Victim-Shaming?

[shirgall]

As a result of the effort to gild those designer blinders than certain people wear, check out the latest unintended consequence:

 

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/colleges-struggle-with-protecting-students-without-being-accused-of-victim-blaming/article/2556509

 

 

Don’t drink so much. "Stop victim-blaming."

 

Watch your drink. "Stop victim-blaming."

 

Walk in well-lit areas at night. "Stop victim-blaming."

 

If colleges cannot suggest basic common sense measures to protect students — which help guard against crimes that aren’t rape and help men as well — without being accused by the feminist chorus of blaming victims, what can they say?

 

“It's a tough line to tread because the blame should still be on the perpetrator, but you also want to protect these people,” Larkin Sayre, a sophomore at Massachusetts Institute of Technology told NPR.

 

Suggesting women don’t drink so much or don’t wear short skirts feels wrong, Sayre said, because being able to wear what one wants is “a basic human right” and “we don't tell men to not get blackout drunk.”

 

I used to be involved in teaching a course called, "Refuse to Be a Victim". I can't imagine how these lunatics would treat me if I was still doing it.

[J. D. Stembal]

No one parks their car in a shady neighborhood with all the doors unlocked and the windows rolled down. For some reason, it's sexist to suggest that a woman use common sense with her feminine property.

 

Was the class enrolling women only, or was the class mixed? How many women showed up on average? In my experience, most women are not interested in owning or carrying firearms, taking martial arts, or self-defense classes. What they want is a man who will be their ethical self-defense proxy, essentially an unpaid bodyguard.

[shirgall]

No one parks their car in a shady neighborhood with all the doors unlocked and the windows rolled down. For some reason, it's sexist to suggest that a woman use common sense with her feminine property.

 

Was the class enrolling women only, or was the class mixed? How many women showed up on average? In my experience, most women are not interested in owning or carrying firearms, taking martial arts, or self-defense classes. What they want is a man who will be their ethical self-defense proxy, essentially an unpaid bodyguard.

 

It was marketed to women but open to all. It was usually 90% women. We did *not* talk firearms in that course. If they asked, we referred them to a different class (Personal Protection in the Home, to be exact). This was all about avoiding risky behaviors and taking reasonable precautions. A little bit of gadgetry too.

[Pepin]

 

Suggesting women don’t drink so much or don’t wear short skirts feels wrong, Sayre said, because being able to wear what one wants is “a basic human right” and “we don't tell men to not get blackout drunk.”

 

If it is a right, it does not entail automatic protection. Being able to keep one's possessions does not entail the lack of theft. It does not mean that you ought to feel comfortable counting money in shady streets. It is important to look at the risk of any action, not because there ought to be a risk, but because there will always be a risk.

 

Rights are maintained through self-defense. To say one has a right to their property means that one has a right to use violence against those who attempt to steal their property. To say one has a right to wear what they want is to say that one has a right to use violence against those who attempt to force them to wear otherwise.

 

To suggest that one change a behavior to lower their risk is to appeal to those who do not wish to use violence to maintain their rights. It is completely fine if you want to fend off a rapist with pepper spray or a gun, but many people prefer to avoid violence by lowering the risk of a rapist approaching them in the first place.

 

It wouldn't be right to say "men, stop raping" because the category men contains very few people who would ever commit such an action. Aims at educating predators is best focused as it is a waste of time to educate the 90% of people who are not even at risk of becoming a predator. Worse, educating predators might not be possible, making aims to change their behavior quite mute. This is why focusing on changing the risk is far more plausible as a strategy.

 

It is valid to say "women, be weary of drunk men" as the victim group is statically general with the predator group specific enough to be significant

 

Really, I think we ought to tell all people not to drink until blackout drunk. If men are statistically more likely to become violent or annoying, I think it is valid to focus more on men than women. But as stated above, context is important. The message is likely to hit most of the people who are at risk if broadcasted at a college frat, not so much at a IEEE club.

[Mister Mister]

      Victim shaming is a horrible thing, that happens with all kinds of victims, not just female victims of rape.   When people don't want to address violence for social/emotional reasons, often they will shame victims to avoid placing responsibility on a perpetrator who may have greater power.

     But the feminists are lumping in, "learn from past mistakes, and take responsibility for your own self-protection" with victim-shaming which is really contemptible.  Basically it is part of this whole attitude of, "no female behavior is ever problematic or unhealthy, and not subject to criticism, especially by a male".  While of course every little nuance of male behavior is subject to criticism.  Of course this is really dangerous to women because if we excuse them from any responsibility for bad decisions, in the long run it will not go well for them.

 

      It's the same way they lump in any expression of male sexuality they don't like with "rape-culture", which is to minimize the horror of the actual crime of rape.  In many ways this provides cover to the predators.  I remember Karen Straughan talking about a prominent male professor who peddles this stuff, who has been accused of multiple sexual assaults.

[J. D. Stembal]

I wrote a lengthy blog about rape culture. It was prompted by Aaron Burnett III writing that all men need to take efforts to stop rape culture, which they are responsible for creating. Essentially, rape culture shames men into feeling guilty about rape. It's purpose is not to empower women to act responsibly. The purpose is to shame men.

 

Here is a snippet about the concept of inverse activism, which I'd like to flesh out more in the future with regard to the Affordable Care Act. The whole piece is a little long (2300 words) but the relevant bits are in the first nine paragraphs. http://www.endtheusurpation.com/home/?p=9

 

 

 

As many as one in four women will be victims of rape, yet only one in twenty men are rapists, indicating that rape must be the enterprise of a group of repeat offenders, which is five times smaller than the pool of victims. If the majority of women live in fear of being raped and nearly ninety-five percent of men are not rapists, why should it be the responsibility of every socially conscious male to minimize the risk of rape for women? In Burnett's view, we are looking at an inverse relationshp between awareness and activism. The more likely you are to be the victim of rape, the less command you have in preventing it. Rationally, the victims of rape are more capable of deterring transgressions by speaking out against their attackers, and warning potential victims.

[PatrickC]

Of course this is really dangerous to women because if we excuse them from any responsibility for bad decisions, in the long run it will not go well for them.

 

Well said Rose. This is the most worrying aspect of women never self criticising their behaviour or actions.  As it allows them to fall prey to all the predators out there.

[cab21]

if saying  "sober people are at less risk for injury than inebriated people" is blaming the victim, then i see nothing wrong with blaming the victim from a logical standpoint.

 

interesting reading the comments from the article. i think the police are trying to protect people from common cases of sexual assult that happens in collage situations, not protect women from some seal team 6 gang rape home invasion, but commenters comment how women that don't do the party scene still get raped sometimes.

[hannahbanana]

I think it's interesting to explore the consequences of trying to avoid "victim-shaming." For example, if a girl got raped while she was black-out drunk at a party, what do you say if the advice 'You probably shouldn't get black-out drunk' is viewed as victim-shaming? If feminists are so picky as stated in the article, probably something like "There's nothing you could've done. I'm so sorry."

To me, that's a horrible thing, because that means she could be doing literally ANYTHING and still think she has the same chances of getting raped as she has if she's black-out drunk. This makes her feel completely helpless, which is worse, IMO.

[Ken Cotton]

In a perfect world chicks can walk around drunk and naked and no one cares.

 

In the real world some victorian principles of chivalry developed with good reason. Aren't the sexual assault rates something insane like 90% of women in India? The real rape culture of the world is the absence of chivalric culture. It's profoundly disturbing to me that any society could possibly forget the value of women to the point where they let them fight in the street or walk around drunk by themselves. The sheer self-destructive nihilism of modern western society is mind boggling to me. We've got all the symptoms of a people ready to die off within a century and we just keep covering them with NFL/NHL/Bieber/Iggy tylenols.

 

"Don't worry about teaching women to defend themselves or to act sensibly, let's all just get blackout drunk and party and not be responsible for our actions."

 

Insanity.

[J. D. Stembal]

I think it's interesting to explore the consequences of trying to avoid "victim-shaming." For example, if a girl got raped while she was black-out drunk at a party, what do you say if the advice 'You probably shouldn't get black-out drunk' is viewed as victim-shaming? If feminists are so picky as stated in the article, probably something like "There's nothing you could've done. I'm so sorry."

To me, that's a horrible thing, because that means she could be doing literally ANYTHING and still think she has the same chances of getting raped as she has if she's black-out drunk. This makes her feel completely helpless, which is worse, IMO.

 

What feminists don't want to admit is that this is how men also find themselves being raped and maneuvered into sexual situations when they are in no shape to consent to sex. Being an alcoholic, I know from experience. Why is it acceptable to excuse drunken behavior for women, but not for men? The guy who passes out drunk on the sofa at a party gets subjected to all manners of abuse. Why can't men have the same set of automatic excuses under the umbrella of victim-shaming?

 

When you attempt to universalize the concepts of the ideology to apply to men, feminists will treat you with contempt. How dare you presume the sexes are equal!

[cab21]

what are some quotes from these feminists that don't have the same standards for men and for women?

 

i'm just wondering,a few articles i have read by women, ( i don't know if they call themselves feminist), have called for clear definitions on consent and defining rape as sex without expressed consent. that would apply in a way to both. to that standard, if two people were drunk, the person who initiated sex would be the one considered to have commited the sexual assult

[Mister Mister]

  Just came across this http://feministing.com/2011/12/18/5-rape-prevention-tips-for-guys/  --- #2 is "Don't Drink Too Much".  How can they say this shit with a straight face?  Men are supposed to be these highly discriminating legal geniuses calculating every decision amidst the sea of hormones, while women are supposedly infantile idiots with no agency at all

[shirgall]

Snark aside, how is giving men advice "Don't drink too much" to avoid false rape accusations not victim-blaming too?

[TheFreeMarketIsAnarchy]

I agree that the feminist narrative on victim blaming is ridiculous. How is the concept of victim blaming automatically a bad thing? Are victims never responsible for anything which led to them being victimised? Apparently so as long as you're a female victim. However as a man walking around dodgy parts of Scotland at night I will take a route through a safer area if it means a longer walk home - men get beaten up in the street all the time around here. Do I sit and moan about how I should have a path of daisies with no danger follow me around everywhere so I don't have to think at all before I act? Of course not. We all need to open our eyes, accept reality and act accordingly, which is rape culture according to feminists.... sigh. 

[AccuTron]

... if two people were drunk, the person who initiated sex would be the one considered to have commited the sexual assult

Caught my eye:  The initiator, we assume, is the male, period.  The female could be spilling cleavage all over the floor, making big eyes with hair falling a bit over them, slow motion writhing as she sits…and if the man responds, HE's the initiator.