Is this victim blaming...?

[MissGoggins]

I noticed this article and it made me think about the now infamous judge's closing remarks on her last trial (regarding drunken women and increased vulnerability).

Is this different? Or by using the same logic, is issuing this warning 'victim blaming' those who have already been victims of this crime?

If the former, then how is it different?
If the latter, then what is the alternative?

www.familiesonline.co.uk/local/solihull/in-the-know/students-warned-not-to-use-local-solihull-park

Papafran! Get a grip! Wrong question on so many levels.
I think (?) we agree that no victim of crime can or should be blamed. Dress, alcohol and drugs all irrelevant.
Child left alone- sideways swipe st MCCanns? No we all say we wouldn't do it but hindsight is a powerful thing. You'd have to be pretty hard not to have any sympathy for someone in that position.

My issue is with this thread and some of the posters here.

Thank god you are here though trifle. I have no doubt you have reported it and it hasn't been pulled so can you leave it alone now.

For god sake this is so frustrating. We can't even discuss the nuances of victim blaming on here without the nastiness and bully tactics of people with one agenda coming on and taking over.

Actually we can.

Trifle has taken me as their target so I will bow out as gracefully as possible and see if they can still derail the conversation without me as a target.

I'll watch with interest, though.

Criminals exploit vulnerability. It is sensible to make an assessment of your own vulnerability in a situation and assess whether what you want to do is so important to you or to society that it is worth increasing your vulnerability for, and/or fighting for better understanding of, so that the society in which you live becomes more supportive of your right to put yourself in a vulnerable position in order to have quality of life and be able to make a contribution to the world around you. It would be intolerable to live in a society where you were only considered to have acceptably reduced your vulnerability if you dressed from head to toe in shapeless sackcloth and only ever went anywhere with a bodyguard. However, I don't really think it is worth taking the risk of getting very drunk (not behaviour society should be forced to condone in anybody), then staggering off down a dark alley on your own, because you have argued with your friends. At that point, would have to accept that you increased your level of vulnerability past the point at which society would condone the personal risk taken. Your attacker would still be the one to blame for attacking you, because he or she made the choice to commit a violent crime on a vulnerable person, but you did put yourself in a position of unnecessary risk in the eyes of the society in which you live. You chose to be more vulnerable than you needed to be in order to have a good quality of life.

MissGoggins:

Bullying tactics?

Oh dear me.

Thanks Wannabe, that's really helpful

I am not going to comment on whether or not I have been raped. What sort of question is that?

I am sorry for offending you. I was wondering where you got the information that police treat rape complainants like liars and subject them to interrogation about their clothing? I will rephrase my question- where have you got this information from? Because on the whole, myths about the treatment of rape victims in the criminal justice system do more harm than good. It sends a message to victims that this is how they will be treated. Unless they are unlucky, they will usually be treated with respect, even if the outcome of the case is a decision by the CPS not to prosecute.

And no, I haven't reported it. I prefer it to stand as a monument to the fact that people making allegations of rape ARE subjected to victim blaming. Deleting it negates that argument so please, MNHQ, even if it is reported, leave it be.

Papafran:

There is no one 'fact source' for this information. I have triangulated my impressions. Victims' accounts on blogs, forums like this one, the news, plus observation of how victims are treated (including on threads like this one) and the sorts of questions/attitudes directed at them. Obviously I could be wrong and treatment of rape victims could be a model of empathy and fairmindedness, but I have yet to see much evidence of this on this thread. Clearly some (maybe even most) people are perfectly reasonable about the issue, but a significant minority of people buying into rape myth is enough to make reporting a rape a potentially fraught experience, in my view.

Child left alone wasn't a sideways swipe from my point of view - actually the opposite. Just that so many people seem to 'victim blame' the McCanns (they are responsible because they left them). I think if this were to happen again, people would be outraged at the parents: did they not learn from what happened before? However, I do understand the difference between the neglect and the crime itself.

I think one of the points that isn't often discussed is should we have no go areas? Should we, as hopefully law abiding citizens, need to feel that we can't walk through the park at night. I know when my daughter was a student I would tell her to be careful walking home late at night by herself, "stay with your friends, look out for each other, get a taxi if you're worried about the money I'll send you some." You know the sort of talk and yet at the same time I think that we should reclaim out streets.

As a kid in a rough inner city area I played out, went out after dark, learned to deal with kerb crawlers by the time I was 11. It wasn't unusual, the streets were busy, kids walked home from school alone because the streets would be full of other kids walking home with the occasional mum with a younger child. If I look at the road where I live, with a large primary at the top of the road, I don't see any unaccompanied children and yet I live in a nice area, a low crime area and there is probably alot less risk than where I lived in the 50s except that a child walking home will be walking home alone.

On individual cases I absolutely believe we should keep ourselves safe, as a society I believe we should reclaim our public spaces and I honestly don't know how we can do both.

MerryMarigold I think it's possible to separate the two from each other. It's possible to have an opinion on one without it necessarily having a bearing on the other, it's just that individuals don't always see it that way iyswim.

So if we e.g. Take a child who has Been placed in a car without a carseat (we'll change the details from the original so as to avoid repercussion) child is strapped in with seatbelt only and the parents set off for their destination. Except on the motorway they encounter a drunk driver who is well over the speed limit and drives into the car which rolls, causing the death of the child who is not in a carseat. People reading the news would quite rightly blame the drunk driver for the child's death, however when reading the reports they might also question wtf the parents were thinking not putting a child into a carseat. However thinking that not putting a child into a carseat does not equate to thinking that the parents deserved it when the child died. IYSWIM?

Similarly if a young girl or vulnerable person goes out to get drunk and plans on walking home alone in the early hours down the backroads and through deserted parks it stands to reason that others will say to that girl "look, it's a really bad idea to do that, because there are dodgy types round there at that time of night. Please get a taxi." That doesn't equate to saying that said young girl is asking to be raped or that it's her fault if she is. But the truth is that sometimes there are things we can do to minimise our chances of falling victim to certain crimes. And no, I'm not talking about wearing skimpy clothes or not, I think that one is completely irrelevant in the discussion. But walking alone through dark and deserted parks is a bad idea if you know there are undesirables in there late at night and you're potentially not in a position to defend yourself if one of them decides that you're an opportunity not to be missed.

PeggyUndercrackers
I have read the whole case, yes.
I see that some might think it not clear cut but ALL the adults around this girl failed her. It doesn't matter if the male cabby, the male police or the male who had unlawful sex with her thought she looked older, she was 12. There was an interesting thread about this on MN recently.

Che

'*WorshipTheGourd"

a mere peasant

Grow up.

I didn't say 'they' were beyond being questioned. I said experienced and intelligent. Two qualities I look for (amongst others) when assessing how seriously to take advice or an opinion.

A long thread ran about that case in Edinburg. Interesting opinions on either side of the debate (and those on the fence). A very unusual case.'

Thanks (not!) for telling me to 'grow up' when I post my opinion...

Glad I never said that to the abuse survivors or the Police I have worked extensively with. I also have personal experience of victim blaming by the Police.

But, you know, I'll just toddle off and grow up shall I?

But, you know, I'll just toddle off and grow up shall I?

That'd be great. Referring to yourself as a peasant as opposed to a meaningful contribution is childish.

myths about the treatment of rape victims in the criminal justice system do more harm than good. It sends a message to victims that this is how they will be treated.

Papafarn I have never considered it from this angle before. That is very interesting.

Can we make something exist that doesn't exist, by rising up against it?

WannaBe Thank you for your car seat example. It has helped me to understand my personal point of view better. While I will never blame someone for falling victim of a crime, I might think to myself, "what were they thinking?" about their behaviour surrounding the events.

On individual cases I absolutely believe we should keep ourselves safe, as a society I believe we should reclaim our public spaces and I honestly don't know how we can do both.

Granny that is true and such a quandary. I think it is to do with more access to personal vehicles, mixed with the excessive media coverage of every atrocity ("of it bleeds it leads," so they say) that makes us feel more vulnerable on our streets.

However thinking that not putting a child into a carseat does not equate to thinking that the parents deserved it when the child died

Deserved it is quite a loaded term though. Wouldn't people openly say they felt the parents partially responsible for the child's death. Because IF the child had been in a car seat, the likelihood is that they would have been injured but alive.

MerryMarigold:

It is ILLEGAL to fail to put your child in a car seat. Of course they share responsibility. It is not illegal to go about your business in a short skirt, walking at night, getting drunk, flirting with men etc. You are completely failing to distinguish between sharing responsibility when you did something that makes you culpable, and sharing it when you did something that made you vulnerable.

MissGoggins it is a quandry and I can't get my head round what I think of it much less what everyone else should think about it. Not sure I'm being helpful but it does make me question what I say to my children/grandchildren.

Well, in the case of the child in the car seat the parents would be partly responsible, but the reality is that if the same child had been left in a hotel room and something else had happened to them i.e. Had wandered off or come to harm in the room then the parents would be partly responsible by virtue of having left the child. So actually, they are partly responsible for the fact the child disappeared because if they had' left her then it wouldn't have disappeared.

And now comes a different point. If a young girl gets drunk and walks home alone she isn't responsible if she is attacked. However, if she is with a group of friends and they let her go knowing that being drunk and walking around the dodgiest parts of town in the small hours makes her vulnerable, are they partly responsible if something happens to her?

Granny I believe idealistically I should encourage my daughter to live very freely, but as was acknowledged upthread, we don't live in an idealistic world.

It is a very real world with some very twisted individuals. My daughter is hands down worth more to me than my ideals.

WannaBe:

No. They are not responsible for her.

However, if she is with a group of friends and they let her go knowing that being drunk and walking around the dodgiest parts of town in the small hours makes her vulnerable, are they partly responsible if something happens to her?

In this situation I would feel very responsible for the outcome of that evening. Even though I was neither the victim or the attacker. That is an interesting angle. Another I had never considered before.

I would be disgusted if a group of friends didn't look after a friend who was drunk. Quite apart from being attacked what about if she falls and hits her head, passes out and inhales her own vomit? I think we all need to take some responsibility for each other, I got a mouthful once when I saw a child in a shop window playing with the electric lighting. I opened the shop door and said the child was at risk of burning themselves or electrocuting themselves. The mother was really rude but hey I wouldn't be comfortable letting a child get hurt.