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

Yeah, but the problem is that the law will not be onto you at all, because they are understaffed and anyway have no hope of proving beyond reasonable doubt that anything untoward happened.

Unless there is a change in the actual law I don't see how they can threaten people with punishment for something it's widely believed people are hardly ever actually punished for.

Increasingly I'm WTAF about that whole area of the country.

It's a Bermuda Triangle of misogyny, abuse and safeguarding fuckery.

Maybe that’s the truth. No one will do anything to stop men raping or to bring them to justice when they do. Women will always be raped and all you can do is try your best to not be one of them. If it happens to you that means you weren’t trying your best.

Yeah, but the problem is that the law will not be onto you at all, because they are understaffed

I'm afraid that doesn't wash any longer.

They have enough staff, 3 to be precise, to arrest a woman for calling a man a man. In fact about six women altogether. And three men.

They can't claim they are understaffed, until they can prioritise normally

I don't see that priority is the issue, they have little to no chance of getting a conviction when the female willingly went back to do drugs etc. We've seen that all too many times.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with producing information to help people make risk assessments regarding their own lives. To withhold that crucial information creates an environment where people maybe more off guard which would make it easier for any given rapist to succeed.

It doesn’t logically follow at all that providing women with said information means it is anywhere in the vicinity of their fault should the worst happen. If that’s what they are coming away with then our public education is in dire need of an overhaul in teaching critical thinking.

Rape is an act of violence and the fault always lies 100% with whomever initiated that act of violence. Providing information because there may have been a spate of drink spikings or whatever does not in any way alter the fact that philisophical and moral responsibility lies exclusively with the rapist.

I can understand people without robust critical thinking skills may commit an error in thinking, and if you DO think this makes women guilty of their own rapes knock it off you aren’t helping. If you have been a victim of this and this makes you feel it was your fault please don’t. It’s not your fault, it was never your fault in no version of reality could it ever be your fault. Please be kinder to yourself.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with producing information to help people make risk assessments regarding their own lives. To withhold that crucial information creates an environment where people maybe more off guard which would make it easier for any given rapist to succeed.

The words: the price you pay, are not giving information. It’s implying you are doing something that could result in a high price, that is rape. It’s the wording here that’s an issue.

Datun, no the risk is lower per person because most people stay home and only a few people are party animals.

Lets make up some data. 30% of deaths from eating jelly are from eating blue jelly and 70% are from eating red jelly. Is red jelly more or less dangerous than blue?

Would you just say red is more dangerous than blue regardless of how much of each is eaten?

What if I tell you that 99% of jelly eaten is red and only 1% blue. Which is the most dangerous to eat, red or blue?

Clearly blue is more dangerous to eat, even though most deaths are caused by red.

The same is true for the rape statistics. Lets say people spend at least 10 times more time at home with partners than they do at parties with random strangers (total underestimate! its probably much more like 100 times!). Then the fact that 30% of rapes are by partners and 20% at the hands of strangers shows that hanging out with strangers is more risky than hanging out with partners.

Do you see that now?

But a price is not the same as fault/responsibility. There is a price to crossing the road and one of those is the risk of getting mowed down by a reckless driver. We all make risk assessments and cost benefit analysis to the actions we do all the time.

How do you think people meet people. They were originally strangers. I know no one who has not taken a risk. No one. And I am a married mother in my forties. It doesnt work.

Yes which is precisely why it’s never the victims fault. It’s impossible to go through life with zero risk. Best we can do is honestly and openly communicate what and where those risks are and let people with their own agency make their choices.

What’s the price a rapist pays? Nothing, absolutely nothing. He gets what he wants and the woman pays the price, a million times over. It’s absolute bullshit and it’s so depressing how many people will argue black is white on the issue.

The words: the price you pay, are not giving information. It’s implying you are doing something that could result in a high price, that is rape. It’s the wording here that’s an issue.

I agree about the wording. But the information needs to be out there. How would you word a poster to warn girls and young women about grooming gangs and about people spiking their drinks?

By targeting the groomers and the spikers you still reach the young girls who need the information

Whenwillitallend I hope to god your post at 0939 is sarcastic! Jesus Christ it's not is it?!!!

"The wider context is that society only has limited control over men's behaviour." Why the HELL shouldn't this be challenged and changed?! Society (via criminal justice) COULD do many things to modify men's behaviour if it CHOSE to.

This is not even being ATTEMPTED.

"Arresting and prosecuting and imprisoning all the men who do bad things is impossible" so we give up? We don't even try?!

"it just doesn't go as far as to say avoid all men always, just to avoid strange men" which is ridiculous when most rapists are well known to their victims!

"It doesn't. Women cannot control men's behaviour and controllig men requires extreme violence and cost and intrusion etc." Wow! So women's safety, long term mh and their lives are less important than the effort and COST required to deal with this? How charming an attitude!

Using a passive narrative that tells women to avoid it, is part of the problem.

Exactly! Language used, the narrative used MATTERS!

"With a prediction of the consequences. If you do this, you will be on the sex offenders register for life, and the minimum sentence for these crimes is ..."

That's a big part of the problem though isn't it? Rapists AREN'T convicted, even if they are they get pathetic sentences!

"and will therefore know that a poster campaign hoping to change mens attitudes will be utterly ineffective." Completely disagree. I firmly believe that many rapes & sexual assaults could be prevented IF

There were decent deterrents
Men & boys had consent properly drummed into them!

"I agree about the wording. But the information needs to be out there. How would you word a poster to warn girls and young women about grooming gangs and about people spiking their drinks?"

The information you're referring to is ALREADY out there. Women and girls ALREADY know the risks they don't NEED to be told AGAIN!

What we need is for the police to STOP dismissing victims reports

What we need is for the police to STOP blaming victims for what they were wearing/doing/where they were at what time etc

What we need is for the police to STOP excusing rapists

What we need is for the police to STOP targeting resources wrongly

What we need is for the police to STOP policing women's behaviour and INSTEAD do their JOB and police RAPISTS BEHAVIOUR!!

And that's before I even get Fucking started on the courts!!

By targeting the groomers and the spikers you still reach the young girls who need the information

Exactly! But it sends the message that the perpetrators are to blame NOT the victims!

I've been at work all day so I've speed read much of this discussion now I'm home. This is the standard of discussion you only get on Mumsnet, women are brilliant!

I'm interested that Oldcrone and I had such a different reaction to our time in Leeds. I decided a political response was needed and joined Rape Crisis to try and do something to bring about change. Instead of policing my own behaviour, I decided that I would not give in to violence and continued to move freely around the city, even after dark (as if I was a free human being). I guess I did a kind of 'risk assessment' of the society I was living in and realised that curtailing my own behaviour wouldn't protect me anyway, and that if something did happen, I'd likely get the blame, so fuck it.

Just as well really, one of my lectures was at 4pm so I'd have missed that every week if I'd decided to impose a curfew on myself. I did actually know a woman who left university because she couldn't hack it any more, I wouldn't say just because of the murders but they were definitely a factor.

It amazes me that people are willing to see male behaviour as a given, that can't be changed. If we don't even expect it of them, I suppose it never will change.

The big trouble with all these messages that are so concerned about women's safety is this. They take away our rights to safety. They take away our right to feel safe as we walk around at night.

That is why we call them victim blaming, but it is more than that. They absolve society of all responsibility for helping women to feel safe in a world of predators. They absolve men of all responsibility: they give men excuses, and bloody hell we all know that if you give men an inch they take a fucking mile.

They reinforce the message that merely being female in Britain is a dangerous thing to be. Reinforce it, accept it, and enable it.

Instead of policing my own behaviour, I decided that I would not give in to violence and continued to move freely around the city, even after dark (as if I was a free human being).

I did too. I think I said that earlier. But I was cautious after the student was killed. What that meant was that I parked my motorbike as close as possible to my flat if I was back after dark, and didn't take my helmet off until I was inside my flat with the door locked behind me. Not much different from what I was doing before - keeping my helmet on until I was inside the building was something I'd do anyway if it was cold and wet. I certainly didn't impose a curfew on myself.

It amazes me that people are willing to see male behaviour as a given, that can't be changed.

I don't know if that's directed at me as well, but that's not what I think and I didn't intend to give that impression.

Women and girls ALREADY know the risks they don't NEED to be told AGAIN!

When and where do girls learn this? From parents - if they have responsible parents. From school - as long as they attend. What about the girls who have irresponsible parents or are in care, and aren't attending school regularly?

The big trouble with all these messages that are so concerned about women's safety is this. They take away our rights to safety. They take away our right to feel safe as we walk around at night.

It's not the messages that do that, it's the violent men. That's what we need to tackle.

When and where do girls learn this? From parents - if they have responsible parents. From school - as long as they attend. What about the girls who have irresponsible parents or are in care, and aren't attending school regularly?

Are you kidding? I started learning about how dangerous it was to be female very early on. I already knew that boys in school were always in fights and would pick on anyone by Juniors. My own father was capable of throwing things around the house in fits of temper. Women and girls' behaviour was far more closely policed, such things weren't acceptable. Aggressive behaviour associated with sex started when I was about 9 or so, although I didn't know what it was they meant by the things they shouted at me and the groping. Then I started hearing all the media messages about how women had to look after themselves everywhere, or it would be all their own fault. I heard the law cases of rape victims my age and younger being cross-examined about what skirt they chose to wear, as if it meant anything other than pretty in the aesthetics chosen for us by our culture. I heard everywhere that what men did was entirely up to them and perfectly legitimate, but the females that happened to be their victims were always the ones to blame.

I can assure you that girls not being looked after are even more likely to learn these messages early. And do you really think boys and men do not hear the same messages that I did??

What this sort of thing doesn't acknowledge is that these young women who maybe do let loose once in a while are still undoubtedly risk assessing consciously and subconsciously every other frickin moment of their lives. We know that because we all do it. From the moment we understand that being female places us in a unique sort of danger we then carry that knowledge and it affects our behaviour, confidence and safety every single day in every single way for the rest of our lives.

That's another reason it's so infuriating.

I can assure you that girls not being looked after are even more likely to learn these messages early.

How do you explain the girls who became victims of the grooming gangs, then? Some of them thought the men who were raping them and selling them to other men were their 'boyfriends'. It's been suggested that this campaign is aimed at girls who are likely to fall victim to these gangs. The ones who have in the past certainly didn't see the dangers until they'd already become victims.