No, I will not "Be Safe"
Trigger warning for rape, victim blaming, and sexual assault
This morning in my town, a woman was raped while walking from her home with her dog to another house.
This story just hit the news, and already my facebook feed is filling up with people posting the above article, accompanied with an announcement along the lines of "Be safe, ladies!" or "Be careful, everyone!"
With all due respect to my Missoula friends, that line of thinking you are espousing about staying safe is wrong on so many painful levels. I'm going to tell you why.
By admonishing other women in Missoula to stay safe, you are implying that there is some way for a woman to be safe from a rapist. That if she had only brought along weapon X, or knew self defence technique Z, or hadn't been dumb enough to go walking at Y time, or wear that outfit.... the list goes on.
There are numerous articles on the fallacy of "be safe" when it comes to rape and sexual assault. But for me, the most poignant proof lies not in statistics, but in personal experience:
I was sexually assaulted in the safety of my own home, while both my mother and her boyfriend were in the house, while wearing a pair of worn old jeans and an oversized black T-shirt. I knew how to handle a firearm, I was strong and agile from years of soccer and basketball, and I knew a few techniques from Kenpo and Judo. None of these helped me when faced with the terror, confusion, and shame of being sexually assaulted by a family friend (Which is, by the way, the most common form of rape, not a boogeyman in the bushes) in my own house.
Rapists are the ones who are responsible for committing rape. End of story.
This morning in my town, a woman was raped while walking from her home with her dog to another house.
This story just hit the news, and already my facebook feed is filling up with people posting the above article, accompanied with an announcement along the lines of "Be safe, ladies!" or "Be careful, everyone!"
With all due respect to my Missoula friends, that line of thinking you are espousing about staying safe is wrong on so many painful levels. I'm going to tell you why.
By admonishing other women in Missoula to stay safe, you are implying that there is some way for a woman to be safe from a rapist. That if she had only brought along weapon X, or knew self defence technique Z, or hadn't been dumb enough to go walking at Y time, or wear that outfit.... the list goes on.
There are numerous articles on the fallacy of "be safe" when it comes to rape and sexual assault. But for me, the most poignant proof lies not in statistics, but in personal experience:
I was sexually assaulted in the safety of my own home, while both my mother and her boyfriend were in the house, while wearing a pair of worn old jeans and an oversized black T-shirt. I knew how to handle a firearm, I was strong and agile from years of soccer and basketball, and I knew a few techniques from Kenpo and Judo. None of these helped me when faced with the terror, confusion, and shame of being sexually assaulted by a family friend (Which is, by the way, the most common form of rape, not a boogeyman in the bushes) in my own house.
Rapists are the ones who are responsible for committing rape. End of story.