WTAF is wrong with West Yorkshire Police?

[Bluestitch]

Don't know if anybody has posted this already, lovely bit of victim blaming there. I'm not even surprised anymore.

mobile.twitter.com/Jessicae13Eaton/status/1105821309701894145

The complaint of myself and others is the language, the focus, and yes, West Yorkshire police being the source is a whacking great red flag warning against this being a careful, thoughtful piece of 'advice'.

So, yes, you might have a conversation with your daughter about taking precautions - you'll advise about taking free drinks, or guarding your own, you'll talk about staying with trusted friends etc. Because you understand that there are predatory men out there that you can do nothing about.

But you are not the police. You are a concerned parent. The police are in a position to do something about it. And this particular police force has an appalling track record about doing anything about VAWG. So in that context, damn right, telling women rape is a price they pay, is victim blaming.

I mean, those who are talking about things you warn your daughters about, do you tell them in the conversation that if they don't do it, they could pay the price and if they do, you aren't terribly invested in bringing the rapist to justice because it's costly, time consuming and not really a priority for you?

Pywife2
Instead they instigated a publicity campaign telling women to stay indoors and scaring the shit out of us with posters and ads on radio reproducing the words of the hoaxer they had been taken in by. They wanted to impose a curfew on women.

I was a student in Leeds at that time as well. I only remember being terrified after the student was killed, because he was clearly going after any women, and she also lived near me so it brought it far too close to home. It never occurred to me that it was that student's fault that she was killed, but I did think carefully about how I could avoid doing what she was doing when she was killed (she was walking between the bus stop and her flat late at night - hardly what anyone would consider risky behaviour.)

The only effect on men according to my husband who was also a student there was to be frequently stopped by the police and asked what he was doing if he was out late.

The experience of living in Leeds at that time has coloured my view of this issue. It comes down to this - my safety is my responsibility. There are bad people who might do me harm and it's up to me to assess risks and keep myself safe. I don't think the opposite message of telling young women that they can take any risks they want to because bad people shouldn't do bad things is helpful at all. It's not victim blaming to suggest you assess the risks in what you do before you do it. Whether that's going out armed with a knife or taking drugs with someone you've only just met.

Its people pretending that if they do all these things they or their daughter's won't get raped.

Is anyone doing this? It's about reducing the probability of it happening to you, not about absolute certainty.

Do you really think women are raped by a lack of risk assessment and not by rapists?

^this. This is the problem with that stupid poster. Women have been given worthless instructions on how to prevent rape since forever. It hasn’t stopped the rapists.

My husbands take on the poster, how about rewording it to focus on the rapists? Something like...

‘ thinking of enticing women and girls with gifts to rape parties? Just to let you know, West Yorkshire Police work undercover and will be watching and willing to attend your rape parties... the Price you pay for being a rapist, may be a long prison sentence...

But we will never see that. We will instead see them question women who tweet wrong think, while doing nothing to track down rapists.

Most of what I wanted to say has been said by others such a pywife but can I just add that even women and girls who do take risks don't actually deserve to be raped? Those girls who are perhaps just having fun acting like the boys are - after all we tell them they're the same. Or those girls who have already been abused or who are in care or who have suffered other traumas. There's a myriad of reasons why a woman or a girl might drink or take drugs.

The issue is that sometimes men rape women who are vulnerable. Men see vulnerability as giving them a chance to rape. Vulnerable isn't just drunk - it can also mean child; weaker than; elderly; disabled; foreign; being in an inherently power imbalanced relationship such as being a patient or pupil or being coercively controlled.

I don’t understand how anyone is okay with this. It basically says “rape is the price you pay for living a normal life and doing things men can do without a second thought”, or more specifically “rape is the price you pay for being a woman”.

Do people really not see that?

Yorkshire is the spiritual home of toxic masculinity.

(Only) Red-light district in UK
Savile
Geoff Boycott

And does anyone remember when Mike Parkinson told Meg Ryan Airways that she was too old to get her kit off in films?

even women and girls who do take risks don't actually deserve to be raped

I don't think anyone's saying that they do - unless that's how you're interpreting the WYP poster.

But it isn't reducing probability OldCrone. The stats don't bear that out at all.

Even in West Yorkshire where men are seemingly entitled to rape and abuse women and girls with impunity.

It is so, so depressing, and I completely agree with you all. pywife you are so right, if you told all men to stay in so women could move freely there’d be outrage.

HOWEVER. I’ve almost given up on the hope of change after the Ulster rape case. I was her, SO many times, what the case didn’t highlight is that there is a huge culture of going back to peoples’ houses in Belfast after the clubs shut (most shut at one), and staying up to the wee hours with a lot of alcohol and drugs around. But the Ulster rape case, all lovely boys from great schools and nice families, just showed me that when stuff goes wrong, even if you follow all the rules, no law will help you.

It’s really affecting how I think about raising my daughter (I was a hell raiser who did what I pleased and apart from one series of sexual harassments/assaults which was sadly seen as par for the course, suffered no ill effects). I assumed my daughter would have the right to be the same, now lecturer friends teaching 20 year old lads on terribly naice, middle class uni courses tells us horror stories about how the boys talk to he girls. Porn and a massive sense of entitlement seems to have fucked a lot of people up. A different story all together from
20 years ago. It’s SO depressing.

The Ulster rape case wasn’t the only such case like it either, it’s just she preserved and it got further than others. Look up English rugby tour of NZ 2008, Danny Care, Topsy Ojo and Mike Brown.

Oh I’m sure it’s not, but look what she got for her perseverance!

I agree with Pywife. The Yorkshire ripper advice was all about not going out, not walking alone etc. I remember the news coverage because I was a young teenager and even though I was in another part of the country, it frightnened me.
Women were expected to alter their lives, it was their job to stay safe. While the lives of men, when one of their number was killing women, went on unchanged.
A better poster would have something like
WE KNOW THAT SOME MEN WILL TAKE ANY OPPORTUNITY TO ASSAULT AND RAPE. WE ARE WATCHING YOU AND YOU WILL BE PUNISHED.

Women are more likely to be raped and sexually assaulted by a friend or partner in their own home than anywhere else. 'Party animals' are less likely to get raped than women who stay home with male friends or partners.

Those stats don't actually say that. In 39%of cases the woman is raped in her own home, which means that 61% take place elsewhere. In 50% of cases, women are raped by a partner or family member and in the other 50% they are raped by other people they know (friends, colleagues, acquaintances) or by strangers.

It does put into perspective how dangerous it is for women to live with men, though.

Why can't West Yorkshire Police run a campaign focusing on telling men about the rights of girls and women?
And that if men violate the rights of women and girls, the police and wider society will come down on them like a ton of bricks?

YY. I have seen lots of campaigns in this mould, but never ONE which tells men there are consequences for rape and abuse.

Jessica your DH’s reinterpretation is great.

What would reduce rape is to make absolutely certain that all men know what constitutes rape, and that prosecution is likely. And if convicted, an incredibly severe punishment is forthcoming.

Let's face it, if you castrated every man who was convicted of rape, the statistics would go down (not a suggestion, just an illustration).

The language used in this poster, and the focus being on the victim, is not addressing the crime or the person doing it.

It won't affect the statistics at all. It's pointless. And what's the endgame? Curfew? Chastity belts? Chaperones? Where any risk assessed, perfectly normal behaviour is viewed as a come on?

So yes, it is telling women that there is a price to pay for being normal.

Women know to take precautions, they always do. It doesn't alter the statistics.

It's the police's job to do that. Amd the way to do that is to tackle the perpetrators, not the fucking victims.

But of course, you just know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if you actually named the problem - men and male violence - you would get NAMALTED up the wazoo.

If you put posters up addressing men, every man who looked at them would want to complain.

And the first people standing in line to do it will be a misogynistic police force who think that women should pay the price for being women.

I personally think anything that encourages young women to avoid risky situations with strange men is a good thing. Anything which tells young women not to try and get back to some z listers flat for after hours booze and free drugs with his mates is to be applauded not condemned. The poster surely emphasises that men are not safe and you basically should not trust them especially when they are giving you stuff for nothing.

The wider context is that society only has limited control over men's behaviour. Arresting and prosecuting and imprisoning all the men who do bad things is impossible, telling them not to do bad things via a poster campaign is insane (see fucking Scot. Gov poster campaign). Is there evidence that women's behaviour is easier to influence and control than men's in general ?

Besides, we all know that they would simply say any sex was consensual and our system makes it practically impossible to prove otherwise especially when there will be evidence and witnesses produced saying it all looked good to me.

Better to avoid if at all possible.

And yes, it's not lost on anyone, that on the one hand they are telling women to reduce their boundaries, stay with friends, don't go there, and simultaneously on the other hand telling them that their boundaries are not theirs to define. That any man who wants to can redefine those boundaries. And if these women want to be in a female only environment, guess what, they can't!!

Fuck off with this misogyny.

If you follow the rules perfectly and you get raped what then? Our dds might never drink, be alone with men, be alone at all, never wear frilly knickers or a short skirt or makeup and still get raped. We can do or not do a wide variety of things and get raped or not get raped. If every woman tomorrow but on a burhka and never left the house some women would still get raped.

Doing everything ‘right’ and still getting raped can be very damaging to you and you blame yourself because you’ve been taught you have control over making yourself vulnerable. So if you do end up being raped you must have done something wrong because apparently if you follow the rules then you don’t get raped. There’s a lot of people invested in this type of thinking but it does not benefit the victims of rapists one little bit.

So yes, it is telling women that there is a price to pay for being normal.

See, I don't read it this way, I think this campaign is probably in light of grooming gangs and etc and it is aimed at a small set of young women who do accept drink and drugs from older men etc. That is not "normal behaviour" in my book.

The wider context is that society only has limited control over men's behaviour

Society chooses this.

I was on a weird thread yesterday in AIBU which was generally about women requesting females for healthcare or beauty care that involved touching them. The fact so many contributors were saying they request females for services or care that involved touching their body, was deemed to be ‘hateful to men’ and ‘treating professional men like perverts’. So there really is no way for women to behave in response to the dangers we face at the hands of men ( oops sorry got told off yesterday for not stipulating some men ) that is acceptable. We will be told how to behave, and how not to behave, and we will then also be told our behaviour is an overreaction that makes men feel bad.

Women have been campaigning for years to get juries to be told about rape myths.

As far as I'm aware, they've only recently had any kind of (limited) success.

Porn, prostitution, all things within the governments control. All things that give men the impression they are entitled to take what they want from women.

Society chooses to allow men to do this.

Arresting and prosecuting and imprisoning all the men who do bad things is impossible

Well it certainly is if you are ignoring it because you think a better way to sort things out is to police women's behaviour instead of men's.

Oh and anyway WYP are too busy going after people who state biological facts online aren't they?