Objectifying women

[Eilonnwy]

I know I got very emotional about a subject, but I have cooled down and just want to post a more objective explanation of victim blaming, since a lot of you don't seem to get it and my discussion earlier didn't really highlight this method of dealing with rape victims and its social impact.

What is Victim Blaming? It's when you hold the person who had a crime perpetrated against that responsible, or at least partially responsible for the crime. As Wikipedia says:

Victim blaming (or blaming the victim) is holding the victims of a crime, an accident, or any type of abusive maltreatment to be entirely or partially responsible for the unfortunate incident that has occurred in their life. Historically victim-blaming is the trait most often exhibited by the criminally insane and has traditionally emerged in racist and sexist forms.[1] It is also about blaming individuals for their personal distress or for social difficulties, rather than the other parties involved or the overarching social system in place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming

It's interesting to get behind why people blame victims to understand why it is wrong and should not be done to rape victims. There are two theories that feed into victim blaming is the Just World Theory and Assumptive World Theory.

The just-world phenomenon, also called the just-world theory, just-world fallacy, just-world effect, or just-world hypothesis, refers to the tendency for people to want to believe that the world is just so strongly that when they witness an otherwise inexplicable injustice they will rationalize it by searching for things that the victim might have done to deserve it. This deflects their anxiety, and lets them continue to believe the world is a just place, but often at the expense of blaming victims for things that were not, objectively, their fault.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_phenomenon

Essentially, it's the idea common belief that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people, so a rape victim must have done something to get raped. This also feeds into the idea that people can do "common sense" things to avoid bad things happen to them. They can lock their doors, dress appropriately, etc... to avoid having crimes perpetrated against them. This feeds into the Assumptive World Theory.

Rape victims are a glaring reminder of our own vulnerability. No one likes to think they could lose control over their own body or life. By deciding a rape victim did something concrete to deserve the assault the observer creates a false sense of safety. If they can avoid doing that particular thing or action then they create the illusion of invulnerability for themselves. Creating a firm boundary between ourselves and accussers or rape victims (us v/s them) also creates the illusion of invulnerability.

http://www.ibiblio.org/rcip/invuln.html

Essentially, the idea that me walking outside late at night, maybe with some sexy looking outfit makes me more likely to get raped is fallacious. In fact, it is completely contradictory with facts about rape.

Contrary to widespread belief, rape outdoors is rare. Over two thirds of all rapes occur in someone's home. 30.9% occur in the perpetrators' homes, 26.6% in the victims' homes and 10.1% in homes shared by the victim and perpetrator. 7.2% occur at parties, 7.2% in vehicles, 3.6% outdoors and 2.2% in bars.[29]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statis...ted_States

However, even if this was the case, a if that did happen to a woman, it's still not her fault. The blame lies 100% with the person who decided to rape the woman. Rape is a crime, and nothing a woman does justifies what has been done to her.

I can "do the right" things and I still have just as much chance as being raped as the next person. I'm more likely to be raped by someone I know, in my own home. Shall I live in a bubble because of that risk? Blaming rape victims for walking around alone as night is akin to the over-hyped stranger danger, when the truth is more children are kidnapped and murdered by people they know.

Victim Blaming is a common occurrence in the media at large. I referenced Bill O'Reilly before, because he did exactly that.. There was also another instance where a rapist told his victims, "You should have locked the doors". The media was outraged, but where is the outrage when the media does just exactly that?

When a rapist blames his victims, we’re appalled. When we do it, we’re just being “realistic,” “concerned,” “protective,” “responsible.” Why are we outraged when rapists blame their victims, but not when we blame them? Because while it’s unseemly to blatantly support the sorry excuses of a convicted rapist, we’re still invested in supporting a culture of victim-blaming that shifts the responsibility of eliminating rape away from society as a whole, and onto individual victims. When Katsnelson tells his victims to “lock their doors,” he’s shifting the responsibility for the rape off of the rapist. When the G.W. community tells victims to do the same thing, it similarly excuses the campus of taking any meaningful action against sexual assault.

But when rapists start using the same victim-blaming arguments we do, it makes it a lot harder for us to keep up the narrative of blame without being identified as rape apologists. One solution to this problem is to tell those rapists to shut up, because it’s making us look bad. So we call out a rapist for revealing himself to be—gee, who would have thought!—a rape apologist, and we draw a line in the sand that helps to protect our own right to victim-blame. We use the same tactic to excuse our own casual homophobia and racism. Our homophobic slurs and racist jokes are just “ironic” and “anti-PC” and “social commentary,” but when a gay basher or a white supremacist uses the same words, well, that’s just socially unacceptable. The reason we are allowed to use these words, we tell ourselves, is because we are not truly homophobes, or racists, or rape apologists.

In other words, the only people who are allowed to blame rape victims are people who don’t really, truly believe in their heart of hearts that the victim is at fault. This clever little set-up helps keep victim-blaming alive while preventing any victim-blamer from actually being identified as a bad person. It’s also inspired the use of the very popular construction, “I’m not blaming the victim, but [enter victim-blaming sentiment here].”

So you may think it's logical to assume that a woman walking around late at night is partly to blame. It's safe to think that, it means people have some modicum of control over what bad things happen to him, but the fact is that anyone can get raped for any reason. If a woman has a miniskirt, that does not make them partly to blame. The person who raped them is ALWAYS 100% to blame for the act that THEY perpetrated against someone else.

If you still think a victim is partially to blame for their rape depending on "whatever late at night, sexy clothes scenario" you can think of, remember that the majority of rape cases are not reported. Remember that this type of victim blaming is actually used to defend rapists.

The most common type of victim blaming is so pervasive, it has it's own slang name: "nuts and sluts." This term refers to the common practice of discrediting the complainant by labeling them as either psychologically disturbed and lying about the harassment, or they are overly-sexual --promiscuous,
dress sexually, etc.--and deserve the harassment. (This is also a common method for discrediting rape
victims, and is a favored courtroom method of lawyers to discredit victims or minimize the effects of the
harassment--see Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines and North Country for a good case example of the "nuts and
sluts" defense.)

http://www.sexualharassmentsupport.org/Backlash.html

And lastly, if someone you knew and loved dearly, a mother, sister, friend, girlfriend was raped, would really tell them as they deal with the guilt and trauma..."Maybe you shouldn't have worn that skirt?" Think about that.

Maybe you think I'm too emotional about this, but when a society promotes the idea that a woman is to blame for their rape, it deeply offends me. If you still think that it's okay to hold a woman at fault for their rape under certain circumstances, then we have nothing more to say. You are victim blaming, plain and simple.