Would I be a terrible woman if i advise my DD's to act in a way so they are less likely to be assaulted.

[Rubytuesdayy]

With respect to lit streets, chaste clothes, state of drunkenness etc etc? Or would I be victim blaming prior to teh event. I KNOW that rape is the fault of the rapists, but I just want my DD's to be safe.

Sorry I got a bit carried away about risk management there!

Here's a quote from Helen Keller I thought was relevant to this discussion: "Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold."

nooka I thought it was a great post. :)

As a DV professional, I must add that we give safety advice all the time. To women mostly but now also to men. It is based on the premise that sadly we cannot trust others not to abuse us 100% of them time, so we must take some actions to keep ourselves safe. They are the sorts of things people have been saying on this thread.

Par exampla - if you argue with an emotional abuser, they get to carry on and get worse. If you piss off and have a bath and leave them to it, they don't get to harangue you in your ear hole. The capacity to do it is theirs, the capacity to sometimes avoid it is ours.

Sad that we have to do this tho.

While we're about it, I'll say my favourite refrain again - women need a bit of money in their own name, and friends they could run to if they needed to.

I thought rape defence counsels were not allowed to bring all that rape myth stuff up anymore as a defence.Does that still happen?

Google Ched evans

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ched-evans-team-mate-brands-victim-801734

He and his friends do not believe he is a rapist. They just do not get that a girl who is too drunk to stand up cannot give consent.

She was in bed, unconcious. It was not her fault that someone sent and SMS to a friend and said friend raped her.

There is a huge campain on twitter trying to get his conviction quashed. Even though he himself said she didn't consent and he did have sex with her. But he doesn't think he is a rapist.

Bumbley

This is why you MUST teach your son not to be a rapist, if things don't your son will be given the message that he can have sex with who he wants and he has done nothing wrong. That is the messsage from internet, porn, from many footballers, and many of their fans, from many many men and boys who think rape is, quite literally, something to joke about.

You don't just need to tell him about rape, but about assault, 'groping', sexual violence.

The best way we can reduce rape is to educate the men and boys in our lives that rape is rape. That it doesn't matter that you want to have sex with her (or him), that it ddoesn't matter what she is wearing, smoking, drinking, saying.

The only thing that matters is

a) she (he) is capable of giving consent
and
b) she (he) does give consent

Nooka, that's fine. You can tell your daughterswhat you like. They are your children. I will give all my children the same general safety advice because I won't make a difference between my sons and any future daughters I may have.

Pixie, I'm do sorry to hear what happened to you :(

Handbag, I think it's dismissive to not acknowledge people who have been raped in those situations. It's very 'well it didn't happen to me like that so it never happens'. Where is the compassion and empathy there?

Basil, I don't think the whole of society is saying that at all. Obviously not because we have part of society discussing it here and no one has said that. No one has said you can prevent getting raped by your behaviour. No one has said that you can prevent anything by your behaviour. The advice that were talking about doesn't offer any guarantees against attacks in general but that doesn't mean that people shouldn't be aware of it. I don't see people starting threads and objecting strongly to that safety advice being given because it might make people think they can prevent themselves ever getting attacked.

Where have I said that I won't be 'teaching my son not to be a rapist'? I specifically said that I would teaching them about boundaries, respect etc earlier in the thread. Lots of people have said that they will be doing the same.

Excellent post Nooka.

For nooka:

"Risk management is the identification, assessment, and prioritization of risks (defined in ISO 31000 as the effect of uncertainty on objectives, whether positive or negative) followed by coordinated and economical application of resources to minimize , monitor, and control the probability and/or impact of unfortunate events"

"Risk management is a process for identifying, assessing, and prioritizing risks of different kinds. Once the risks are identified, the risk manager will create a plan to minimize or eliminate the impact of negative events. "

"The identification, analysis, assessment, control, and avoidance, minimization, or elimination of unacceptable risks. "

There are many more.

Bumbley I give up, I really do. Look at mmmmm's posts and see if they apply to your thinking.

If someone told me they'd been raped down a dark alley, pissed at 1 am by a bloke jumping out at them I would believe them. I would have compassion for them. I wouldn't say 'oh well, some people somewhere at some time must have been raped wearing a sombrero so I'll just focus on not doing that because it just might mean I don't get raped.' There's lots of folks here that it's not rhetoric for, but I think you just see it as that, as an argument to be won. I don't care anymore. I hope your behaviour works for you and yours.

Handbag, you're still arguing against things that haven't been said.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has seen that this thread is just going in circles. It's a bit pointless really.

Cheddar. Do you know how much word twisting you do yourself? I've had to point it out to you many times already, as have others on the thread.

If you tell women that the onus is on them to curtail their behaviour to avoid rape - as described in the op -yes Bumbley, in the op - ie. don't get drunk, wear chaste clothes, stay in lit areas - then you are also telling them that if they don't follow this advice, they are partially at fault if they are raped. How can anyone not see this?

Nooka, I very much welcome your posts on here because they are not purely from the non-victim blaming angle - they are from a basic risk-assessment angle. It is pointless to dish out advice to women that will not make a difference to whether they are raped or not, but will have a major restricitve effect on how they live their lives.

I am not talking about the very basic safety advice which should be given to both sexes generally - we're talking here about specific advice given to women about rape.

I see what you're saying cheddar and I agree that rapists,men who attempt rape and men who sexually assault should be thoroughly dealt with but how do you prove that the penis is a weapon? We don't all carry knives around with us, but men all have a penis.

Running, people don't see that because the same doesn't follow for other safety advice. Most people do give their children basic safety advice - see links to police website for advice given to everyone. If people don't follow this advice and are then attacked no one is saying that they are partially at fault or their attack.

The problem isn't the advice, the problem is the perception of rape and rape victims. Changing the advice won't change that.

Bumbley your very first post on this thread said you agreed with the op. I can't copy it on my iPad, but you can go and look at it. If you've changed your mind great.

I've found this thread quite triggering actually. I remember myself following all this advice as a young woman, nothing wrong in that in itself I suppose.

I also remember on incident where a friend and I were walking home late and a group of men were behind us. What started as 'hello darlin' banter (ignored by us) swiftly degenerated into them shouting at us 'you think we soundn't rape you if we wanted?'

We were so scared we walked past our house (student digs) and back onto a main road because we didn't want them know where we lived. They didn't follow us thank god - but it was so very scary that they seemed to think it totally acceptable to point out to us that they could rape us if they wanted to.

It is attitudes like this that need to be challenged, not women's behaviour on a night out.

I've just got back from walking the dog - something I do everyday in quite isolated spots. Today, I was scared of someone jumping out at me. The sort of advice dished out to women on a regular basis about 'how to avoid rape' causes women to live their lives in fear. And that is not a good thing.

But, if you don't agree, then there's always this 10 tips to end rape

I wouldn't say I've changed my mind. I have clarified my opinion on it - including what I think about the 'chaste' clothes idea. The OP did say 'less likely to be assaulted' too - worth noting again I think? It did go on to talk about rape but I think the points that have been made (several times now) is that the advice is pretty much the same and should be given to boys and girls and not specifically with rape in mind. The OP just happened to be talking about her DD.

But if you are telling your daughter not to go down dark alleys in order to avoid getting raped, then you are giving her the wrong advice, because she is most likely to get raped in her own home or in the home of a friend.

So what you would need to do, is tell her never to be at home with a man.

That is not very sensible advice though, is it? It's impracticable and would restrict her life even more than women are supposed to restrict their lives at present.

It's like telling children never to have a bath in case they drown in it. Some people do drown in baths, so perhaps no one ought to ever have one.

Seriously, that is exactly the level of usefulness of the advice suggested in the OP. It's not exaggerating for effect, from the POV of statistical likelihood, it is comparable - in fact it's probably more valid to tell people to avoid baths, I bet a higher percentage of victims of drowning, drown in the bath, than victims of rape, are raped in an alley. But no-one would ever think of telling people to avoid baths even though there is a risk of drowning, beacuse it would be considered disproportionate and silly advice.

Ah. And guess what, it is actually more sensible to tell people to avoid baths so that they don't get drowned, than it is to tell women to avoid dark alleys so they don't get raped.

This is from Wiki:

The causes of drowning cases in the US from 1999 to 2006 are as follows:

31.0% Drowning and submersion while in natural water
27.9% Unspecified drowning and submersion
14.5% Drowning and submersion while in swimming pool
9.4% Drowning and submersion while in bathtub
7.2% Drowning and submersion following fall into natural water
6.3% Other specified drowning and submersion
2.9% Drowning and submersion following fall into swimming pool
0.9% Drowning and submersion following fall into bathtub

So that means that over 10% of drownings in the USA, happen in the bath.

Fewer than 10% of rapes happen because a stranger attacks a woman in a dark or deserted place.

So unless UK baths are less lethal (and they may be) telling people to avoid having baths if they want to avoid being drowned, is more sensible than telling women that they should avoid dark alleys where strangers might rape them.

So I trust all those planning on telling their daughters to avoid dark alleys, will be getting rid of their baths.