Judge's warning to drunk women

[FirstShinyRobe]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-39233617

AIBU to think she had a marvellous platform with her retirement speech to issue instead a warning to men not to rape women?

Sonyaya So if women are at risk, from the most horrific of crimes, that is abundant in society, over 85,000 per year, then why would women even go out at all? Why let your daughter go out? By letting her go out, you are exposing her to a risk.

The most important message the judge should have said is for men not to rape. And have left it at that.

Of course the risk is never going to be eliminated. Everyone realises that.

But focusing on women's behaviour does precisely nothing to lower it.

Focusing on men's behaviour actually has some chance of reducing it.

Isn't this obvious?

Oh, come on. I cannot believe that a judge of her years would not know that the headlines would be about drunk women. That's pretty much always the message to women (see numerous previous threads about police posters, judges comments, trial outcomes etc.)

Or

Oh, come on. I cannot believe that a goer of her calibre would not know that short skirts and getting wasted would be seen as a green light to any man. That's pretty much always the message.

Food for thought as you decide to attack this woman judge on her intentions that you are so sure about.

If you do not take your alcohol well, that your inebriated after 2, then have something less stronger, or less. For the most, as a student I would see, young men and women, on a night out, having one after tge other, being sick and having more. The deals that they had on drinks made it quite tempting. Doesent a person have to take responsibility for themselves and their health, or can the drink as much as they want passing out and possibly dying from alcohol poisoning.

In the case where the judge made the comment she did not put responsibility on the girl at all . The rapist was jailed . Convicted . Put to rights. For goodness sake read her whole transcript. She was not absolving rapists or transferring reponsibilty she was emphasising that rapists who she has not yet jailed are out there and SOME tend to gravitate towards certain victims and use the drunkenness as a defence . You all carry on as you wish and if I had daughters I would still advise them to stay in groups not get absolutely legless or dress like prostitutes. But if they did get attacked would I blame them or make them responsible ? Absolutely not! The rapist is the criminal and I would hope he was locked up for a very long time. I would also advise sons not to get legless either in case their boundaries become blurred . But that's just me and old fashioned mum ,

Purely from a legal standpoint a lot of people do not know that being drunk isn't a sure way to confirm lack of consent.

If the alcohol was not self-administered then there is an evidential presumption but there are far too many examples of victims going through the trauma of having to prove a lack of consent despite being inebriated.

Teaching and discussing the actual law surrounding these issues is never going to be unhelpful.

We can tell our sons and daughters not to get to drunk by all means, but advice like that would have fallen on deaf ears when I was seventeen.

When I was raped, I was drunk. Very, very drunk. I was out celebrating my eighteenth birthday with some friends in a nightclub.

I was also severely depressed, unable to process a previous sexually abusive encounter that had left it's mark on me. I hadn't been able to tell anybody about it, and my way of dealing with it was to be self-destructive. Because I thought that if something terrible happened to me then somebody would listen to me about the other stuff.

So, yes, I drank to excess, and I got myself into dangerous situations, because I didn't care what happened to me; in fact, I actually hoped that somebody would leave me for dead by the side of the road somewhere. Then maybe somebody would listen to me.

They didn't. What happened was this: I went to a nightclub, got drunk, then I went outside with somebody who seemed friendly enough. On that occasion, I wasn't expecting him to force himself on me. But he did. My friends encouraged me to go to the police, which I did (to this day, I wish I hadn't), but they didn't take me seriously. Got a lecture about getting drunk and 'crying rape', which my family reinforced.

Afterwards, I turned to alcohol even more, and became an alcoholic (and so no longer had any off-switch when it came to alcohol). Luckily, I've been sober many years now, but any suggestion that I was in any way able to control what I drank after my alcoholism took hold is so ridiculous, it's laughable.

In a sense what happened wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been previously abused, so I believe there's a wider societal issue there. But what I guess I'm ultimately saying is that in many cases, suggesting to somebody that they should protect themselves by staying sober/not getting too drunk is an unnecessary, naive, and at worst a very damaging piece of advice.

I blamed myself for years because I thought I'd 'asked for it', and on some peculiar level, maybe I did. But I am not to blame in any way for being raped. My rapist is. And the society we live in.

I was stone cold sober the 2 times I was raped.

I don't tend to drink and never to excess (anymore) because alcohol makes me aggressive and belligerent.

In both rapes in between the fear and the disgust a part of my brain went he's bigger and stronger than you, the more you fight the more he is going to hurt you and no one is going to believe you anyway (both were 'date' rapes) So I did the freeze.

If I'd been drunk I'd have been better off 'cause I'd have fought like a hellcat and would have had injuries to 'prove' my lack of consent, thought I'm sure some one would have claimed I liked it rough…

Which was/would have been better?

I was sexually assaulted mutiple times as a Nurse. I was 10 years in to my career before it dawned on me that this was not ok.

There's another thread on here about a women who was assaulted on a bus by school boys. Seriously WTF!!!!

Can't we stop blaming women for having vaginas and start blaming men for thinking they have the right to touch us without consent. Start blaming the society that is allowing young boys and men to think that this is not only ok but expected of them.

You all carry on as you wish and if I had daughters I would still advise them to stay in groups not get absolutely legless or dress like prostitutes. But if they did get attacked would I blame them or make them responsible ? Absolutely not!

You might not, but society does.

and if I had daughters I would still advise them to stay in groups not get absolutely legless or dress like prostitutes.

Way to negate everything you've just said.

dowager both are important and to deny that is being naive.
Opportunity is always a factor in crime and for a rapist that means a vulnerable isolated potential victim.

both are important and to deny that is being naive.
Opportunity is always a factor in crime and for a rapist that means a vulnerable isolated potential victim

If both are important - why is the message always only to women, then?

It's 'naive' to only focus the messaging on women.

elendon

You can't eliminate risk but you can reduce it. When I was raped, I had naively gone back to someone house when they offered me a place to stay. Was it my fault? No! If I had my time again would I act differently? Yes and I would advise any woman to consider their safety by educating them as to what can happen.

I had no idea that might happen to me.

It is well known that sex offenders prey upon the vulnerable. The drunk, those with mental illness, those with learning disabilities, the ill, the very youn(especially when not under parental care), all of these groups can be and are targeted for abuse by abusers.
Some of these vulnerabilities can be controlled, some are inevitable. The key point is that vulnerability can never be taken out of the equation. The only hope of change is to tackle those with the propensity to abuse. Talking about one specific vulnerability and telling victims to deal with it is pissing into the hurricane of sexual violence and if this judge hadn't noticed what it took me less than two years practice at the bar to realise she wasn't fit to be a judge.

Her advice is only pertinent to a very small minority of rape cases. And even then, if you're assuming the kind of guy that hunts our vulnerable women, what message does that give to the perma-vulnerable? Those who are disabled in some way, who have a small friendship group, who work as a barmaid and find themselves needing to get home alone at night?

I remember being at uni and trainee nurses were targeted walking home across the standard route from the hospital to the unofficial 'student quarter'. So women shouldn't be nurses either, because shift work is risky behaviour?

So if it's not a warning that's likely to work, and even if heeded won't reduce that many crimes, why make it? Because it's easier to believe in stranger rape than try and find the strength to tackle the issues behind the majority of rape cases?

Student nurses were *targeted by a rapist mugger that should have said.

Telling potential victims to alter their behaviour may prevent those individuals from becoming victims, but it does absolutely nothing to address, or reduce, the problem.

Being a woman makes you vulnerable to being raped, you don't suddenly turn into a potential victim after you've had a pint, or worn a low cut dress or spoken to a man, you are always a potential victim. It's shit but there it is. All the magical thinking in the world cannot protect us from that. Tougher pentalties, more convictions, zero tolerance to supporting rape myths, no rapists being supported in the media and educating everyone about consent may make a difference. Women and men need to feel they can report a rape and be believed rather than have their behaviour nitpicked until the reason is found that it wasn't really a terrible rape is happened upon so no one has to actually do anything about it.

I find posts about capacity to fight off attackers extremely offensive. Current theory is there are five possible ways your body will respond to an attack - fight, flight, freeze, flop or friend. Your body picks which one has the best chance of keeping you alive. Rape is a violent assault by someone (usually) physically bigger and stronger than you so freeze, flop or friend are more likely to keep you alive. Please don't feel it is your fault if you weren't kicking and screaming.

I think the point is that advice for preventing rape always falls on women. There are rarely as campaigns saying 'you know what lads, if you see a drunken woman in the street, don't take her home and out your dick in her', it's always 'dont get too drunk women'. Women know this, we are told it all the time, it's pointless to keep repeating it.

People always say 'well if a man wants to rape someone he is gonna anyway, you can't educate men about this stuff, there are always going to be bad people out there', which basically puts the responsibility back on women to avoid these people. Well no, actually, i think you caneducate people about this stuff. Men raping women is not some sort of inevitable fact of life that we can't ever do anything about.

I do agree that everyone should try and be careful on a night out in terms of drinking, but that shouldn't be the sole message which at the moment it seems to be.

Telling potential victims to alter their behaviour may prevent those individuals from becoming victims, but it does absolutely nothing to address, or reduce, the problem.

It won't get rid of the causes but it would reduce the instances. But they do use more that one method to reduce crimes. Safety advice is just one. Making the crimes punishable offences is another. Social censuring of those that commit them is another.

Telling potential victims to alter their behaviour may prevent those individuals from becoming victims, but it does absolutely nothing to address, or reduce, the problem.

But those individuals who may be protected from becoming a victim are worth saving surely?

Feck sake. Can people not understand?

This judge had a chance to say men don't rape after putting someone away for a rape, one of the most horrific crimes, for six years - this rapist will be out in three. Instead it was about women don't drink and put yourselves into this vulnerable position. And equating rape to burglary. Appalling judgement. She gave her position on it loud and clear. Women are partly to blame for putting themselves into that position in the first place.

Actually there was a campaign going round in Schools Called A Cup of Tea and consent, which I think was largely aimed at men.

Why didn't she say something along the lines of: what is wrong with our society that is raising so many boys that go on to commit rape, violent assault, murder?

It is so sad that she focused on victims' behaviour

If a rapist is going to rape whatever and you think telling women to drink less makes them less of a potential victim then who is he going to rape? We're not a pack of wildebeest to be inevitability picked off one by one.