Dr Jesicca Taylor on R4 Woman's Hour today, discussing her new book "Why Women Are Blamed For Everything: Exploring Victim Blaming Of Women Subjected to Violence and Trauma"

[R0wantrees]

"Why does society blame the victims of sexual violence rather than the perpetrators? Dr Jessica Taylor explains her research into how victim blaming works"
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hgh7

"Overview

She asked for it. She was flirting. She was drinking. She was wearing a revealing dress. She was too confident. She walked home alone. She stayed in that relationship. She was naïve. She didn’t report soon enough. She didn’t fight back. She wanted it. She lied about it. She comes from a bad area. She was vulnerable. She should have known. She should have seen it coming. She should have protected herself.

Victim blaming of women is prevalent and normalised in society.

What causes us to blame women who have been abused, raped, trafficked, assaulted or harassed by men? Why are we uncomfortable with placing all of the blame on perpetrators for their crimes against women?

Based on three years of doctoral research and ten years of practice with women and girls, Dr Jessica Taylor explores the many reasons we blame women for male violence committed against them. Written in her unique style and backed up by decades of evidence, this book exposes the powerful forces in society and individual psychology which compel us to blame women subjected to male violence."
victimfocus-resources.com/products/why-women-are-blamed-for-everything-exploring-victim-blaming-of-women-subjected-to-violence-and-trauma-by-dr-jessica-taylor-special-edition-hardback-signed-by-author

twitter.com/DrJessTaylor/status/1253234149441318912

" But I can’t think why women would be more likely to do it now than previously."

Might it be anything to do with who is now defined as a woman?

On twitter, do you have a public or locked account? Public accounts will be able to influence things more.

You can retweet with your own comment.
You can reply.
You can start a tweet thread of your own, linking to the book. For eg this is the last day to pre-order and get a signed copy.

I love the resources on her website - went on to order the book, and was happy to see she's also written books for reflection on these issues for academics, practitioners and survivors.
I'd love to have all 3 as they're all relevant for me, but got the one for my studies as I have reflection essays due soon.
Might try and see if there's budget at work to get the one for practitioners and her flash cards look so useful.

A big group of VAW training workers from different agencies have sat and wracked our brains about how to start conversations on eg victim blaming. Obviously I do this already in my work but thinking of a neutral, context-free, non-threatening way to do it for us all to use together was tricky. The 'just world' flashcards are amazing.
As are all the others.
I would like to buy them all as resources for training.

@ SuperLoud - thank you. Tbh, I’m not even sure what type of account I’ve got. That’s how social media savvy I am! But I’ll try to figure it out.
@ AskingQuestions - good point. That hadn’t even crossed my mind.

She's very impressive. I'm in awe.

I suppose the only silver lining of the recent horrific attacks on her is that reporting as a result of these will have inadvertently likely turned her book into a (much deserved) best seller.

Nice to think that those who sought to shut her up have instead achieved the reverse, and ensured the book is a success.

Funny how these types always seem to be pretty good with IT...

Her radio interview was so good.

Honestly I work in the same sort of area and I do see a lot of women, as well as men, blaming victims of abuse.

I think her 'just world' theory is right. I also think the more freedoms women have gained since 1960 (the pill, working outside the home, bank accounts, going to night clubs without being seen as inherently immoral (until you are)) the more need there is to delineate between women who are raped and women who are not.
We need to believe that if we do xyz or avoid xyz we will be safe.

Before, men protected us (when it suited them) from other men.
Now, we have to protect ourselves.

Rapists still rape in more or less the same numbers, so there is a drive to make sense of the world in light of that.

Also, the definition of rape has changed, rightly. But I think it was a little easier for people to clearly see the wrong in dragging a young, virginal stranger off the street, whereas rape within a relationship or between adults where they have had consensual sex before, or raping someone who is drunk or asleep, are obviously very wrong to me, but some people struggle with them.

Muttonindistress, I misunderstood before.
If you tweet starting with #IwasBlamed and then write something (just something you feel safe disclosing on twitter) then it will add to the other tweets on that hashtag. And you can retweet tweets on that hashtag too. Ones you want to share with others.

The author Joanne Harris has a fab one.

Thank you

It's sort of useful that these men make their hatred of women so clear. It's such obvious proof that women are at risk and men are the problem. But it's still disgusting that they can make these attacks and get away with it.

Thanks Jessica Taylor. And thanks too Socrates11 for introducing me to Lewis's law: "The comments on any article about feminism justify the existence of feminism".

Some of the accounts on #IwasBlamed are tragic.

We maybe need a law like Lewis's law for this.
Taylor's Law - the comments when a victim of abuse discusses victim-blaming justify the movement against victim-blaming type of thing.

I've not looked forward to a new book arriving on the doormat this much in such a long time.

It's all making me want to do a BSc in Psychology when I finish what I'm currently studying.
I wonder if I can explore similar themes within sociology to ensure she gets lots of footnotes.

They just. Can't. Help. Themselves.

"‘Nice pair of milkers’: Former Uni of Sheffield student ambassador slammed over ‘disgusting’ comment"

thetab.com/uk/sheffield/2020/04/26/nice-pair-of-milkers-uni-of-sheffield-student-ambassador-slammed-over-disgusting-comment-43606/amp?__twitter_impression=true

Dreadful comment. This is the person that made it. Name and image removed from The Tab article since first publication. I wonder why.

Yes its surprising that was removed

Have ordered the book

Loved the "ambassador's" excuse/explanation that Dr Taylor is a radical feminist rather than an intersectional one, so the student ambassador's use of classically misogynist attacks against her book on blaming victims of sexual violence is therefore justified.

I agree, they can't help but demonstrate what they really think when they're not hiding behind their word salads.

Lewis' Law is a belter. Not heard that before.

I hadn't noticed that, Gasp0de. How curious.

Anime's gotta anime I guess... What is the link between Animes and odd posters on twitter?

Holy shmoly:
"The uni describes the role of student ambassador as someone who will act “as a positive role model” and “raise the aspirations of local year 7 – 13 pupils.”

Hahahahahaha. If that's positive/raising, then I'd hate to see the base level (sorry all of Sheffield)

'Hannah' sounds nice. Will Sheffield University do anything about this?

Something I saw suggested that Hannah was due to graduate this summer so the university's probably not that interested.

Any prospective employers will though. Don't people learn - they look at the social media of prospective employees...

Just saw JK Rowling tweet that she had just ordered a copy!

Just came here to post that Lord!

Very useful to demonstrate that TRA misogyny is just the same as MRA misogyny for people that didn't already get that.