Except they don't, which is my point. The pickpocket warnings do NOT "offer advice on how to mitigate the risk of being a victim" nor do they attempt to shame the victims in any way.
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Rape culture: British Style
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Except they don't, which is my point. The pickpocket warnings do NOT "offer advice on how to mitigate the risk of being a victim" nor do they attempt to shame the victims in any way.
AthenaAwakened
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that would be an excellent campaign and one that would make a noticeable difference in the sexual assault stats especially among high schoolers and college students
I noticed that their campaign also includes a poster regarding man on man sexual assault too: http://www.savedmonton.com/our-campaigns.html
Huh? "Be alert" is the advice. Being told to be alert is not shaming the potential victim.
Why is it shaming the potential victim to say 'being drunk makes you more vulnerable and therefore more likely to be targeted by a rapist'?
I simply don't understand the connection.
The NHS signs don't mention the rapist . . . at all.
Maybe the NHS hates men and believes we're rapists and just can't help ourselves so it's up to you women not to put us in positions that make it easier to get away with raping you.
Maybe the NHS hates men and believes we're rapists and just can't help ourselves so it's up to you women not to put us in positions that make it easier to get away with raping you.
The Paul
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If there aren't any girls getting drunk enough to make easy victims then the rapists will just drug relatively sober girls.
Granted, there's probably more likely to be a crime of opportunity regarding rape than there is burglary, but it's not like that kind of thing is rare. If the kind of guy who wants to have sex with someone who's too intoxicated to protest or defend themselves can't find someone that intoxicated he's pretty likely to make someone that intoxicated.
All the common sense defenses are good and wise things for an individual to undertake, but in the grand scope of things it's not going to do much to affect the rate at which crimes are being committed.
Exactly ksen.
Every pickpocket warning sign I could find in a quick Google search warned of the presence of the criminal - the pickpocket. Not one of them commented on the victim's behavior/condition as a contributory cause to the pickpocket's successful robbery.
If the NHS poster said "Warning! Rapists in the Area" then perhaps Metaphor and others would have a valid claim that the *warnings* are similar. The fact that several people seem to be claiming they can't tell the difference is really indicative of the "rape culture" problem, in my opinion.
I suspect that even if the posters had said 'Rapists target drunk women', there would have been the exact same amount of cries of victim-blaming. Or am I wrong?
What makes you think all rapists are the same? Do you think all murderers are the same? Some people kill as a 'crime of passion'. Some people are serial killers. A serial killer will find another victim. A crime of passion killer won't.
Since the statistic in the poster itself states that to be the case only 1 out of 3 times, yes it would still be victim blaming to focus on the 1 in 3 victims instead of the 3 in 3 rapists.
The pickpocket posters that we are supposed to believe an analogous don't say "Pickpockets target men in Hawaiian shirts" - they say "Warning: pickpockets in the area"
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The parallel is the idea of 'drunk' (as a physical state) versus the pickpocket geographical space.
As for focusing on the '3 in 3 rapists', how does that make any sense? Do you think rapists don't know they're rapists, and all they need is a sign reminding them not to rape? Rape is not shoplifting; a sign might cause a teenager to have second thoughts about stealing a pennywhistle or rouge (that's what teenagers buy these days, right?), but a rapist? It's like libertarians who believe their society would work if only criminals would stop being criminals.
What if (and I've never seen the research, it's a hypothetical) being asleep on public transport meant it was more likely your bag or wallet was stolen (which seems entirely plausible). Would you object to a sign that said 'Sleeping increases your chances of being a robbery victim. Stay alert while on public transport'?
Wrong, but the fact that you equate the two is a perfect example of the problem.
Your statements are the ones not making any sense. By your logic, the pickpocket signs are directed at the pickpockets
AthenaAwakened
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POINT OF ORDER PLEASE
Just how many scenarios do you plan on going through, all of which have the exact same set up, before you are finished? My nephew's roommate has his car tonight and I have to pick him up from work before, uh, 2017.
Toni
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I think that a lot of rapists don't see themselves as rapists. Rapists are bad: everybody knows that and most people don't think of themselves as 'bad.' I think that they seem themselves as: worst case scenario: opportunists who maybe took advantage of a girl who had too much to drink.
While most people recognize that under the law, that's rape, I think a lot of people don't see it that way if it is them or someone they love as the person 'taking advantage of a girl who drank too much.' Look at almost any rape case that makes national news and involves a drunk girl and sometimes drunk guys, often athletes and usually someone's got it on video but did nothing to stop the whole thing. Instead, there's a lot of victim blaming: she wanted it; if she didn't want it she wouldn't have been drunk; she wasn't that drunk (although she couldn't walk without help); she was a slut because she wasn't a virgin; she wanted to lose her virginity but being an uptight over religious bitch just needed to get really drunk first and do the entire football team and now feels all guilty about it, etc. ad nauseum.
It's really awful but the attitude exists and it doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's a major reason rapes are not reported; it's a major reason charges get dropped: it's a lot of pressure put on someone who has already been traumatized and who may have been too drunk to be able to give any real details.
It's not just the guy who drags the drunk girl off to a closet or bedroom or alley or whatever.
There's the guy who feels that if it's the third date and he paid for dinner, then she owes him.
Clearly there are other types of rapists: individuals in domestic relationships who use sex as a weapon to keep the bitch in line.
There's the kiddie rapists, some of whom insist the 3 year old came on to them. Or that kiddie love is natural and not harmful and should be legal. Or the 38 year old coach or teacher who insists their 12 or 13 year old lover is their lover and not their victim.
There are the armed robbers who decide that rape is part of the prize.
And there's the people who drag people off into the bushes or slip into houses in the middle of the night and attack whoever, including old ladies in their come fuck me flannel nightgowns.
Out of all of those categories, probably only the last two would see themselves as rapists. Most rapes/rapists fall in the 5 categories.
That's without touching the male on male rape or the female/male rape or the female/female rape, although those probably almost all fall into one of the categories above, except for those who wish to punish someone for their perceived sexual orientation.
I don't think that very many young women make it to high school without a warning about drinking and vulnerability. But like everyone else, people get lax, let their guard down, trust the wrong people, trust themselves to be able to handle situations that might arise.
It is really hard to give prudent warnings: don't drink too much and always open/pour your own drink and never let it out of your sight; don't dress with a skirt too short, pants too tight, heels too high, too many buttons undone. Use the buddy system. Know who you are with. Always keep a cell phone on you and charged (although it used to be: keep a dime--and later: quarter for the pay phone, if there's an emergency. Or for the Kotex machine.) --all prudent warnings--without making it seem as though if you fail to take any of these precautions, you deserve what happens. Or that if you take all of these precautions, you will be safe. It is really, really hard to do. Really hard to look your daughter in the face and say these things and know that nothing will keep her completely safe and that if something bad happens, she will likely be blamed by a lot of people, including herself. Trying to convince her that I would not blame her, that I saw the unfairness, that I agreed that she was strong and could fend for herself but even soldiers are raped sometimes.
I think there needs to be an entirely different set of conversations: About respect owed to all people; about how vulnerable and helpless someone who is too far under the influence is and so those who have clearer heads have a responsibility to use those clear heads and to try to keep the vulnerable person safe. Vulnerable also applies to people who are too young or who are developmentally disabled or otherwise very vulnerable to exploitation and harm That no means no.
That people who push other people around should be held accountable and stopped. That it isn't ok to 'take advantage of the situation' as in the video upthread with the guy openly admitting rape and not even realizing that what he did was criminal--but being proud, a bit of being a 'bad boy.' You know: a real man.
Underseer
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Any woman who has a little too much to drink, dresses in ways I don't approve of, or behaves in ways I don't approve of deserves to be raped because she is "asking for it." Anyone who says otherwise is persecuting men. [/conservolibertarian]
I can't be wrong about what I think I think.
Also, I did not 'equate' the two. Drawing an analogy does not mean you think the two things you are comparing are exactly like (hence 'equate'). In fact, if you are drawing an analogy, that means you don't think they are the same but they have similarities.
I don't 'equate' murder and robbery but murder, like robbery, can range in severity. Just because I point these out doesn't mean I have equated the two.
Also, what is 'the problem'?
Your statements are the ones not making any sense. By your logic, the pickpocket signs are directed at the pickpockets
No, the pickpocket signs are directed at potential pickpocket victims, just as the rape signs are directed at potential rape victims. You're the one who suggested the signs should focus on the '3 in 3 rapists'.
Each of the signs are a warning. They do not blame the victim. They both suggest behaviours that may reduce your victimhood potential (be aware, or don't get drunk). Whether you think these suggestions demand too much of potential victims is a different debate. But they do not blame the victim.
Do you know what blaming the victim is? If the sign said
If you get drunk, you deserve to be raped.
Did the signs say that?
I am trying to understand why asking potential victims to do something to reduce their victimhood potential in non-rape contexts is never blaming the victim (lock your doors at night, be alert for pickpockets, always have a hand on your handbag), but asking any potential victim to do something to reduce their victimhood potential in a rape context is always blaming the victim.
There appears to be a total disconnect that no-one has ever explained to me.
If I told my sister 'you shouldn't walk home from the gym late at night, you could get robbed', would anyone accuse me of blaming her? But if I said to her 'you shouldn't walk home from the gym late at night, you could get raped', I'm suddenly blaming her?
I'm not the one with cognitive dissonance here.
But can't you see? All of that is good advice. And yet, apparently, if you tell women how to make themselves safer, it's blaming the victim.
And yet - you told your daughters that, and that doesn't mean you would blame them if they didn't do them and got assaulted.
It is not blaming the victim to acknowledge brute facts and let people know how to make themselves safer.
Toni
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If only it made women safer. It doesn't, really.
If telling girls all of those things worked, virtually no one would be raped at or after a party.
Telling girls these things does help them be informed about what actions *might* help them be safer. But it also puts them on the hook for their own safety--if they get raped, they must have done something wrong. We all want to believe that we can do things to make ourselves safe--for ourselves but also because if you are responsible for your own safety, then it's your own fault if you get attacked. It must be because you:
Drank too much
Took their eyes away from their drink for a minute.
Trusted the wrong person
Used poor judgement
Chose the wrong outfit and attracted too much/the wrong kind of attention
Chose the wrong shoes and couldn't run fast enough
Chose the wrong route home
Parked in the wrong place in the parking lot
Went out with the wrong guy
Led the guy on
Made him mad
Acted too sexy so he lost control and couldn't help himself.
Was no longer a virgin so must be easy
WAs a virgin and needed to be taught what it was to be a woman
Too independent and needed to be taught a lesson
These are all things that I have heard applied to myself or have been told by my friends were applied to them.
In high school, a friend of mine from elementary school had a fairly sad life and usually spent the summers with her grandmother in another town. My friend was sweet but I am pretty sure she dressed in her grandmother's ill fitting castoffs which were purchased from a Goodwill and a decade or more out of date. None of us had any money but my friend honestly dressed like a frumpy 50 year old at 16, wore ill fitting thick glasses, didn't appear to own a comb or have easy access to shampoo or a toothbrush. She had an obvious chronic sinus infection. She did not date. I am not sure how she would have reacted if some guy had actually asked her out--or even talked to her, but it clearly was not going to happen.
One summer when my friend was staying with her grandmother, who was in her 80s at the time, someone broke in and raped her grandmother. No robbery, just the rape.
The police told my friend that the rapist was probably looking for my friend. So, you don't even have to be the actual rape victim to be blamed for the rape that happened to someone else.
It's a kind of magical thinking: If I do everything right, nothing bad will happen to me. If something bad happened to her, she must have done something wrong. Probably she deserved it. It probably wasn't even rape.