asking for it?

[antoinettechigur]

Just been thinking about this turn of phrase and wondering what it really can mean.

Follows on from lots of lunchtable discussion at work of a current rather high profile case in which some men are being accused of raping one of a group of women who were at their house after nightclubbing (just keeping it a tiny bit vague as trial not over yet. Most of my colleagues were analysing the woman's reported behaviour and discussing whether she had "asked for it" by getting into a vulnerable situation. When I asked "what, she wanted to be raped?" the responses were along the lines of "Oh of course not, but you know...". Nothing very specific. Another colleague joined me in the suggestion of questioning why these discussions/reports always focus on the woman's behaviour, not the man/men's in the situation.

So what does it all mean? What do people mean when they say a woman was "asking for it"?

Well, thought I better start a thread as I always turn up late to the interesting discussions these days

Soapbox I'm not sure how one would measure the success of public education campaigns. If you look at the number of educated people who smoke, sunbathe, drive drunk and eat crap food then i think you'd say the public education campaigns have been phenomenally successful. Not so successful at reaching lower socio-economic groups though, but if you take smoking, the number of smokers even in lower socio economic groups is still massively lower than it was 50 years ago, thanks to the cumulative effects of 50 years of knowledge dissemination.

Things take time... if we start changing attitudes now, who knows, our grand-daughters' chances of being raped may be half or quarter or a tenth ours...

This personal responsibility thing.

I mean look at it.

• Be aware of your surroundings. Knowing where you are and who is around you may help you to find a way to get out of a bad situation.

So no travelling to areas you don't know, no going for walks in the countryside, no going out late at night.

• Try to avoid isolated areas. It is more difficult to get help if no one is around.

So no travelling to areas you don't know, no going for walks in the countryside, no going out late at night.

• Walk with purpose. Even if you don?t know where you are going, act like you do.

Hmmm OK. (Although I've personally never been convinced this would make a blind bit of difference).

• Trust your instincts. If a situation or location feels unsafe or uncomfortable, it probably isn?t the best place to be.

Good advice.

• Try not to load yourself down with packages or bags as this can make you appear more vulnerable.

?????? Makes it nigh on impossible to lead a normal life as things like moving house, doing a supermarket shop are excluded.

• Make sure your cell phone is with you and charged and that you have cab money.

Well. What are you going to do with your cell phone and cab money to stop you getting raped? Once you are being attacked they will be of little use. Or is there a subtext to this one?

• Don't allow yourself to be isolated with someone you don?t trust or someone you don?t know.

This one is a big problem. It would have a lot of implications for women at work - chaperoning would need to be introduced. Women would also be rendered unable to do a lot of things if they were single unless they had a chaperone - getting a plumber in to fix a leaking toilet, getting the locks changed after a break in etc.

• Avoid putting music headphones in both ears so that you can be more aware of your surroundings, especially if you are walking alone.

Fair enough. Again though I wonder what good it actually does.

So there you have it. I do not wish to have my life cutailed to that extent. It's as simple as that.

Yet if I do not follow these measures and something happens then I will be deemed by society to have been stupid and asked for it.

A final thought - this stranger rape business. When I was young and used to go out and drink and walk home at night by myself, I used to grip my cigarette in one hand and my keys in another, as per one of these sets of "tips". Later i realised, that as a slim short female, if a man decided to drag me down an alleyway and rape me there would be nothing that I could do about it, cigarettes and keys would make no odds. They were an illusion that I was doing something to "protect myself" but in fact they were competely useless.

The fact that I never was dragged down an alleyway and raped wasn't because of my cigarette and keys, or later when they were invented having a pretend conversation into a mobile phone, or because I walked confidently and didn't look nervous (although I felt pretty nervous). I was never raped because I did not encounter a rapist who decided to rape me.

When I was raped it was by an ex boyfriend, who I was good friends with, and who was known to all and sundry as a "really good bloke".

So there you have it. If I had followed the tips, stayed in, never drunk alcohol, never gone out after dark, I would have missed out on a shitload of fun, which as a young woman I was entitled to have, and would still have been raped anyway.

My only problem with the personal responsibility thing is that it seems to be the woman's responsibility only! I really take offence at that.

My mother used to tell me that I shouldn't get too drunk at pubs and parties, shouldn't leave my drink unattended, call home for a lift if I felt out of sorts etc etc. But she also used to tell my brother that he shouldn't get too drunk as then he might not be able to tell if a girl was giving proper consent, he should stop if the girl says stop no matter how far they'd gone, he should never never sleep with a drunk girl because she may not be giving consent but too weak to fight off.

Personal responsibility goes both ways. It really ticks me off that all the "precautions" always make the woman sound like she was "asking for it"

ISNT

Great post btw. When you really, really think about what this advice is saying about how women should conduct themselves, and then look at the reality of rape ... the whole thing becomes a nonsense

Clarissimo I have not at any point suggested that the person who is to blame for an attack or crime is anyone other that the criminal. I am only advocating as you say 'sensible steps' to try to keep ourselves safe.

HerBeatitude I agree that education is a useful tool but it isn't going to work overnight and even if 'successful' it won't stop all attacks. What do we do in the meantime?

ImSoNotTelling as I've already stated these 'tips' came from a rape charity website so take it up with them. Most of those tips could also apply to not being mugged or pick pocketed etc. They aren't a panacea just little things that could make a difference.

The only way to change attitudes and do it quickly is to change the way the legal systems treats victims. Often in this country victims never meet the prosocution team. They are given no support for dealing with court. In the states one state started a program to tackle this and, from what I can remember, they were quite sucessful. If rapists started to go to prison in much larger numbers and for longer periods of time it would educate the public far quicker than any government initiative.

I agree with you about the changes needed in the criminal justice system soapbox. Education is also enormously important in the longer term effort to change attitudes.

Really I wonder at how the situation wrt rape is not seen as the scandal it actually is.

Because it doesn't affect men I think, or at least not on the same scale. Most of the people in power are men so it follows it's not high on their agenda. Also with idiots like that Judge Pickles 'Well she was no Angel' I fear it will be an uphill struggle.

Aye, which is why we need more women in positions of power, pronto

What a brilliant thread. Very thought provoking, espcially with how I educate my daughter and son in coming years.

The things I were most surprised by were the statistics about 80% of rape being in relationships, and two thirds being to sober people. Why aren't these facts more common knowledge? Why as women are we being fobbed off with instructions about not getting drunk and walking home when we face far greater risks in our own homes? Who benefits from not telling us these things apart from rapists?

By perpetuating myths rather than actualities we not only ill equip our children and ourselves but we are also complicit in rape remaining always the fault of a woman. I wonder how many women have thought, or worse still been told by their rapist, "that wasn't rape" because it was their husband/friend/colleague at their house and not down some dark alley when they were pissed and on their way home in a short skirt?

When even the rape support charities seem to be peddling information that will only help a minority of potential rape victims, rather than spelling out clearly that it's still rape even if you're married to the rapist, or he's your mate, or you changed your mind when you got home with him, what hope have we got for educating society that rapists are violent evil women hating bastards and there are no extentuating circumstances.

Maybe we need to start some sort of affirmitive action to get more women judges. I know there have been drives to try and increase the numbers but as of last year only 13.7% of high court judges were female.

I have read this with interest and have changed my usual posting name to post this.

When I was 21 I was hitchiking in France alone. I took a life with 2 guys and well...

The point I want to make is that at the time, I did nothing. I took the view that it was all down to my stupidity and they were just oportunistic idiots. I have spent many years holding myself responsible for what happened.

More recently, I have considered why I came to this view and concluded that the perspective that woment "ask for it" is so deeply ingrained in our collective societal psyche that we are not even aware of it and make judgements based on it without even knowing it. It has taken me many years to understand that yes, I was stupid to put myself in such a situation but that does not make what followed in any way my fault. I was not responsible for the actions of other people.

The view that women should ensure that men cannot do them harm, does much more damage than I think we realise.

Also, if we do not educate society about the scale of rape and dispell the myths, we are also failing to educate the people who will make up the juries that try these cases, who are so quick to write women off as deserving of their rape. Only with rape is the rule of law subverted. Yes, the alleged rapist should be innocent until proven guilty, but often the victim has to prove their innocence too.

Gosh - that should have said "lift" not "life"! I was not making a confession.

soapbox you copied them and pasted them onto this thread to show the sort of things that women could (should?) do to "protect themselves".

Even now you say that they are "little things" that could make a difference". The difference between being raped and not being raped.

But they are not "little things". As I have pointed out, if you followed these rules you would pretty much be unable to work, or go anywhere unaccompanied, or live by yourself.

My point is that all these "tips" serve to do is keep the female population in a state of permanent fear, and don't actually do much to reduce the risk of attack.

How many young women will really decide never to go out in order to eradicate the "risk"? If they go out, while they are aware of the "risk", and something happens, well logically they have ignored the warnings and thus share some blame for what happened. If they do decide to stay in, well they are effectivey opting out of our society and may well be raped anyway.

I once received one of these lists at work and I rememebr two of the things from it:

One was "studies have shown that women who are raped never have short hair. Prison interviews show that rapists are not attracted to women with short hair" and "carry un umbrella, walking stick, golf club or other such item whenever you have to go anywhere by yourself".

Those "tips" stuck with me as they are absolutely bloody ridiculous. So the answer is to cut all your hair of and arm yourself?
Of course it's nonsense. But all of the women reading that email will have sat there and thought "oh shit. I have long hair. And I can't carry an umbrella in all weathers I will look mad. Oh shit".

These "tips" just make people scared. They don't actually do anything positive for anyone.

ScreamingEagle - yes, you did say that. You said "You are not going to stop a rapist from raping no matter how many times you convict him or send him to jail or put that threat of criminality over his head.. men who rape dont CARE that its illegal, they're going to do it regardless"

So according to you, there is absolutely no point bothering to teach that rape is wrong, much less pursue convictions. Rapists will do what they do anyway.

Soapbox, frankly you have gone from 'women walking alone make themselves vulnerable' to 'okay, most rapes happen at home, hey don't blame me blame the rape charity [who I cut and pasted as a credible source]'.

Until you give me a cogent position that you believe, I'm having trouble understanding why you're contributing to this thread.

...Sorry, I meant to say to SE - in which case, if rapist men are so entirely oblivious to social sanction, why don't we pass a curfew for men? Stop men walking alone at night? Stop men getting drunk?

Really, I have been asking this since pages back. Those of you arguing that rape is inevitable and so someone's freedom should be curtailed - WHY NOT MEN?

Do you lock your front door? Do you lock your car? Do you expect a bank to have an alarm? Do you expect a school to have basic security measures?

They are all ways of deterring crime. What do you suggest we tell people, all people, about their personal safety? Don't bother?

I accept that pushing a stereotype in the general population is unhelpful in reducing overall crime but just because it is a stereotype does not mean it doesn't occur.

its so weird reading this, i went to a co-ed baptist boarding school in africa (seriously) and all the girls were locked in their dorm houses from 6pm until breakfast. while the boys had the run of the grounds. so could go swimming, play tennis etc etc etc. we had to sit and twiddle our thumbs.

the school sold this practice the parents as they were providing a 'family' environment and that they were 'protecting' the girls. that if they let the girls out then there would inevitably be fraternisation of a sexual sort. and they couldnt have that could they. so they just locked the girls up.

the idea of curtailing MENs freedoms was anethma. a completely alien, laughable suggestion.it never occured to them to lock the BOYs up. hell no.

it took me 2 YEARS of campaigning to just get the school to agree to let the girls have 2 days a week during the summer when the boys had to be in their dorm houses. and that was considered a huge concession.

curtailing WOMEN does not stop rape. why do people find this so hard to understand?

Anyone walking at night by themselves is more vulnerable. This has been true since the dawn of time for all creatures in creation (obviously except the nocturnal sort). I have not at any point said that if someone were do do this they would be raped and it would be their fault.

Why do people find it so hard to understand that not all situations are equally safe or not safe? I agree that women should not be kept in or curtailed but some situations are just more dangerous than others?

ScreaminEagle I fear our voices may be lost in the eather. [head banging against a brick wall emoticon]

I think it is a good idea to tell people about sensible precautions - checking ID of people when they come to your door, not getting in a position where you are drunk and unconscious and lying in a gutter, if a situation makes you feel uncomfortable then leave it.

This advice should be given to everyone, as it is general advice which helps everyone, across a range of different crimes. It's common sense stuff really.

The current ideas propogated, which boil down to "WOMEN: BEHAVE DECENTLY OR YOU WILL BE RAPED" are unhepful, to say the least.

I have noticed in my area a tendancy for men wearing certain types of clothing to be picked on. I have not seen any calls for men to avoid wearing particular types of clothes to lower their risk of attack. Because it would be seen as intrusive and silly. If a man gets attacked because of what he is wearing, there is always outrage that the attackers could have behaved like that. When a woman gets attacked and is wearing certain clothes, everyone nods their heads sagely and says "well, then..."

I entirely agree that the information should be for everyone. I entirely agree that people should not be judged about their worthiness to be a victim based on what they were wearing. I have stated previously that I expect the men in my family to live by the same risk avoidance strategies I would use.

What if there was a campaign saying "gay men are quite likely to be assuaulted and beaten beacuse of their sexuality. We (leading gay charity) have released the following guidelines to try and minimise the risk of assault:

• Think about your clothing. Is there anything which might identify you as gay? If so, change it. If you really want to wear something that might identify you as gay, take it in a bag and put it on when you arrive at your destination. Don't forget to stow it again before you leave

• Think about your mannerisms. Are you quite "camp"? Men with certain mannerisms identified as being gay, are more likey to be attacked. Practice walking and speaking in a "straight" way

• If you are travelling to a known gay bar or club, make sure that you arrive and leave with a group of friends

• Only read gay publications at home. Never in public

• Remember that you are being observed all the time and any person you are in contact with could be a violent homophobe. Never let your guard down

etc etc etc etc."

Would this be considered sage advice? Or would there be an outcry?