Since when was suggesting there are measures women (or men) can take to avoid the scummy elements of society assaulting them (physically or sexually) victim blaming?

Bobsutan · 2011-05-13T17:34:25+00:00

As a woman I don't get insulted when I'm told to be safe.. but telling a woman to cover up her body because men will not be able to resist it.. is offense to men and women. I always ask what an acceptable outfit is for a woman to wear?

girlwriteswhat · 2011-05-13T14:42:21+00:00

I scratch my head over the whole "owning your part" concept being construed as victim-blaming or "she asked to be raped", too. I think it's actually detrimental to a victim's recovery to not engage in some "self-blame", or as I'd call it, "self-questioning."

If we assume that most of our strongest universal emotional responses--fear, love, lust, etc--have an element of survival/species perpetuation in them...well, what survival purpose does self-blame serve? And after a traumatic event--pretty much any traumatic event--almost everyone goes through certain stages. One of them is self-blame or guilt: I should have treated her better. If only my last words to him before he was killed weren't "You really piss me off, asshole." If only I hadn't been late that morning, I'd have been on a different bus.

It seems to serve no purpose, but it does. I'm my cavewoman self, walking with my kids through the jungle, and a sabre-toothed tiger jumps out and grabs one. After the immediate danger is passed, I go through an intense period of self-analysis: What could I have done differently? Could I have been more aware of my surroundings? Could I have taught my kid to be better aware of his surroundings? Could I have fed him better, so he'd be healthier and better able to run away? Could I have reasonably fended off the tiger? Could I have yelled louder for help? Could I have taken a different trail through the jungle--did I know beforehand that there were more tigers on this trail, but it was the shorter route so I measured the risks against the benefits and got it wrong? Could I have brought another adult from the tribe with me?

All of this is what feminists consider "self-blame", and it smells a lot like guilt. And yeah, it can really hinder recovery if there really WAS nothing you could reasonably have done, other than to just have left the cave five minutes later that morning. But our brains want to turn every experience we have into a "lesson learned", and the more traumatic the experience, the more our brain needs to learn from it. It's instinctive, and it serves a survival purpose.

Obsessing over all those little things you could have done differently can turn into a feedback loop of eternal self-blame, especially if there really is nothing "to be learned" other than sometimes you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I do think we all need to go through the process, and if we refuse to learn anything from the traumatic experience, we remain traumatized a lot longer than we would have if we just owned our part in the events leading up to it. And that's not the same thing as blaming oneself. The tiger ate my kid, and I didn't invite him to do it. But if there were things I could have done to prevent it, my brain will try to force me to learn those things before it will let the event go, so my other kids will be more likely to survive.

Does that make any sense?

javacodeguy · 2011-05-13T13:28:53+00:00

I've stopped trying to point this kind of stuff out. The worst is when men or women drink to excess/blacking out and are surprised when something bad happens to them.

Of course you didn't deserve to have that bad thing happen, but if you controlled your drinking you could have probably avoided any problems.

InfinitelyThirsting · 2011-05-13T13:41:30+00:00

I'm all for personal responsibility. And it's certainly appropriate to talk about not drinking until you pass out. Yes, anyone should be able to pass out drunk without being raped, that's not a free pass--but I'm of the opinion that you just shouldn't drink until you pass out, full stop. You risk a lot of things that way, like death or alcohol poisoning, including rape if you happen to be around a rapist.

But there is absolutely no evidence that clothing choice influences whether or not you'll be raped. Just because "everybody knows" that "rapists target girls in slutty clothing" doesn't make it true. So that being the most common example of how to "avoid rape" really bothers me, because it just isn't a factor in most rapes. Alcohol and other drugs are highly correlated to rape, but not clothing.

And it becomes victim-blaming when the person tries to say that you can avoid rape, rather than just reduce your chances. Because in the end, rapes happen because of rapists, not because of anyone's actions. You could do all those things in another circumstance, and nothing bad would happen. In fact, most people do those things regularly, and don't get raped. The most important factor in a rape is a rapist. And most of the time, it doesn't matter what you were wearing, or what you were doing, the rapist probably would have raped you anyways, or just waited for different opportunity--because 4/5 of rape victims know their rapist.

So yeah. That's when it bothers me: When it's about clothing, because that's a myth, or when they try to claim rape can indeed be avoided, or act as if stranger-rape is common.

fondueguy · 2011-05-14T05:32:49+00:00

Do we even give WARNINGS to men... no that would mean we actually cared about their safety.

ima_coder · 2011-05-14T10:22:38+00:00

Guy walks through the ghetto flashing $100 bills and gets robbed. Does this person have culpability?

leenucks · 2011-05-13T09:03:14+00:00

"I'm a grown-up girl, I don't need to take responsibility for my action." That is 2XC. And that's why you can't argue with them - taking the role of the victim is so much easier than actually thinking about what could have been done to minimize the chances of being the victim -, common sense is something, that has been forgotten over there long ago.

ima_coder · 2011-05-13T12:32:42+00:00

No one wants to take responsibility for their actions.

2011-05-13T18:53:47+00:00

I think it is in part due to the (stupid) belief that our culture actually thinks that rape is ok. I've seen a lot of comments like this:

But why are we telling people to change how they dress in order to avoid being harmed. Why are we not instead telling people to not commit harm?

Feminists think that our society doesn't respect women's bodies. They also think that our society has fostered a "rape culture" which tells men that it's ok to rape women under certain circumstances.

Given that context this appears to be a situation where people are saying that women are responsible for their own rape. Therefore the rapist must not be responsible, therefore victim blaming. It's kind of logical in its own crazy way if you come from an ideology that thinks normal men are rapists.

radamanthine · 2011-05-13T12:46:30+00:00

You have a responsibility to mitigate the potential of a false accusation, too.

Chainsaw helps. I keep the cut-up parts of my one night stands in a freezer in the basement.

Title	Since when was suggesting there are measures women (or men) can take to avoid the scummy elements of society assaulting them (physically or sexually) victim blaming?
Author	nlakes
Upvotes	3
Comments	27
Date	May 13, 2011 6:46 AM UTC (15 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/hae3g/since_when_was_suggesting_there_are_measures/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/since-when-was-suggesting-there-are-measures-women.1039914 https://theredarchive.com/post/1039914

Comments