AIBU Victim blaming

[rpitchfo]

Why is this concept only starting to catch on for rape and sexual assault.

We have two big big police campaigns running in my City at the moment that i'm taking issue with.

Don't leave valuables in your car.

Leave your lights on if your going out close to Xmas.

Why should i have to take these steps to protect my belongings? is it reasonable advice? or is this another form of victim blaming?

If you drop litter in the street, and get fined for it, is it your fault that you got fined?

Golddigger of course it is, what's that got to do with anything? There is no victim in that scenario.

My assertion is not that "unless a crime affects everyone equally, potential victims shouldn't concern themselves with taking preventative measures".

My assertion is that: "Preventative measures that are aimed at, and restrict only women (in this case), to the detriment of their basic freedoms as a person (such as where they can go, when they can go, and what they should wear), are not reasonable."

Not drinking alone/to excess - applied equally as a guide to men and women - reasonable.

Not walking alone in dark, unpopulated areas - applied equally as a guide to men and women - reasonable.

Prescriptions for dress code, applied only to women - unreasonable.

Not going out alone, applied only to women - unreasonable.

Rape by a stranger is a bit of a red herring in all of these cases, as a woman is most at danger from the men she knows.

Violent assault/mugging/murder/and yes, rape are all dangers for individuals, both men and women, which is why preventative measures are reasonable as applied to both sexes.

Also, I do not as an individual, have a perfect solution for the problems society has.

But I do know that unless people en masse turn their focus to the root of the problem, rather than prescribing unacceptable restrictions for potential victims, we will never be able to improve things.

I think that is the crux of the problem though Autumn. All other forms of violence has been in decline for decades and even centuries. With the exception of rape. In peaceable countries there is a level of rape that is just stubborn to eradication whatever policies are put in place. The rad rems will say this will only change when we have a revolution and overthrow the patriarchy but personally I find this solution a little fanciful.

It is an interesting proposition. I would agree that every criminal is responsible for their crime, opportunistic or planned (which most rapes are, by the way.) And OP may be right, if we placed all the emphasis on perpetrators' responsibility not to commit crimes, perhaps we'd see good results? I don't know.

With victim-blaming for rape, the error is one you made yourself, pitch - associating certain behaviours with specifically increased risk of rape. Being drunk doesn't make you get raped. It may make you walk into an oncoming lorry, fall down steps, or be a target for opportunistic criminals. These risks with being too drunk apply to anyone, not just "young girls". It has nothing specific to do with rape. Wearing a short skirt doesn't make you get raped or expose you to other risks. But victim blamers choose to think it does. This sort of thing is what makes victim-blaming for rape different from the examples given.

If there were known variables, which made women more attractive targets for rapists, we'd probably take precautions accordingly. In reality, we can follow generalised advice: try not to get shedded while out; try not to leave drinks unattended; try to ascertain our cab driver has the proper licence. These are reasonable precautions against a slew of opportunistic crimes. There is no precaution that will certainly prevent rape, but problems are caused by the popular assumption that there is. Unfortunately the only significant risk factor is being a woman.

x-posted with others saying much the same. I should type faster!

Sorry, chaos here. the rad fems. The root cause of rape is hard to define and no doubt many factors and types of rape. It's been with us since probably before our origins as a species: it's a feature of many mammals.

For me it's not about victim blaming, it's about risk management and personal responsibility.

If course any crime is wrong, that's why it's a crime, but it's up to us to look after ourselves too and behave in a way to reduce our risks to a level we as individuals are ok with. We can't entirely eradicate risk.

It's also about ascribing certain motives to criminals. If you leave a Maserati unlocked with your diamond-encrusted iphone on the passenger seat, you run an increased risk of a criminal stealing your stuff for profit.

Since rapists appear to be motivated by hatred of women, no individual woman can identify the risk at any given time or take specific measures to reduce it.

I don't think we will ever get rid of rapists/rape completely.

But we can turn our attentions to ways of minimising it. Identifying factors that make men more likely to rape, and addressing those.

Most preventative measures that people advocate really only have any impact on the rape-by-stranger scenario, which not only is less common than rape-by-acquaintance, but also does nothing to reduce the number of victims, just perhaps helps to make someone else's wife/mother/daughter the target rather than you.

We need to take a closer look at the men who become rapists, rather than the women who get raped.

It's basic common sense; certainly NOT victim blaming

The main problem I have with "rape prevention" advice is that it makes people believe that the stranger dragging you off the street scenario is actually something you should be worried about. It's not. It is such a rare crime that worrying about it or taking measures to prevent it doesn't really make sense.
But it suits the rapists very well that everyone thinks that rape = dragged off the street by a stranger because it allows them to get away with their crime a lot more easily as both victims and society in general are very slow to recognise the much much more common scenarios of rape, the ones where someone a woman knows and trusts violates that trust in their own home or in the home of a friend.

By connecting rape with drinking, clothing, walking on dark streets etc you are making life easier for rapists, which is not something most normal people would want, I think.

Advice that would actually help to prevent rape, IMO, is the following:
Women: you have the right at all times, no matter what, to dictate what happens to your body. Absolutely no one, no matter who they are or how many times you have had sex with them in the past, has the right to do anything to your body that you do not want or are not happy with. If anyone does do anything to your body that you do not want (and this includes health care providers, your parents, and your husband) you have every right to tell them to stop, and if you wish to, to make a complaint and seek prosecution. Sex is entirely optional. You are entitled to refuse to engage in any sort of sexual activity at any time and for any reason. Even if you have agreed to have sex or even started to have sex you do not have to continue. If you ask someone to stop, they should stop. Every time. You should not feel embarrassed if you are among friends and you need to "cause a fuss" in order to stop someone to stop doing something you are not happy with. Sex you don't want is rape even if you never say "no." The onus is on your partner to ensure you are happy, the onus is not on you to stop them. Normal kind men will not continue to have sex with someone who is silent and unresponsive or someone who is crying. If they "didn't know" you didn't consent, think carefully, could that possibly be true? Probably not.

I always really dislike the "Don't drink and drive",

Basic psychology not to use "Don"t" as it tends to make people react challenge accepted, I would like to see, "Drive sober"

we need more of these type of campaigns

www.ldswave.org/?p=1114

Stranger rape isn't all that rare actually, about 1 in 10 from estimates. Outside marital rape, an 'acquaintance' rape can include someone you know only barely: on a course together, a friend of a friend. So saying getting paralytic won't help your chances of getting raped is untrue.

The problem is there is a good reason why we want to reduce the perception of victim blaming but if everything related to rape 'advice' and analysis (studies, publishing statistics and advice to keep safe) is labelled 'victim blaming' the effect is to silence a lot of stuff which may keep women safer.

For instance, the age thing is pretty important. Most rapes happen to young women. Certain sort of rape advice could be targeted at specific age groups but this is currently politically incorrect.

Stranger rape of 1 in 10 would be shockingly high.
Even if 1 on 10 women, that would be about 3.5 million by my estimates.

Indeed - I checked the stat from the rape crisis site but it corroborates with other sources. Obviously, these are only estimates because prosecuted rapes over-represent stranger rapes.

1 in ten of rapes - not women!

I don't think anything women do about themselves is going to reduce the number of rapists, nor the number of times they seek to satiate their desire to dominate/humiliate.

As an individual, yes you can look at ways of reducing your individual risk of any person-on-person crime, whether you are a man or a woman. But this won't reduce the number of victims, just possibly shift the targets around a bit.

As people, as a society, if we want to reduce rape itself, we should be looking at how to prevent/reduce/manage the number of perpetrators.

Yes it's 1 in 10 reported rapes. For many reasons stranger rape is far more likely to be reported than any other type. But even if 1 in 10 of every rape ever was stranger rape that would still mean 9 in 10 are not. So why focus on stranger rape when it is far far far less likely to happen?

Oh I see. Not 1 in 10 of the population. 1 in 10 of rapes is stranger rape.

www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-offenders

Interesting stats on here.

Massive apologies. They look to be USA figures.

If someone broke into my car and stole a CD or some lose change, I would be upset but thanks to my insurance I will get the window/lock changed and a CD i could burn from my back up files. Same as anything in my house.

If I was to get raped, I was not to blame and I can't get that back.

To get back to the original post, I see what you're saying rpitchfo. I agree with others that advice such as "don't leave valuables in your car" is not victim blaming because leaving valuables in your car is clearly linked in a totally uncomplicated way to those valuables having a high possibility of being stolen. Plus it isn't a great hassle for people to ensure that valuable things are hidden or put away. By contrast there is no evidence whatsoever that being drunk has any link with a greater possibility of being raped. The fact is, if valuables are in a car then they can get stolen. There is nothing to say that if you aren't drunk you won't get raped or if you are drunk you will. Some women who are raped are drunk, some are not. Until rapists actually explain their thinking there is no way to tell in what circumstances being drunk or sober does or does not prevent rape. So saying to women that they shouldn't get drunk in order to prevent rape is pointless because there's no evidence for that. The only thing such "advice" does is make women feel afraid of something that is unlikely to happen and to make those few unlucky ones that do happen to be raped and were drunk at the time feel responsible for what happened because they didn't take the "advice".

I have a thought A LOT about this from the feminist pov. I have a daughter but no sons. Even if I had sons, I would give them all the same advice. Never go off alone with someone you don.t know. Never drink so much you don.t know what you are doing. Keep your personal property close to you at all times. Don't go off the beaten track alone/call a recognised taxi to get home.