"Princeton Mom" is at it again!

Re: "Princeton Mom" is at it again!

• HaileyDancingbear member

  

  March 2014

  @phira I never consider the woman responsible for the assualt.  It is always the perpetrator's fault 100%, and they are entirely shit.  Ideally we would all teach men not to rape, but our world isn't exactly ideal- this article can be exhibit A.  We need to react to that and watch out for ourselves, not because it's our fault if we don't, but because nobody else will watch out for us. 
  

  

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• phira member

  

  March 2014

  @HaileyDancingbear But what does "watch out for ourselves?" entail? No drinking at parties? Not walking alone at night? Not going on dates with people we meet online? And again, when we frame this as a way to reduce our chances of being assaulted, we're basically implying that we have any control over whether or not we're assaulted.

  

  now with ~* INCREASED SASSINESS *~
  
  

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• Maggie0829 member

  

  March 2014

  I agree with @HaileyDancingbear.  Assault on a woman is 100% the perpetrator's fault, but a women shouldn't go out completely blind or naive.  You lock your doors at night and when you go out right? Why do you do that?  To try and protect yourself from robbers correct?  So what is so different about a woman watching out for herself when she goes out with friends or alone?  There really isn't any difference.  People need to be aware of their surroundings, regardless of gender.  You shouldn't just go out willy nilly and think that nothing bad will ever happen to you.  Being aware and being in control of yourself is just a preventative measure, just like locking your doors and having an alarm system in your home.

  
  

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• pumpkinsandturkeys member

  

  March 2014

  phira said:

  Trigger warnings all up in this post because I'm in sexual violence prevention mode--

  
  

  @HaileyDancingbear I've worked in sexual violence prevention, and I can tell you that telling women to look out for themselves and try to keep themselves safe is entirely uneffective at preventing sexual violence. Like, completely, entirely, utterly uneffective.

  
  

  Not only that, but there's a subtle, if entirely unintentional message that gets sent to perpetrators when we make comments about how women should try to avoid assault. When we say, "Well, use common sense, don't get smashed at a party," what rapists hear is, "If a woman gets smashed at a party, I will consider her partially responsible for her assault." This, in turn, means that perpetrators are more likely to target women who are smashed at parties because those women are now safer to target. When we say, "Well, look what she was wearing," they hear, "I will care less if you assault a woman wearing a particular outfit." When we say, "She led him on," they hear, "I will care less if you assault a woman you have a sexual history with." Etc etc.

  
  

  Are people actually saying, "Here are the instances where I'll care less if you rape someone?" Of course not. But if we don't hold perpetrators 100% responsible for their actions, if we give any justification for their actions by indicating that their victim wasn't doing everything in her (or his) power to prevent an assault, we're basically saying that perpetrators are NOT 100% responsible.

  10000000% THIS. This this this thisthisthisthis.

  
  

  I have also worked in positions which involved educating men and women on dating violence and various forms of sexual assault and harrassment. I could not agree more with the above statement. This has been my "cause of choice" since I was old enough to take a stand for something; and now, as someone who is a survivor of sexual assault and who knows many others, the above rings even more true.

  
  

  We can caution and chastise women (and male targets, too) until the cows come home. It doesn't work. It's not effective. You can never be 'safe enough.'

  
  

  It's also unfair. It puts the onus on the woman to protect herself rather than placing equal responsibility on the offender to make better decisions and examine the consequences of their potential actions. Go ahead and change your clothes, refrain from speaking to people you don't know, stay indoors after dark, never go unescorted, and re-think consuming any alcohol -- that's not going to change anything. That's the approach that we've tried to take for the last 60 years, and nothing has improved as a result.

  
  

  What works is education for everyone. Speaking up about the after-effects of assault. Publicly convicting offenders and making it known that there are consequences. Ensuring that appropriate resources are readily available for survivors. Changing the mindset of our youth so that both young men and women take sexual assault and violence personally and are dedicated to protecting each other rather than harming each other. Insisting on equality works.

  
  

  
  

  
  

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• HisGirlFriday13 member

  

  March 2014

  pumpkinsandturkeys said:

  phira said:

  Trigger warnings all up in this post because I'm in sexual violence prevention mode--

  
  

  @HaileyDancingbear I've worked in sexual violence prevention, and I can tell you that telling women to look out for themselves and try to keep themselves safe is entirely uneffective at preventing sexual violence. Like, completely, entirely, utterly uneffective.

  
  

  Not only that, but there's a subtle, if entirely unintentional message that gets sent to perpetrators when we make comments about how women should try to avoid assault. When we say, "Well, use common sense, don't get smashed at a party," what rapists hear is, "If a woman gets smashed at a party, I will consider her partially responsible for her assault." This, in turn, means that perpetrators are more likely to target women who are smashed at parties because those women are now safer to target. When we say, "Well, look what she was wearing," they hear, "I will care less if you assault a woman wearing a particular outfit." When we say, "She led him on," they hear, "I will care less if you assault a woman you have a sexual history with." Etc etc.

  
  

  Are people actually saying, "Here are the instances where I'll care less if you rape someone?" Of course not. But if we don't hold perpetrators 100% responsible for their actions, if we give any justification for their actions by indicating that their victim wasn't doing everything in her (or his) power to prevent an assault, we're basically saying that perpetrators are NOT 100% responsible.

  10000000% THIS. This this this thisthisthisthis.

  
  

  I have also worked in positions which involved educating men and women on dating violence and various forms of sexual assault and harrassment. I could not agree more with the above statement. This has been my "cause of choice" since I was old enough to take a stand for something; and now, as someone who is a survivor of sexual assault and who knows many others, the above rings even more true.

  
  

  We can caution and chastise women (and male targets, too) until the cows come home. It doesn't work. It's not effective. You can never be 'safe enough.'

  
  

  It's also unfair. It puts the onus on the woman to protect herself rather than placing equal responsibility on the offender to make better decisions and examine the consequences of their potential actions. Go ahead and change your clothes, refrain from speaking to people you don't know, stay indoors after dark, never go unescorted, and re-think consuming any alcohol -- that's not going to change anything. That's the approach that we've tried to take for the last 60 years, and nothing has improved as a result.

  
  

  What works is education for everyone. Speaking up about the after-effects of assault. Publicly convicting offenders and making it known that there are consequences. Ensuring that appropriate resources are readily available for survivors. Changing the mindset of our youth so that both young men and women take sexual assault and violence personally and are dedicated to protecting each other rather than harming each other. Insisting on equality works.

  ALL OF THIS. Ten million billion bazillion times this. This to infinity. 

  
  

  We can, and should, educate people about safety, but it's not going to be 100% effective.

  
  

  @phira and @pumpkinsandturkeys are correct -- when we say women shouldn't dress a certain way or should drink a certain thing or shouldn't whatever, we are subtly shifting some of the blame to them, and that's wrong.

  
  

  At my old job, in news, we were pitched a story idea about a woman, a stripper, who had been assaulted and left for dead. She was in hospital with outrageous medical bills and her family wanted to raise money for her. We didn't do the story, because she was a stripper and she was out late at night and she had been using drugs and etc. etc. etc. -- essentially, my (male) boss said it was 'her fault.'

  
  

  About a week before I left, we were pitched a story about a middle-class white boy who drank too much at a college party, started to walk home, got jumped, and ended up in hospital with brain damage. That story my boss was all over. 

  
  

  I. Raised. Hell. I pointed out that he was a hypocrite and a misogynist and apparently middle-class white boys are sympathetic and worthy of help but black hookers aren't, so we were going to appear racist, too. NO ONE blamed him for drinking too much (and there were drugs in his system) and getting into trouble.

  
  What's the difference, other than their gender, race, and socio-economic background? Why is it OK to feel sympathy for the dumb-ass frat boy, but not for the stripper?

  
  

  We need to hold perpetrators accountable, 100%, and we need to take off our blinders that 'being safe' works. Because it doesn't. It just fucking doesn't.

  
  

  Also, the 'teach women to be safe' thing creates a false sense of safety and then also a false sense of blame -- like, 'Well, we taught her to be safe and we told her to be safe and watch her back and not drink too much, and she still got assaulted, so clearly she didn't follow directions, so it's still somewhat her fault, because she wasn't being safe.'

  
  

  The longer we allow ANY kind of victim-shaming the longer we prevent real change from being effected.

  

  
  

  
  

  I'm gonna go with 'not my circus, not my monkeys.'

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• pumpkinsandturkeys member

  

  March 2014

  Thank you, @HisGirlFriday13

  
  

  Anyone who feels that women should better protect themselves to prevent assault should spend 40 hours volunteering at a local women's shelter or with some sort of crisis prevention organization that specialises in sexual violence/assault. This is not meant to be antagonistic or as a challenge -- I truly believe that spending the equivalent of just one work week will change your perspective, 100%. Once you hear those stories, see the aftermath, and take a good look at the statistics and all of the programs in place, you'll understand why pushing personal protection and caution isn't the solution.

  
  

  
  

  
  

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• phira member

  

  March 2014

  @hisgirlfriday13 Exactly. The thing is, when a dude gets his wallet stolen, we don't say, "Well, but you were walking alone at night." When my brother's house was broken into, and his TV was stolen, the police went looking for the person who stole his TV, and didn't write it off as, "Well, next time, put bars on your windows," and decline to look into the case.

  
  

  @pumpkinsandturkeys I'm a survivor, too, and it boggles people's minds when I tell them that my assault occurred in public. Most of the survivors I know were assaulted in safe spaces, often by people they knew and trusted. I'm only aware of one survivor who was assaulted by a stranger, and her assault still happened in a space we'd consider safe (a women's bathroom). 

  

  now with ~* INCREASED SASSINESS *~
  
  

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• NYCBruin member

  

  March 2014

  I agree with everything PPs have said about the problem of telling women to "be smart/safe/whatever" and just want to add that the other part of this mindset is that it perpetuates backwards ideas about what rape is and is not and makes women less likely to report rape for fear of either no one believing her or people blaming her.
  

  
  

  Don't worry guys, I have the Wedding Police AND the Whambulance on speed dial!

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