To find this poster in a train station wrong?

[megadude]

Hi Mumsnetters,

I'd be interested to read your opinions about this poster. I don't want to say right now what I think about it, as I'd like to know how you'd interpret it.

TIA,
Megadude

Which feminists are saying women shouldn't have to be aware they are at risk? That sounds like someone who hasn't the faintest idea of what feminism is about. A lot of feminist campaigners are trying to raise awareness of this exact issue - Karen Ingala Smith, for one.

I agree with you we need to educate school age children about consent, and that we need to educate everyone about the fact that sexual violence is gendered - but I've never heard a feminist deny either of those things.

Always come back to feminists ranting doesn't it 😡

Campaigns against posters like this make people think about where the problem lies, with men, male violence and the way society views women, as objects and not as people. This needs to change so that women are safe, posters like this are harmful as it reinforces the idea that women are responsible for their own safety. The woman walking home alone because she has no choice is now more at risk as a potential rapist will view her as someone who is disregarding her own safety, or asking for it.

Yes TooOld, we never discuss or raise awareness do we. We always rant, that's when we're not being Hysterical!

TooOld and Lumpy, yes, plus ca change.

I find the phrase 'If we get all feminist about it' highly depressing. How the fuck else are we supposed to 'get' about it?

I think we are supposed to have internalised enough misogny over the years to just shrug our (pretty little) shoulders and say we can't see anything wrong with it. I pick feminist ranting instead. I may even get hysterical and shrill.

Feminism is a belief that women are equal to men, so we have to disregard this in order to "not get all feminist about it."

That does actually help you know, when I realise that women are responsible for their own safety and are lesser than men the poster makes much more sense, give it a go OnlyLovers.

Perhaps I should learn to spell misogyny too 😳

Lumpy, the woman walking home alone is more at risk and always was, because the sort of rapist who will attack a woman in the street is an opportunist kind of thug. It doesn't make it her fault - it's just pointing out that being in a group might reduce an opportunists chance to attack. I don't think the rapist will view her as more deserving of an attack because she has ignored advice to be in a group - he will have always viewed her as deserving of an attack because that's just who he is.
We can't waste time and effort trying to adjust his mindset, he is different to normal men and different to the kind of men who will benefit from education regarding what constitutes consent when two people have been out drinking together for example.

"the woman walking home alone is more at risk and always was"

And posters like this reinforce the idea that women can prevent it, if they are sensible and follow the rules, then it will happen to some other woman instead. One who knew the 'risks' and did it anyway, basically bringing it on herself.

I think that's a myth - the whole 'he is different to normal men'. It's a comforting idea that there is a certain kind of man who is somehow completely unlike normal men, and he's the person who is a rapist.

He's also - and I don't follow why - imagined as a man who only preys on a very specific and small class of women: those who are out on the streets alone, but who could walk home with a friend. As if men could never attack two or more women walking home, and as if all women are in the fortunate position of being able to avoid walking alone, at all times.

Sadly, people internalise these beliefs, so when a woman is raped, we have a narrative in our heads and we match her up to it, and we start asking 'but why wasn't she with a friend? What is wrong with this woman that she was alone?'

Never mind the fact that many women are homeless, that many women have to get to work and cannot afford public transport.

Years ago in this country (and still, in some other countries), it was believed that a woman who left the house without a male companion was more at risk. Not because she deserved to be attacked, but because there were men around - different from normal men - who were evil predators and whose minds couldn't be changed.

By and large, men have stopped grabbing women off the streets in broad daylight, haven't they?

So couldn't they also learn this one?

i walked home late from a friends on Friday night, and at 1230am some strange young man came rushing up and accosted me asking if I wanted a kiss- I shouted and told him where to go but it shook me up

this poster is wrong on so many levels, but next time- I'll book an Uber

Perhaps we can't adjust his mindset NN, but we can adjust society's mindset around him.

So that a woman who is raped in the dark, on her own, after more than one small sherry doesn't feel so bloody ashamed of herself for putting herself in that situation that she actually goes on to report the rape, instead of keeping it secret.

So that she is heard and supported by police and the CPS, so that everything is done to catch her attacker and bring her to trial - remember the case (in London?) where a couple of PCs were sacked for ignoring a notebook full of sexual attack complaints?

So barristers don't try and plant the seed that women ask for it because they were walking home alone.

So juries completely disregard the circumstances around a rape accusation (if the woman was drunk, alone in the dark, wearing a short skirt) and hand down verdicts accordingly.

It isn't just about the effect of the poster on a potential victim's behaviour. It is about the messages we send to society as a whole about rape.

A very short advanced search on this site will pull up a number of threads which attest to the examples above still happening, here, in the UK, in the 2010s....

Yuck, stop.

I actually think we can adjust men's mindsets on this one. I just don't believe the whole 'some people are born evil' narrative TBH.

The sad thing is, Lumpy, that I don't need a go of your anti feminist goggles (although they are kind of cute on you) because some of the posts on here make me see through them vicariously.

the woman walking home alone is more at risk and always was

How about we try to make that NOT the case in the future, rather than shrugging and saying 'Ah well, twas ever thus.'?

After all, it 'always was' the case that women couldn't own property/vote/have a bank account of their own. Until it wasn't.

I"m not sure it's all bad to tell people to take care, but this has been done in such a way that makes it look like it's blaming women if they get raped etc.

It is presumably also aimed at not falling down escalators, in front of a train etc, but there should also be a blokes one or blokes on the poster. Or a modestly dressed woman alongside them who is also at risk of falling down drunk or whatever.

Badly done but I don't think the idea of reminding people to take care is all bad.

Although to be fair the women on the poster are quite modestly dressed! I just meant add one who isn't dressed for a night out to show it's not about that.

I personally interpret it to mean rail safety but of course they should've used a mixed group to convey this rather than a strictly female group.

MLGs, it explicitly says 'when you've had a night out'.

If it is also meant to be about not falling in front of trains etc, they could do with spelling that out.

I ain't never taking these puppies off!

If only it was as easy as putting up a poster which says Don't Rape. There is a law that says that too but a rapist takes no notice. I should be able to wear what I like, drink what I like and walk home but the fact is, if I do, I am more likely to be raped and it is no good saying that I wasn't in the wrong, I will be a victim. I will have to live with it for the rest of my life and it will impact on it every day. If keeping my daughters safe means I have to give them an anti-feminist message, on this one occasion I will happily do so because the alternative is crippling. Believe me, I know.

I need a pair of those please Lumpy 😃

Approximately 85,000 women and 12,000 men are raped in England and Wales alone every year; that's roughly 11 rapes (of adults alone) every hour
Nearly half a million adults are sexually assaulted in England and Wales each year
1 in 5 women aged 16 - 59 has experienced some form of sexual violence since the age of 16
Only around 15% of those who experience sexual violence choose to report to the police
Approximately 90% of those who are raped know the perpetrator prior to the offence

These are the facts, as opposed to the myth.