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?

I find it offensive that you seem to have to 'show you scars' on this thread in order to be given a voice.

Somewhat ironic since it's your voice dominating the thread.

Plenty of people have engaged with my posts in a positive and constructive way but I have shown no scars. I've never been raped. But my voice has been heard. If you feel yours hasn't been then perhaps that's more to do with how you're coming across?

Do you really mean "to be given a voice" or do you actually mean "to be unconditionally agreed with and not have anyone point out the flaws in my posts or question me on anything I've said"?

Ditto Batteries, I've broken my own self-imposed rule. Reverting to ignoring.

You are correct woodlander I have got sucked into this thread. I find it offensive that you seem to have to 'show you scars' on this thread in order to be given a voice. I guess I'm quite frustrated about that. It's good for thought.

You have certainly shown your voice on this thread - more than most posters, I would say.

Nobody is denying you your opinion here, but if people disagree with you, they will say so and argue why. You have also been chucking around a fair few personal insults here - which is totally unnecessary.

You have not been a rape victim - yet you will argue so vociferously against those that have been, those who have talked about the way this judge's words have made them personally feel, as though it is nothing - and insulted some of them into the bargain.

You don't need battle-scars to enter the discussion, but you could show some respect those of us who do have those battle scars, and are speaking from experience - even those of us speaking from experience won't always agree. It doesn't need to be a sparring contest, peppered with insults and MNHQ deletions, though.

Page and battery I agree. I think that's best. I've over invested I will hide the thread now.

My final word: You are putting young women's lives at risk because of your agenda.

It's no more important to protect the feelings of past victims than it is to warn young girls of the dangers of taking drugs and excessive alcohol.

It seems to me you will sooner feed them to the lions than admit that precautions reduce risk.

But like you say I have derailed the 'yes you are right,' and, 'yes so are you' self-congratulatory thread that serves no one but the egos of the contributors.

As you all were.

Woodlander thank you for your measured post. I am going now, but I read it and wanted to reply.

I never said I have never been a victim.

Sint I think it's true that that specific person would not have been attacked by that specific rapist at that specific time.

However that rapist would have found someone else to attack, so it would not have prevented a rape.

If the aim is to prevent rape, therefore, it is not useful to tell women not to drink to excess.

The same person could have walked through the same park in the same state of drunkeness 100 other nights and not been attacked. Unfortunately, she encountered a rapist. That's why she was raped. Not because she was drunk and in the park.

Having been on the receiving end of very drunk females ending up in hospital, they're putting themselves in a very vulnerable position with their appearance and demeanour so the judge was spot on with her carefully worded message. I worry a lot about my sons being in similar positions and they tend to stick with their mates, to try and avoid attacks. Whatever the moral rights and wrongs, some people will take advantage regardless

PageNowFoundFileUnderSpartacus I think one of my issues with the comparison between the precautions you take to protect yourself against property crime vs against rape is that the former have virtually no impact on your life.

Property crimes are used probably because everyone can relate to them in everyday life. Other examples such as say a curfew while a serial killer is on the loose in an area, or home office advice not to visit certain countries if there are troubles there, or avoid certain parts if you do, are a lot more potentially impinging but less experienced.

Just the way it works sometimes. Some dangers require less "don't do that" impactions.

None of this affects the principles such analogies are usually being used to illustrate however. That advising against X to reduce the risk of Y happening, does not in itself equate to victim blaming or absolving the harmer and so on.

Opal Her closing remarks directly related to her last case

No they did not relate directly to her last case.

You obviously have not read what she said.

“Girls are perfectly entitled to drink themselves into the ground but should be aware people who are potential defendants to rape gravitate towards girls who have been drinking. It shouldn’t be like that, but it does happen and we see it time and time again.”

She actually used the word girls as well. Plural too.

“I don’t think it’s wrong for a judge to beg women to take actions to protect themselves. That must not put responsibility on them rather than the perpetrator. How I see it is burglars are out there and nobody says burglars are OK but we do say: ‘Please don’t leave your back door open at night, take steps to protect yourselves’.

Then used women and the burglary analogy. So it wasn't directly related to the last case. She wanted to make a point that women shouldn't drink and that doing so made you vulnerable on a night out because you might get raped. That is victim blaming.

I've never heard a judge make the same remarks when it comes to men who have been on the receiving end of GBH/ABH after a night out.

It seemed to me she was fed up to the back teeth with women bringing rape trails for her to listen and judge with when all they had to do was take more steps to protect themselves. Outrageous.

JedBartlet Sint I think it's true that that specific person would not have been attacked by that specific rapist at that specific time.

However that rapist would have found someone else to attack, so it would not have prevented a rape.

Surely that is not a given. If you have a guy who specifically targets people in a vulnerable drunken position, and there are none available because everyone has listened to the advice, then maybe he would do nothing?

This argument seems a little like suggesting that burglar alarms do not prevent burglary because if a potential criminal decides not to target your house they will just pick another one. I am not sure that invalidates them.

There was a story on mumsnet told by a woman of her experience on a postnatal ward. The partner of a woman who had just given birth was in the cubicle with his partner. He wanted sex with his partner. She had just given birth, and did not. He climbed on the bed and did it anyway. In a ward with just the curtains closed, with staff around. Everyone heard.

My mum told me about a woman in her ward that was readmitted after one week of giving birth because her stitches had burst. Mum heard her say to the doctor to please sew it all up, so that he couldn't do it again. She then heard the doctor say he couldn't do that because it wouldn't prevent her husband from continuing and cause her even more damage.

JAPAB by 'everyone had listened to the advice' I presume you mean:

Women no longer drink
Women no longer go out late
Women no longer go anywhere alone

Is that right? If so, can you see any problems with that?

There have been multiple posts explaining the problem with relating rape to burglary so I will leave that point for now.

Burglar alarms actually do not prevent burglary. My neighbour's alarm goes off regularly, I just roll my eyes and never bother looking out. Pain in the arse so glad I'm moving

Plus car alarms going off in the night really piss me off.

JedBartlet JAPAB by 'everyone had listened to the advice' I presume you mean:

I meant the bit about not getting legless and those who would target such people.

There have been multiple posts explaining the problem with relating rape to burglary so I will leave that point for now.

I've seen some of them. They usually explain why they are different in ways that do not actually affect the specific point of the analogy. But I might have missed some.

Elendon Burglar alarms actually do not prevent burglary. My neighbour's alarm goes off regularly, I just roll my eyes and never bother looking out. Pain in the arse so glad I'm moving

When I was younger we were burgled and the police officer suggested that we were because ours was the only house on the row that didn't have an alarm. We then got an alarm, of course.

It was victim blaming, very short sighted and a missed opportunity.

I would have hoped that someone in her position would know better. Apparently not.

the police officer suggested that we were picked because ours was the only house on the row...

Of course if we had had an alarm then the people responsible might have just cruised another neighbourhood, but I still do not think this tells us much about such alarams not being worth it.

Security services know that burglar alarms are a deterrent and not a prevention. Best advice is to put up a false alarm with an LED light. It won't stop the burglary though. Your house was cased and perhaps your parents didn't actually lock the back door would be my suggestion (and if I was a canny lawyer defending the burglar, this is what I would question).

I really get both sides of this coin. Of course a man who rapes a woman is COMPLETELY ACCOUNTABLE, but the horrible fact is, there are men who DO rape women! There ARE rapists out there! AND murderer's!
So the sensible thing to do is warn our children that if they are completely shit faced (as I and many friends have often been - so I'm not judging), they could be putting themselves in serious harm's way!

After all JAPAB leaving the back door unlocked is an open invitation and you are partly to blame.

JAPAB can you suggest what a good limit would be for women to be able to drink, to avoid rape? Is it two drinks or six? Does it depend on their size, and do we take into account how often they drink so as to see how good their tolerance is? Is it ok for women to get legless in their own home, as long as they don't let any men in?

Tell me what the right amount for all women to drink is, to stop rape happening to them.

Women are not forgetting to lock their vaginas or leave them in a safe place when they go out for the night. They are not forgetting to set their vagina alarms or not bothering to buy vagina alarms in the first place. I am not being careless of my expensive possession and inviting people to take it, if I have a drink or go out late.

Elendon
It seemed to me she was fed up to the back teeth with women bringing rape trails for her to listen and judge with when all they had to do was take more steps to protect themselves. Outrageous

You are saying things that you have no idea are true or not again. Do you think you are a mind reader or something?

I read the bits of the transcript that I have seen and think the Judge is simply warning women to take care not to make themselves more vulnerable. The Judge stresses and stresses that it's the rapists who are 100% at fault. (I see that no one has yet managed to find a link to the full transcript - I don't know if that means that no one has actually read it?? )

JAPAB your examples would only be analogous if every area had a serial killer on the loose all the time, or 50% of the population made plans to travel into a war zone or area of terrorist activity afresh every day. They are unusual and comparatively rare activities with an expectation that the restrictions they bring about will be temporary - the serial killer will be arrested; the war will end.

Making risk assessments, modifying our behaviour is an everyday occurrence for women. Every time we go for a run, or go for a night out, or find ourselves alone in a space with a man or men - we're so conditioned to do it that half the time we don't even realise that's what we're doing. If a serial killer were on the loose in a town it would be headline news, it would be the main topic of conversation, strangers would strike up conversation on the bus about how terrible it is that they haven't been caught yet and what a nuisance the curfew is. But there isn't that same sense of strangeness, of wrongness, of this being a temporary state about women taking anti-rape precautions. Rather than there being sustained and serious attempts to tackle male violence it's just expected of us that we will carry on shouldering the burden of behaviour modification; it's approved by society as this judge's comments show. At some level the majority of us are living our lives defensively, and you can see that by how commonplace some of the activities are that are defined as "risky behaviour" when women do them. Walk home alone in the dark. Take a shortcut through a park. Hail a cab in the street. All things that men can do without, in particular, that same fear of disapprobation if it does go wrong. Do any of those things and be unlucky enough to get raped and someone, somewhere WILL say "why was she walking home alone / why did she run through that park / why didn't she pre-book a cab from a firm she knows / why did she take that risk? We've seen as much on this thread. So for all our fine words about "rape is always the fault of the rapist" there is still, too often, a socially acceptable "but". "...but if she hadn't..." No wonder so many victims feel guilt that their actions contributed to the crime committed against them. We see and hear it confirmed in so many ways, including this judge's remarks.