape and you said most of the girls were asking for it?' etc.
I mean if she is going to think you are weird for telling her she is wrong then she probably would have thought so even if you had said something at the time IYSWIM, so you might as well.

Curiousmama · 16/12/2010 13:28

You are talking tosh if you think the MAJORITY of people think women 'ask for it' by what they wear etc... At least i do hope so.

And none of my friends who were raped reported it. One was raped twice the second time gang raped and videod Sad And the amount of women I know who've been almost raped and/or sexually abused is alarming. None of the women I know 'asked for it' in any way shape or form.

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