The Unpopular Opinion on Blame vs Responsibility vs Realistic Situational Awareness

[much_ado]

The recent Slutwalk event is driving an increased public awareness of the idea of "not blaming the victim" when it comes to people subjected to unwelcome interactions scaling from undesirable interest all the way up to outright sexual attacks. I'm all in favour of wide-spread education about boundaries and the shared lexicon of what's effective and

Comments

[much_ado]

Two things, for the record: I did write, quite explicitly, "And every time you leave the house, you risk attracting their attention whether you're wearing 14 layers of snow-shovelling layers in January, or a miniskirt and skin-tight camisole over sexy stilhetto pumps at the bar." So I'm well that "dressing conservatively [is] useless as a rape-prevention precaution".

Also, the gist of my opinion is NOT "that women are responsible for preventing power-based attacks on themselves", but rather that they ARE responsible for acknowledging that those attacks are a risk, that the risks ARE possibly going to increase with a certain set of choices they they may or may not make, and that they ARE responsible for mitigating the foreseeable risks as much as they can with the resources they have available. I very explicitly wrote, "ACCEPTING THAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE *GOING TO REACT* IS DIFFERENT FROM BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR THOSE REACTIONS."

If you'd like me to clarify further what I did write, let me know :)

[carnemerethwen]

Well-argued, if a tad run-on... Thank you for sharing your opinion so cogently! I have to say I agree.

[carnemerethwen]

And by run-on I mean repetitive... but that's what it takes!

[ink_13]

I was at the SlutWalk, alone and of my own volition, and I endorse this message.

For me, SlutWalk was protesting not just an isolated incident, but a culture within the police force that thinks that kind of messaging is appropriate. When the shit hits the fan, I want the police to be there to back up the law-abiding, provide assistance to the victim, and catch the bad guy. When a woman reports sexual violence, I'm not cool with a response that boils down to "eh, shouldn't have dressed like that/let the guy in in the first place/etc, now go home and take a shower". So yes, let's oppose and fix that.

I'm considerably less on board with notions like we should refer to victims as survivors and abdicate large amounts of responsibility because, gosh darn it, can't we just demand men not rape instead?

[dairymilk]

+1

[much_ado]

the behaviours in question are *illegal*

Only some of the behaviours under protest are illegal, unfortunately. And yes, while it would be nice to expect changes in the behaviours of people who commit the illegal acts, the culture of fear is being driven, I expect, more by the vastly-outnumbering incidents that fly below the radar of legality, but well over many tolerances for personal safety and comfort.

Again, I explicitly state it would be great if we could expect that people *would* change their behaviours, illegal or not, but in truth, we live in a culture where that isn't happening, or certainly not happening quickly, so this post is all about the perils of trying to live in the not-yet-existing What-If World, and mitigating some very unpleasant and uncomfortable truths about what we *do* have to work with. In the end, I think *everybody* needs to change, but societally, we're not there yet, to a point when we can trust the dialogues to generate a consensus of what is right and what is not-right.

[northbard]

The slutwalk specifically is about changing the focus of the discussion away from putting the onus on women to avoid being raped and instead to focus more effort into trying to combat the culture and attitudes that support rape and rapists

[horsetraveller]

Since facebook has just erased what limited ability I had to see posts and links from the past, I can't reference the article I read recently

[dairymilk]

+1

[tormenta]

+2

[much_ado]

Making it women's problem that men have a reaction to them has no end.

I agree that making it the problem of ONLY one side OR the other has no end. I think it's a societal problem. As hel_ana wrote above, historically women have been told to change their behaviours (history as recent as a Toronto cop's campus talk). In retaliation, women are now telling men that they have to change *their* behaviours.

IMO, both and neither option is the right answer. The solution, or as best as we're going to get, lies in putting responsibility on ALL sides of the issue, not absolving both men AND women of their responsibility for their choices and actions and the implications of both.