Government encouraging victim blaming

[Hazynomore]

This petition has just popped up on my facebook page - it's about a poster that says ”one in three reported rapes happens when the victim has been drinking” and it's up in hospitals and GP practices. Shocking.

To sign the petition follow this link : Change.org petition

Quite the reverse nomama.

"To give out the message that women have no control over their lives and can be raped, out of the blue, willy nilly, is scaremongering and does absolutely NOTHING to empower women."

No. Because you can follow all the rules on the lists and guess what you still get raped. |So you live your life in a hugely restricted manner, because shit like this makes you scared, and you have all these rules and you follow them, and it doesn't help at all. Because all you need to get raped is be in a situation with a rapist where he has the opportunity. Most people are raped by people they know. Family, partners, husbands, work collegaues, friends. Clearly it is unrealistic to avoid all these people. So the best thing to do is just get on with it, live your life, and not be cowed by all this scaremongering tosh that is thrown around.

The same advice goes for men and women. Best not to get so wasted you don't know what's going on. If a situation or a person makes you feel uncomfortable then get away. Easy.

Not putting posters of brutalised women all over hospitals FGS telling women who've been raped that if they had a drink it was their own fault (much as you are doing with your personal responsibility stchick).

Your comments are really massively going against the "we believe you" MN campaign as well nomama.

It might be worth finding the link and reading the rape myth debunking they put in there.

Charlotte, I think that's the point of the poster.

But I can see that my perspective is not the norm here. As an independent woman who tales full responsibility for her own actions and did, as as she began to leave home all those decades ago, learn from all experiences and build up a common sense picture of what is and is not more or less risky behaviour. Being drunk is just one that is blindingly obvious.

Seven, you are hugely offensive with that last line. I have not said anything even remotely blaming women for being raped.

Nomama, the feminist movement has always placed the blame for rape, and the responsibility for rape, on men. I imagine that this is because rape happens when men choose to rape and women are not responsible for the actions of others.

Women can be raped out of the blue, willy nilly (a poor choice of phrase when discussing rape, btw). It should be fucking shocking, because it is. If someone decides to rape you, male or female, it's basically going to happen. Very rarely does someone escape rape, or even manage to get themselves sexually assaulted instead of forcibly penetrated.

The misogyny in our society reduces women to 'mere playthings', 'at the whim of any man passing'. Have you never noticed this pervading virtually every aspect of society, culture and media?!

You are victim-blaming and kidding yourself that making potential victims responsible for what happens to them is 'empowering'. Bullshit. If someone does something bad to another person, male or female, young or old, of any colour, disabled or not, of any sexuality, and be they drunk our of their mind, high on drugs, asleep, in a coma, whatever, 100% of the responsibility for what happens lies with the person who chooses to commit a crime.

I am teetotal because I don't like alcohol, don't like being drunk, and I don't get why others want or need to get drunk, and think fsr too many people get too drunk BUT if a drunk person gets hurt by another, it is never their fault for being drunk.

Oh, I don't blindly do the I believe thing either. Is it compulsory here?

And please, don't presume I know nothing about rape!

Thank you for posting the link hazey

Yet again, I am being vilified for believing that women can live lives as strong and independently as men and I refuse to live in fear of something a man, any man, could do.

It has always struck me as a ridiculous state of affairs. Raise your girls to be strong but remind them constantly that any man in the street can hurt them. Stupid message.

And I am NOT blaming, just pointing out that everyone can make good or bad choices regarding the levels of risk they choose to take, Getting drunk increases your risk of everything....

And oh dear for the willy nilly - it means will he won't he, and is apt, just not int he overtly sexual way you read it!

Well, you know fuck all about the basics of the nature of rape and responsibility.

Nice inference that at least some rape victims get raped because they are not independent women who take control of their lives, blahdivictimblamingblah.

And what if someone was dependent and pathetic and out of control lying on the floor drunk and flimsily dressed - are they inviting rape, in your ridiculous worldview?

Where is the focus on MEN being responsible for their actions?

You're not only displaying internalised misogyny, but you're actually also being very hateful to men by placing the responsibility for preventing rape on women's shoulders. They aren't actually amoral, violent, rutting freaks who need to have their behaviour monitored by others.

Yes dear, I was being sarcastic about 'willy nilly'

No Nomama you are not being vilified. You are being educated. Massive difference.

Rightly knowing that the responsiblity for rape lies with potential rapists and not women is about as empowering as it gets, btw. It's also the truth.

Any speech that holds a victim responsible for their own suffering is victim-blaming, FYI.

Yowser! That was a mouthful, some of which I have already said, using different words, earlier.

But thanks for the patronising dismissal.

Thanks Seven, I have to admit I didn't really expect it to have started an argument! I think, for me, if someone who has been raped sees that poster they would assume that if they had been drunk when it happened that it was therefore their fault.

And if you keep getting vilified about the same topic, at some stage you might want to consider if there's a reason behind that.

"Yet again, I am being vilified for believing that women can live lives as strong and independently as men and I refuse to live in fear of something a man, any man, could do."

You're not though are you.

You are saying that women and girls should have their way of life curtailed in a way that men's are not. In order to attempt to avoid something which is more or less down to luck (bad luck).

That's not living an equal fearless life at all.

There is no education in this. Just diatribe!

And what if someone was dependent and pathetic and out of control lying on the floor drunk and flimsily dressed - are they inviting rape, in your ridiculous worldview?

Where the hell did I say anything like that?

Diatribe, and aimed at the wrong person. Aim your bile at rapists rather than women who have a different view to you.

Hazy yes and in hospitals of all places, where women and girls can need to go for treatment after being attacked.

Let alone all the victims who are there for general hospitaly stuff. So your boyfriend raped you after a couple of glasses of wine a few years back and you have to sit in a waiting room with that staring at you for an hour while you wait for your appt.

And all the other women and girls just having yet another reminder that they are PREY.

It's really fucking outrageous. Drives me mad.

When you try to read what I wrote correctly, you will see that I did not say you said that.

Seven, I am saying the exact opposite. I am saying that women should not live being told that any man they pass on the street, at home, in daylight could rape them.

I am saying that everyone, male and female, should take some responsibility for avoiding the avoidable, reduce your risk. The unavoidable is never the victims fault. That is just something that has been impuned to me, not something I have said, or believe! For example, I could use a zebra crossing and reduce my risk of being run over, but the boy racer who runs me down on the crossing was not my fault - it was all his!

Nomama because they have not taken personal responsibility to avoid being raped.

With responsibility comes consequences. If there is a responsibility on women not to be raped, then failing in that responsibility has a consequence, rape.

I am responsible for my own actions, not anyone elses.

Oxford, I am saying that nothing I posted could be interpreted in that way. Your question is all out of context and has no connection with anything I did post - and you seem to have made assumptions - your ridiculous world view

Is there some alternative glossary in use here that I am utterly unaware of, Seven?

I wholly agree with your last sentence, but nothing in the sentence above it!

They could though nomama, if they are rapists.

pretending that there is some magical rape prevention formula, or that you can in some way tell which men are rapists and which aren't, is firstly ineffective, and secondly puts responsibility on the victim.

Sadly there is no way of telling who is a rapist, and there is no magical rape prevention formula. Clearly that is a very uncomfortable thing to live with, but unfortunately that's the way it is.

Best thing to do is to get on with your life. I hate that women's lives are curtailed because of something that is a. pointless and b. not their fault. I hate that really all these posters do is make women and girls feel afraid, and make rape victims feel that it was their fault (and thus not report etc).

If you have a responsibility, and you fail in that responsibility, there are consequences.

I have a responsibility to go to work. If I fail in that responsibility, I get sacked. That is my own fault.

You say I have a responsibility to avoid rape. If I fail in that responsibility, I get raped. ergo, that is my own fault.