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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

10 Tips to Prevent Rape

688 replies

coldwed · 19/10/2011 09:43

Should this leaflet be handed out to the public?

www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2141096

OP posts:
DontCallMeFrothyDragon · 20/10/2011 11:16

MrsBethel, I don't leave my drink unattended with anyone. But my ex's drink still got spiked (the drink spiking was meant for me).

I was with a big group of friends. None of them would have spiked it.

Whatmeworry, there is no advice I can give. I took all of my mothers "advice". I still got raped. Repeatedly. None of those rapes took place outside, whilst I was pissed out of my face, walking down an alleyway in high heels and a short skirt, low cut top or whatever.

I can ask my DD, if I ever have one, not to walk home alone, and instead I'll collect her. But that doesn't protect her from her boyfriend, male friend, taxi drivers... whooever else I can't protect her from.

jenny60 · 20/10/2011 11:17

Squeaky:no woman has ever been raped and murdered because she 'made the wrong decision'. The hideous fucker who did it to her 'made the wrong decision'. I can't believe you think that, let alone say it. How insensitive, especially on a thread where so many women have shared their experiences of being raped.

squeakyfreakytoy · 20/10/2011 11:19

Jenny, read back my own posts before calling me insensitive. I WAS attacked. I have every right to the opinion that making a decision to walk home alone puts you in a vulnerable position, because it does.

kelly2000 · 20/10/2011 11:19

If you tell your child to not leave their drink unattended with strangers, but do not tell her to not leave it unattended with people she knows (boys from school at parties etc), then you are giving her very bad advice as you are making her feel safer with men she knows.

She is far more likely to be raped by someone she knows like a boy from school, uni., friends brother/boyfriend/ friend of a friend, her own boyfriend etc then a stranger.

cory · 20/10/2011 11:19

Your research methods leave something to be desired, squeaky.

If you google "woman raped after on way home" then naturally you are going to get stories about women who are raped on their way home from something (usually a party), not women who are raped in their homes by their friend's boyfriend at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. If I google "man eaten by lion" I am not going to come across a wide range of stories of men dying from in old age from cancer of the prostate. It doesn't mean the risk of being eaten by lions is actually greater.

There is one other factor to be remembered. The story of a woman raped by a stranger while walking alone is far more likely to get wide news coverage and be circulated on the internet than the story of a woman who was raped by her bf's brother seeing her home supposedly for her protection. The latter kind of story makes less interesting news.

It is also less likely to be reported to the police in the first place as the woman is more likely to feel ashamed and worried about the reactions of other people. Read throught the posts of the women who have told their own experiences on this thread: many of them have never spoken about it until now. If they had been jumped on by total strangers appearing from behind a bush they probably would have.

jenny60 · 20/10/2011 11:21

I have and you are squeaky.

cory · 20/10/2011 11:21

One piece of advice I will definitely be giving my daughter- apart from general safety advice- is to be very wary of any man who shows signs of wanting to control her and push his presence on her when she doesn't want it "for her own protection". From many years of reading the Relationship threads on MN, that seems to be one fairly reliable sign of a dodgy man.

AyeScream · 20/10/2011 11:22

squeaky, that's because those are the rapes that are reported by the media. I don't think the papers are very interested in "husband penetrates wife whilst she is asleep".

squeakyfreakytoy · 20/10/2011 11:22

And I cant remember if it was on this thread or the other one, but my friend was raped and murdered because she thought that it would be quicker than waiting for a taxi, to take a short cut through the fields from the nightclub we were all at.

I can 100% guarantee that if she had stayed with us, and got in a cab with us, her body would not have been found the next morning.

Can you not see that? Can you not see that she made a bad decision and it cost her her life. Do you not think her parents wish she had waited with her friends. Or do you think people should just say "oh well, she was within her rights to walk home". No, she wasnt doing anything WRONG, but she made a decision that enabled some evil bastard to kill her.

LaWeasel · 20/10/2011 11:23

If she was walking in a group that were going to stay together yes of course I would be fine with that. There could still be a rapist in that group of course. Just like a taxi driver could be a rapist, but being in a big group would mean she is less likely to wander off when drunk and get lost and injure herself, be mugged, wander into the road etc.

She has to learn to assess for herself what is safe and what isn't.

I am so incredibly lucky not to have ever been raped, not because of anything to do with my behaviour - but because I am lucky not to have been raped.

I am lucky not to have had my house broken into by a rapist, I am lucky not to have been raped by a relative, I am lucky not to have been raped by my boyfriend when I said I didn't want to have sex as I was too tired from morning sickness, I am lucky never to have had sex with someone who when I asked them to stop refused to do so.

I know people in real life who all these things have happened to. These rape-myths about rape being preventable if only you didn't put yourself in a vulnerable position are the reasons the people I know in real life have real difficulty coping with the fact that they were raped and didn't report them to the police.

So no I will never tell lies to my children that give them false comfort about how to avoid rape.

I will teach my son not to be a rapist.

I will teach my daughter what to do if a friend is raped, or if a partner starts to be controlling.

I will teach them both to be sensible about ALL kinds of danger and I will cross my fingers and hope that they are lucky too.

roz1982 · 20/10/2011 11:24

Tcanny, even as a bloke it's ok to express the opinion that men shouldn't rape. There's lots of things that women do, that as a woman I disagree with. Its not about being a man or woman it's about being a person who knows and accepts that certain things that people do to each other is just plain wrong. In any circumstances.

jenny60 · 20/10/2011 11:27

Great post Laweasel

StewieGriffinsMom · 20/10/2011 11:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

DuelingFanjo · 20/10/2011 11:28

"No, she wasnt doing anything WRONG, but she made a decision that enabled some evil bastard to kill her."

I have heard it all now. You actually blame your friend for her rape and murder. you are laying some of the blame at her door.

What you should be saying is that any woman who goes outdoors is making a decision that enables some evil bastard to kill her, or even any woman in the company of anyone else is making a decision that enables some evil bastard to kill her.

I am truly sorry about your friend but your anger is misplaced and what you are saying is really very idiotic. really it is!

roz1982 · 20/10/2011 11:30

Squeakyfreakytoy, I totally get your point, and what an awful disgusting horrendous thing to have happened to your friend, it shouldn't happen to anyone, but I get what your saying, the sad fact is that we live in a world where these terrible things happen. Personally, I don't think I would ever walk home alone at night, I have done in the past, and I'm sure I have also been in many different situations at many different times over the years where I could have been raped or worse. I think the point is that women SHOULD be able to live their lives freely WITHOUT fear. We SHOULD be able to walk wherever we want whenever we want and do what ever we want without fear. But the simple fact is with things the way they are, we can't and that for all women and men is the real tragedy.

cory · 20/10/2011 11:30

I will be advising my dd to be careful when she is out late at night. I will be advising her to be careful when drinking. I will be advising her to be very careful with taxis. A lot of this advice I will also be giving to my son. Men have been murdered when walking home from parties late at night. Men have been murdered by taxi drivers. Men have had their drinks spiked.

There is nothing wrong with the advice. What is wrong is giving the false impression that if you only follow this advice, rape can't touch you.

And fwiw the one time in my life when I have stayed in a place (my workplace) overnight explicitly because of a fear of walking out late at night, the house was burgled and the (fortunately non-violent) burglars entered the room I was in. I don't blame myself for making a wrong decision, though clearly it wouldn't have happened if I had just walked home like I did every other night.

roz1982 · 20/10/2011 11:32

And duellingfanjo is right, it's never the womans fault, not in any tiny way, I just don't think you can ever say that.

cory · 20/10/2011 11:32

A girl I knew and liked very much was murdered. She made a decision that enabled a man to murder her. The decision was getting herself a boyfriend. Sad

StewieGriffinsMom · 20/10/2011 11:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MrsBethel · 20/10/2011 11:36

There does seem to be this persistent idea that if you can't eliminate the risk completely, you shouldn't try to mitigate it at all.

squeakyfreakytoy · 20/10/2011 11:39

I give up. Cant see why people are so fucking stubborn and pig headed that they refuse to see the sense in putting their own personal safety below what they feel are their rights.

Statistically women are more likely to be raped by someone they know, yes we all know that. It is not the same as saying they will ONLY be raped by someone they know. There is still a risk being taken when women put themselves in a vulnerable position, and if there was the choice NOT to put themselves in that situation, then the sensible thing is to do what you can to protect yourself first if you are able to.

A rapist is not going to stop because a woman tells him she has the right to be there and he does not have the right to rape her.

I am specifically talking about rapes by a STRANGER, not any other scenario. Is that not obvious here?. If a woman takes measures to do what she can to avoid being in a situation, on her own, outside, when there were other better and safer options, then that woman is taking an unnecessary risk.

How can anyone possibly argue with that?

DontCallMeFrothyDragon · 20/10/2011 11:40

OK, lets put it this way, MrsBethel. I am not giving my DD advice that I am not giving my DS.

And you still haven'explained how to reduce the risk of being raped by a male friend/boyfriend/husband/brother/other...

kelly2000 · 20/10/2011 11:41

Squeky,
I knew someone who was raped and murdered by someone she knew and trusted to walk her home. It was a vicious killing and rape, that meant they had to use dental records to identify her despite the fact she was found within hours. It also had some degree of premeditation.

A girl earlier this year, got murdered on her way home from a nightclub. She texted her boyfriend so he knew she was on her way, got a taxi, not only did she get a taxi but the driver was the father of someone she knew so not a stranger. She did everything right. He murdered her.

Joanne Yates, was sober, in her own home, wearing jeans and a jumper, she was killed - the defence is that the killer misread her signals!

A teacher a few years ago was raped murdered by her best friends boyfriend. He claimed he killed her accidently during consensual sex.

Not only were these women killed by someone they knew and trusted (except Joanne Yeates, who was still killed by a neighbour with no record), but in each case if they had just been raped and not killed, they would have been dragged through the courts, made out to be liars and the rapist walked free while whining how he was a victim of feminists.

The fact is most rapes, and most killings are committed by someone you know and trust.

ShirleyKnot · 20/10/2011 11:42
cory · 20/10/2011 11:42

That is not what we are saying, MrsBethel. What we are saying is that we should be careful about how we are mitigating it, so as not to push our dds from the frying pan into the fire.

Watching your drink can clearly never be dangerous advice, so I will be giving that. Always using a reputable taxi firm is another piece of advice that is unlikely to lead to anything worse.

But then there are grey areas. I would feel I might be putting my dd at risk if I told her that any male protection (friend's boyfriend, friend of friend's boyfriend, new man she had only known a few days) was safer than being on your own. Statistics show that this is precisely the kind of situation that often leads to rape. Here I don't know what I could say except "trust your instincts".