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.

Good night running. :) happy reading!

Night Bumbkey, happy er... victim blaming??

Oops what a typo

Interesting - I've just noticed that this has been moved to "other subjects".

I wonder why - because of us nasty feminists again?

You paraphrased me bumbly without the rest of what I said in that paragraph the meaning of what I said changes slightly.

I have read the OP several times and it is just as clear as the first time I read it. The OP believes that wearing chaste clothes offers some sort of protection. Sadly she is wrong.

Why do we teach children about stranger danger? They will only come to harm if they meet evil that wants to harm them, and nothing will keep them safe from that.
I taught mine, although my DS still doesn't really get it.
I also taught both of my children all I could think of about keeping safe and trying to spot problems before they became a reality, taking a different road home to avoid crowds of drunks outside the local pub for example.

Nothing about clothing, or victim-blaming, just trying to ensure that they had some essential survival skills. I don't know if they worked or not, or if my two have just been lucky.

I think it was

Fallen

I don't teach my children about stranger danger. It is a completely pointless exercise. Young children and even teens are not responsible for their own safety. Trying to make them responsible for their own safety is, IMO, wrong in the face of an evil adult who wishes to harm them.

I teach my children to say hello to adults we meet (cashiers in Tesco, bin men, police officers etc.). But they are all strangers, so teaching them not to trust strangers makes no logical sense.

What I do teach them is how to cross the road safely, how and why to stay in the same place if they get lost or separated from us and how to ask an adult for help.

I also teach them about good touching and bad touching. Since most sexual abuse takes place in a home environment with a family member.

I will in time teach them about pickpockets (we live in a capital city) and about gangs of robbers (we saw one such gang being arrested outside the restaurant where we had lunch today, quite harrowing actually.)

The chances of them being kidnapped by a "stranger" are so vanishingly small, I choose not to make an issue of it. I choose not to tell them that strangers are out to do them harm and I choose not to give them the idea that all adukts unknown to them are harmful.

I think that stranger danger has actually been quite destructive, resulting in a situation where children distrust people they don't know, and where adults feel reluctant to help children that they can see are struggling just in case they get accused of wanting to do them harm.

What is the alternative though nooka? That they should trust everyone?

I'm not sure bumbley, but the focus on strangers when the biggest threat is much closer to home makes very little sense to me.

I agree with nooka on the stranger front. I focus on things like don't go off with anyone unless I say it's ok, if you feel uncomfortable about something it's ok to say no then come and tell me etc

I used to walk about late at night for years, wearing all kinds of clothes and it was just a matter of time I guess before I got attacked. However my confidence meant that I fought off the attacker rather than froze, as happens to many women. I got away unscathed but I cut down the risks by reducing the amount of times that I walked alone at night.

Don't stop having fun, but reduce the risks by not attracting attention to yourself by looking vulnerable. That's the thing these psychos look out for.

I guess I just don't see why you should avoid mentioning the potential risk from strangers even though there are other, greater risks. I don't mean in a scary, 'everyone is out to get you' way but I would rather they know that there are some people out there who could harm them rather than thinking that they can trust everyone and no one would ever try to hurt them.

Oh yes silly women thinking you have the right to be out in public on your own

fedup2012 only 5% of men are psychotic at the time of their crimes, and out of all stranger rape only 4.4% remember what the victim was wearing

But bumbley, how do you know who wants to cause you harm?

My attacker was an opportunist - I call him a psycho for simplicity's sake, it describes his approach to life. He saw a young slim woman and thought he could get away with raping her. He didn't get away with it because although young and slim, I was body confident and strong. But however confident I was, I still got attacked and it was extremely disturbing and changed my

black I don't know what you're getting at with your statistics, but why would it matter whether they remember what a woman was wearing? They would attack because a woman looks vulnerable, not because she was wearing an A-line pleated skirt or suede kitten heels or a blouse.

I avoid specifically mentioning strangers as I don't want them to develop the mindset stranger=bad, someone I know =good which IMHO would be a dangerous outlook. I therefore try and give guidance like I explained above to cover the range of dangers.

it comes down to risk.if the op doesnt think there is any risk,then,to her,there is no problem.so she doesnt need to do anything.
Those of us who think there is a risk will do something.

I´ve finally had time to read this thread - and just wanted to say how profoundly it has changed my understanding of rape. I´m very grateful to those of you who raked over memories to try and help the rest of us understand - and annoyed at those who seem to have created a lot of background noise that has detracted from important points.

I never curtailed my behaviour when I was young and the only assaults I have met with have been at the hands of people known to me. But my one concession to the risk of stranger rape was to carry an alarm (noisy rape alarm) and have it either in my hand (going home alone) or at hand when on a night out. Given, like the OP, I have daughters, does this actually offer an element of protection? Does it help to draw attention to a situation so it is clear something is very wrong? I´m thinking of the situations where a woman was raped in a public place, even in daylight. And to strengthen your case in the event of a "her word against his" court case.

kuros then i am glad that i talked about what happened to me.

regarding your question about personal alarms, they can be useful to attach to your bag to alert you if it gets nicked,they can be handy say if you have just got shot of a violent abuser your neighbours are friendly and aware and the police have your address flagged. but to help prevent rape sadly not.

the thing is people tend not to respond to them they rarely even respond to crys of "help" or "help rape" its just how people tend to be its the same as a car alarm people just dont respond due to things like them not being very loud or distinctive or them being a sound people are used to hearing.
and people as a genral rule tend to not want to get involved,

they do and mostly allways will respond to shouts of "fire" or "help fire" because there intresting non threatening things to respond to and mostly worth a gander (not how i view it) so if your getting attacked then if you can scream "no" as many times as you can and when possible yell "fire" hopefully people turning up will either stop it or give you valuble witnesses if you wish to call the police

Just to add to Socks post, people will not necessarily help even when a clear assault is being carried out right in front of them. In my case, my mugger beat me up in front of a queue of traffic sat at traffic lights and not one person came to my help. Someone did at least call the ambulance for me once he'd run off. In the case of sexual assaults, people can seem even less willing to help, as they don't want to 'get involved'. :(