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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Government encouraging victim blaming

117 replies

Hazynomore · 23/07/2014 22:10

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

OP posts:
CaptainTrollolololol · 23/07/2014 23:37

That poster is far worse than I expected :(

The fact it's an alcohol know your limits one just puts it all on the woman. She didn't know her limits so she got raped. Great message.

OxfordBags · 23/07/2014 23:40

You're not making sense, nomama. You're now saying that people should take responsibility to prevent rape but if it does happen then it's not their responsibility. The latter is admitting that if rape is going to happen, it's going to happen - which makes the first part of that nonsense.

Of course women should not be told that they could be raped by any man. Because women shouldn't be able to be raped by any man, obviously, we all agree on that. However, the truth is that women can be raped by any man, and are being raped by any men. It's not disempowering to know the facts.

Choosing to use a zebra crossing is not analagous to not getting drunk or whatever in order to avoid rape. Traffic accidents do happen and can happen, nearly always with zero intention on the part of the person who causes it, and often times cannot be avoided. Rape, on the other hand, is NEVER accidental, can ALWAYS be avoided, and is ALWAYS undertaken with a specific intention (even if the rapist is lying to himself that it's not rape).

Nomama · 23/07/2014 23:40

You have a responsibility to avoid heightening your levels of risk...

No, I 'm going to bed. I should know better than to get involved with such threads.

My world view seems to be diametrically opposed to that of the majority of others who post on such threads.

SevenZarkSeven · 23/07/2014 23:40

I think (if my memory is working) there is a strong correlation between drinking alcohol and raping someone. When can we expect to see the posters for that I wonder.

OxfordBags · 23/07/2014 23:42

A thought: as the majority of sex crimes are committed by someone known to the victim, is it my responsibility to never get to know anyone and to cut off my family and everyone I've ever met? Or should I become a hermit so as to avoid all potential rapists? How far does the victim-blaming illogic go?!

OxfordBags · 23/07/2014 23:43

No, the responsibility lies with men for ensuring that no such risk exists, FFS.

HavantGuard · 23/07/2014 23:43

www.mumsnet.com/campaigns/we-believe-you-campaign-rape-myths-busted

Some reading for Nomama

CatKisser · 23/07/2014 23:48

I love how if I sauntered down the pub in my jeans and t shirt with a book and spent a couple of hours to myself with a few drinks, sauntered home and got raped on the way, Id apparently be partly to blame for daring to drink.
However the woman in the poster looks like she has a pretty dress on so she was probably asking for it in some way. Angry

CatKisser · 23/07/2014 23:49

Nomama, I don't know you, but I honestly hope you never experience rape. From your posts, I'd imagine you'd spend a lot of time wondering what you could have done to avoid it happening. When really it comes down to one rapist.

Nomama · 23/07/2014 23:50

I've read it, I don't disgree with it, why would I? I just don't like the twee 'we believe you' unthinking cant that seems to come out of it sometimes.

I said sometimes, not all the time. Just the occasions when bandwaggoning gets out of hand, when the initial 'we beleive you' leads to nasty, uninformed or incorrect portrayal of persons or facts.

And now, having set myself up for utter flaming, I really am going to bed.

VampireSquid · 23/07/2014 23:52

I disagree with the petition.

We can't control someone else's behaviour. Being in full control of ourselves mean we are better able to call for help or not be placed in certain dangerous situations- such as having sex without consent (due to being drunk) or due to having slower reflexes, being 'easier' to rape. You should be able to be drunk without being raped. A rape victim who was drunk or maybe had taken drugs or was otherwise not fully in control of their senses was not inviting rape, thwy were not 'asking' for it, the only person who has any blame is the rapist, end of. BUT the victim would have been less likely to be placed in that position of having no control over the situation if they had for instance, not become more vulnerable by drinking, or whatever.

If I was walking down a, I don't know, shady street, dangling an expensive phone (not comparing this to rape of course) and someone mugs me, I should never have been mugged. It would be the mugger's fault ultimately BUT it would have been better for me to have kept my phone tucked away. I would not blame anyone who was mugged BUT that also doesn't mean there aren't things which mean it is less likely you would be mugged. I can't explain it well as I know that sounds a bit blamey, but I'm really not that good at English.

That situation is the same for rape, imo. It is always and only the rapist's fault BUT with certain precautions, it is less likely you are placed in that situation. You shouldn't have to take those precautions for your safety, and if you don't and act completely normally and naturally then I wouldn't say you were wrong or inviting anything (maybe unwise) but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be safer for you to drink less or ore book a taxi or whatever. It isn't just for rape, I would say that for anybody and every body, regardless of age or gender, that you should try and remain in full control of yourself and if you want to get drunk or whatever you should have trusted friends with you, and so on, all the stuff girls get told already (but boys should too).

You could do everything and anything and you can't prevent yourself being raped, ultimately, or attacked. I don't think I'm victim blaming as I don't think a victim should ever be blamed, the only person who can be responsible is the one who perpetrated it. BUT I tell my DC that if someone asks them to go somewhere, they're to tell me or whatever. If they wandered off with a stranger and were harmed somehow, it would completely and utterly not be their fault, but I will still tell them that advice because I can't stop someone wanting to kidnap or assault or murder, I can only do my best to protect myself and my children. It won't often work and I shouldn't need to have to do that, but we do and I think it's common sense, not victim blaming.

CatKisser · 23/07/2014 23:56

But vampir, the second you start lookingfor things someone COULD have done differently (hmm you DID wander down a dark alley with a smart phone, or hmm you did let him buy you two drinks) them you immediately blur the lines. Why not just condemn the perpetrator ONLY? They are the only one who's broken the law, after all.

Nomama · 23/07/2014 23:57

CatKisser - I have been. And I knew then and know now that I could not have prevented it.

But I also know that I was young, less than sober and, in a perfect world would not have made some of the choices I made that night. The man was known to me, and the rape took place close to my home. Had I been slightly more aware I could have taken a taxi home with friends, could have caught a bus, rung a friend, but I didn't. One daft decision, hampered by drink, and I was raped.

It was not my fault but, had I made a different choice it may not have happened. Had I been sober I may have made a better choice. But I did not ask for it, did not encourage him and have never thought it was my fault. Never thought I asked fo it to happen at all!

Nor have I let it ruin my life, change my opinion of men (he was one man) or make me afraid of living my life as I want to.

CharlotteCollins · 23/07/2014 23:58

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!

But the situation we are talking about is one in which the "boy racers" are actively looking out for pedestrians not using the zebra crossing, so that they can mow them down, because they enjoy mowing them down.

And if posters on road safety focussed on the pedestrians and ignored the actions of these boy racers, wouldn't you think that the focus was terribly wrong?

Nomama · 24/07/2014 00:00

Charlotte, Tufty Club, Green Cross Man and many other campaigns did focus on the pedestrian and taught us all how to reduce our risk of being run over!

ElephantsNeverForgive · 24/07/2014 00:00

What a fucking awful sexist piece of crap.

I'm all for the basic message that drinking to much leaves you vunerable to making stupid decisions and having accidents.

A poster saying Alcohol know your limits then giving the rape statistic and some other alchol related risks - Getting into fighs, falling and ending up in A&E, trffic accidents etc. might be perfectly reasonable.

But just those words with that picture is awful. It totally says wear something black and sexy and get drunk and you deserve to be raped Angry

CatKisser · 24/07/2014 00:02

Nomama, I'm so sorry that's happened to you but I totally disagree with you retrospective views.
I've experiences rape too and although I made daft choices at the time, I at no point deserved to be raped as a consequence.

Tomorrow morning at 6am I'm getting up and going for a solitary walk through the wooded area near my house. If by some horrific chance I were raped, I wouldn't be tormenting myself for my choices, I'd be loathing \my attacker.

Whatever choices you make, a rapist CHOOSES to violate someone they see in a vulnerable position.

CatKisser · 24/07/2014 00:03

Typos! Sorry.

CarryOnDancing · 24/07/2014 00:04

Nomama: in practical day to days terms, how do you recommend someone prevent themselves from rape?

What extra preventative qualities does being a strong independent woman provide?

Can a normal man turn to rape because of the actions of a woman?

Nomama · 24/07/2014 00:11

although I made daft choices at the time, I at no point deserved to be raped as a consequence.

I said that was my perspective too.

Tomorrow morning at 6am I'm getting up and going for a solitary walk through the wooded area near my house. If by some horrific chance I were raped, I wouldn't be tormenting myself for my choices,
I said I haven't changed my life because of it, I still run in the mornings, alone in secluded places, live mainly alone, DH works away a lot, go out at night, walk home alone...

Whatever choices you make, a rapist CHOOSES to violate someone they see in a vulnerable position
I may not have said that as clearly, but think I did make it clear that that man was responsible, not me

So, where do we disagree? It is just semantics and a decision not see a poster as victim blaming, maybe.

CarryOn, I have no idea what you want me to say. I have said, repeatedly, each individual is responsible for reducing their own risks. But no one can reduce their risk to 0%.

And you last question is ludicrous and does not connect to anything I have posted.

CatKisser · 24/07/2014 00:15

Because where you and I decide to go on solitary walks, the woman in the poster may have decided to walk home on her own.... what if the poster showed you, doing what you were doing when you were attacked? Or me? I'd be devastated to be the poster girl for "acting in a way that gets you raped."

OxfordBags · 24/07/2014 00:15

Vampire, what you wrote actually highlights one of the strongestmyths about rape - that the victim has any control over the situation. As I said before, it's virtually impossible to stop or 'downgrade' a rape once it's happening. Every study done on the topic shows that fighting and resisting massively increase your chance of the assault intensifying, such as getting beaten, or the rapist doing extra things, and massively increase your chance of being killed. The horrible truth about rape, which runs totally against the rape myths which inform our criminal system, is that the best way to control what happens to you during a rape, and to minimise what is done, and for how long, and how violently, etc., etc., is to not fight.

Nomama, I am very sorry you were raped. But you must see that the rape should not have happened at all. It could also have still happened if you were sober, and, if that rape hadn't happened, the likelihood of being raped when sober and in different circumstances are equal to the likelihood that the real rape happened.

I suspected that you had been raped when drunk very soon into reading your posts. I think that to cope, in your mind, you have made your drunken state that night the cause of the rape, and you are projecting that idea onto other women. You are saying that no woman, including yourself, is responsible for rape, but everything else you say is saying they're responsible. You can't see where your unconscious self-blame is leaking out into being victim-blaming. I'm not saying this to be nasty, I'm saying it because I think, in all gentleness, it's something you need to address, for your own sake.

CatKisser · 24/07/2014 00:16

With a great big fucking text of "one in three rape victims was going for a jog in the early morning in a wooded area"

OxfordBags · 24/07/2014 00:20

No-one can reduce their risk of being raped BECAUSE THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR RAPE DOES NOT LIE WITH THEM. NOTHING THEY ACTUALLY DO OR DON'T DO WILL STOP A RAPIST RAPING. Rape is about reducing a woman to a nothing. What they want doesn't matter to a rapist, but also what they do doesn't matter to a rapist. It's actually dangerous to tell women that what they do can affect the outcome of rape, because it's a lie that they have any control over if it happens or what happens during it.

The problem lies with society and culture, not drinking.

OxfordBags · 24/07/2014 00:23

Any poster or campaign that focuses on women and rape when concerning responsibility is a waste of time and money and does more harm than good due to reinforcing rape myths and victim-blaming.

ALL campaigns about preventing rape need to be focused on men, for men, and about men.