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

[bupcakesandcunting]

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."

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 It took me totally by surprise. Was notm expecting that from her.

Incidentally that analogy - sex as property - is one that is culturally accepted in Haiti, which has one of the highest rape rates on earth. The NGOs working there all, unanimously, point to that mindset as why. They say sex is seen as a commodity women withold, bargain and manipulate with; not as an absolute abuse of someone's body and mind. It's not seen as an offence against the person but as coerced taking of a possession. And the subtext is that women abuse their power as sole gender owning that possession. And the suspicion is that that mindset is a relic of slavery - when women's reproductive abilities and sexual favours were literally possessions, and could be bought and sold.

I's a pernicious and dangerous analogy, because you are commodifying someone's body and soul. It's absolutely reductivist in making rape seem about an exchange of property rather than a singularly violent assault.

It's true that some men think that by accepting a date then you are saying yes to sex. Due to another frightening experience like the one i described (but this time on a 2nd date with a male friend) i would say if whether you are dating or just socialising make your boundaries very clear. Be wary of situations that the man may have engineered to get you alone. Some men do think that being alone together is consent.
FWIW i've been out clubbing in short skirts a lot thru my 20s, and very drunk too.
But i've only been attacked when sober, wearing conservative clothes, by men i knew.

storm I'm hoping you're right wrt why women believe this crap.

Sorry for dragging up the Let Girls Be Girls thing again, but that thread is full of statements that show how people - women included - link female dress with sexual availability.

It's horrible, and why the whole thing made me uncomfortable. I'm not saying that the people posting about girls' clothing are saying that they're "asking for it", but if these people think a 7 yo in party shoes is rocking "hooker chic" then what do they think of a 25 yo wearing the same?

To me, it isn't that the clothes say that the children are sexually available, jenai, because I think a child could flat-out be wearing a T-shirt saying "I'm Sexually Available" and it wouldn't give anyone the right to do anything to them. For me the "sexulization of children" is more that it tells little girls that what they look like, and how "sexy" they can act is vvvv important and makes them worthwhile.