Victim blaming - the logical conclusion

[the0lady]

 
Crossposted from my lovely new blog.

(Via Jezebel)

An upmarket hotel in the US is accusing a woman who was raped at gun point in its parking lot of having "failed to exercise due care for her own safety and the safety of her childrenThe rapist attacked the woman from behind while she was strapping her two small children into their car seats.

Comments

[zootalures]

Ok yes, hotel lawyers are evil, but...

> Women don't get themselves raped. Men rape them. Anything that says otherwise is victim blaming.

Hotels don't rape women either, so why is she suing the hotel for failing to prevent the rape in the first place?

[the0lady]

Because they could have prevented the rapist having access to their garage. They had ahd reports of him hangin around as well as of several sexual assaults in the are in the days preceding the rape.

That is the allegation; whether the court upholds it or not, though, surely the morally and legally correct response from the Marriott would have been "sorry, nothing to do with us, hotels don't rape women" rather than "you had it coming you stupid slut"?

[trunkbutt]

Because the U.S. is a suit-happy society? I won't argue that the victim should sue the hotel, but her bringing forth a perhaps inappropriate lawsuit doesn't change the fact that the hotel's response to that suit was horrid. They could have just as easily responded by apologizing, maybe settling for some small sum, and promising to up security in the future. Instead, they decided to imply that the crime is the victim's own fault AND questioned the victim's associates, who weren't in any way involved in the attack.

In my opinion, the two issues -- the victim's response and the hotel's response -- are entirely separate.

[the0lady]

I think there are questions there that could stand being examined, about how the hotel manages its own premises. I mean, if someone can be raped in the garage, why not groped by the pool? Harassed in the lobby? How safe are women in the other publically accessible areas of the hotel?

Plus of course she was only suing them for a small sum to begin with. They've bought themselves a shit storm of bad publicity for fifteen grand, lemme tell ya.

[caerleon]

Plus of course she was only suing them for a small sum to begin with. They've bought themselves a shit storm of bad publicity for fifteen grand, lemme tell ya.

Good.. fuck the Marriott's.. they don't even have smoking rooms any more..