in the minority of the decent
After McLaughlin Group this morning was a show running a story about U.S. soldiers in the military raping other U.S. soldiers. After some initial statistics that were woefully unsurprising and some first-hand accounts, came a particular story of a soldier assaulted by a man she had probably called a friend. After all, they played sports together
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I actually haven't spoken to the girl or told her anything. I simply said that I believe that a certain amount of care needs to be taken. If one of my male friends does something unsafe and suffers for it (base jumping), or is victimized (walking through a sketchy area at night) I will certainly feel bad for him. But I'll lose a good chunk of sympathy due to the fact that maybe not enough care was taken.
If I'm not a reasonable person to deem what's "appropriately careful" then who are you? If she decided to go on a date with a man who had been convicted of rape before, would you say that she was making a wise decision? Should EVERYONE be trusted? In happy fun rainbow lollipop world, sure! But in this one? Maybe not.
I also didn't assert that her part in the crime was greater than his. Again, more words in my mouth. Did I have to mention the rapist? No! You already had. It goes without saying that it's a terrible thing and that it shouldn't exist.
It was on his personal observation. But again. He is saying that I shouldn't go there, not that they should all somehow be subdued, as you suggest.
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It's silencing an unacceptably harmful opinion. It's suppressing an infectious disease. You are speaking to everyone who ever hears or reads your words, wherever spoken or written. Some of those people may have been victims, and some may become victims in the future, and some may interact with victims, or interact with someone who will interact with a victim. However many carriers it passes through, the virus eventually reaches a victim, and there it causes nothing but hurt. Months later, years later, decades later, they're still hearing, "It's your fault." So they blame themselves. They hate themselves. Some, doubtlessly, even kill themselves.
But there are the few who supposedly avoid being victims by taking this hateful "should have known better" rhetoric to heart in time to restrict themselves from going to certain places, interacting with certain people, doing certain things, etc., etc., before it gets them in trouble. Meanwhile, they must watch as their male friends do all these same things with complete impunity. And they may be able to recall the times when they fearlessly - unaware of the danger - did these things themselves, and how much fun it had been. And they may miss it; their happiness suffering from the boundaries they've had to place on themselves. All because modern western society - in spite of its proclaimed love for liberty and equality - isn't interested in making these things safe for more than one half of the species. No women are "saved" by victim-blaming rhetoric; they are only controlled. Somewhere out there is at least one girl with misty-eyed dreams of becoming a soldier - a defender of her people - who saw this TV program and tearfully, perhaps after days of miserable inner-conflict, chose to abandon her dreams and persue something else instead. Or maybe she just had a friend at a nearby army base who told her from personal experience that it wasn't safe for a woman to be among her own country's sanctioned defenders. Neither scenario is a triumph of informed decision making. They are only a despicable tragedy; the noble dreams of a completely faultless person shattered by nothing more than her society's callous indifference.
And your words affect men, as well. You, and the choir you're part of, are saying that just because they are men you expect all of them to be capable of committing rape. This sentiment fits seemlessly into - and even echoes portions of - the continuum of impulsive, sub-human, "caveman" behavior expected of men as part of the male ideal - what "a man" supposedly is and, somehow, should be; strengths and weaknesses both. How many men think it is entirely natural and, moreover, reasonable for them, as men, to have an increasingly hard time "controlling themselves" exponentially proportional to the amount of temptation - deliberate or otherwise - supposedly presented to them by a woman (or women)? And believe, with complete sincerity, that this should at least partially excuse them for any harmful actions they take while under the "influence" of a woman's body (distinctly not the woman herself)? And then how many men do away with the self-deception entirely and openly embrace a predatory vision of man, seeing women as "conquests" and having no concern for their well-being, in fact believing - subconsciously or otherwise - that it is the nature of man, and sex, to always do women harm, and even part of the appeal: getting women to do what they don't want.
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Victim-blaming helps perpetuate rape. It is a virus that persists in spite of reason, clung to by one chowderhead after another even as their last argument has been expended, and no amount of argumentative courtesy requires I allow it to infect my journal. Just as I am not required to entertain the opinions of Holocaust deniers, or racial supremacists, or the Westboro Baptist Church on my journal. Under a magnifying glass victim-blaming may not be equally as vile as these other things (or them to each other), but they are all still more than vile enough. It is only due to my faith that you, specifically, are not a chowderhead that I bother with it now.
If I'm not a reasonable person to deem what's "appropriately careful" then who are you?
Someone who realizes "appropriately careful" is not a valid input into the function to determine due sympathy for a victim. Someone who realizes the difference between the instinctual understanding that someone who's crossed a certain moral line in the past is much more likely to do it again in the future, and the learned acquiescence to fear all male humans as potential rapists.
Doubtlessly, there are many situations where a woman might not have been victimized if she'd only known to be more careful. Doubtlessly, there are many situations where the same would be true if she only had an extra 20lbs. of muscle mass and always carried a machete with her wherever she went. Doubtlessly, there are many situations where the same would be true if she habitually wore a second pair of underwear on her head, making most guys want to "stay away from the freak". But how the hell would she know to wear underwear on her head? How the hell would the nearly-raped soldier know her football buddy was capable of committing rape? How the hell would she know this regardless of where she grew up, how she was raised, by whom, and what life experiences she has or hasn't had? The banter, was that it? Do all women have an instinctual fear of banter that she clearly just chose to ignore?
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And then it really would be only the true criminals, the depraved ones, the parasites with no pretensions of being part of civilized society, knowing they live and survive by the exploitation of others and that if there's a Hell, they belong there; only they will commit rape. With the average Dick, Jim, and Bob on the street - and Dave and Joe and Izanagi at the military base - a woman need feel no fear.
Of course, such a symphony of accountability does not come about overnight, but even in its absence single voices can make a difference. They probably won't budge any offenders, but they certainly may motivate others in hearing to add their voice to yours someday. It is hard to be a single voice, though, and certainly not something that should be required of a person. Not fighting against the cause, however, is the least someone can do.
Oh, and to address something you said earlier: I don't feel at all uncomfortable belonging to a gender that is "so ready to rape". The fact that I and the majority of rapists both happen to play a male role in human reproduction is of no significance to me at all whatsoever. What makes me uncomfortable is belonging to a society so ready to dismiss rape and the disturbing readiness with which it is committed, and so unwilling - in direct contradiction of its own espoused values - to consider doing anything more about it.
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Money should rain out of the sky, but that doesn't mean it's reasonable to behave as if it does. I also think it's pretty unreasonable that you - male, and unable to actually understand what it's really like to be female - are telling me how I should be feeling about women's issues. How many times have you felt you're at risk? Because I can tell you that even most dumb, niave, and trusting as hell women have still felt scared or nervous about the prospect at least once.
Don't begrudge me for having a concern for my own safety.
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Your money example isn't such a good one, actually, since a vital part of the whole system of currency is that it require more effort to obtain than placing a bucket outside whenever the weather reports indicate a high chance of financial gain. But ignoring that... If somehow money raining from the sky could be predicted with absolute certainty to be a good thing, then yeah, it should happen; impossible though it may be. The bigger if, though: if it also weren't impossible, and there was something (non-harmful) we could do to make money rain from the sky, then we should do it. Absolutely. Without question.
It is not impossible to make rape something women no longer need fear from the same people they do trust not to rob them, or vandalize them, or kidnap their dog, or commit any other lesser crime against them. There are things we can do (and not do) to make this happen. And if we also believe it should happen, then we should do these things. Absolutely. Without question.
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