Objectifying women

[Edwardo Piet]

And do you not see the logical fallacy in telling someone how to reduce their risk when the evidence shows that wearing sexy clothing or being alone at night has no impact on rape? Where the statistics show the majority of rape is by people you know and trust, and even happens in the victim's home.

I never made such a claim. What I said is it's irrelevant to the victim blaming matter whether it's true or not that X precaution can actually be taken. It's only victim blaming if the victim is told they should take X precaution. It's only victim blaming if the victim is actually blamed.

When you've been a victim of rape, it's because he chose to rape you. His reasons are his own and they vary wildly. There is no way you can anticipate all the reasons a rapist would have and safeguard against them.

I quite agree. And I never made such a claim.

By clinging to the long refuted idea that a woman can reduce risk by wearing modest clothes and staying off the streets at night, you not only stifle woman's freedoms, but contribute to the long standing rape culture which victim blames and slut shames its victims.

See above. Refuted or unrefuted, it's irrelevant. Saying that 'X' is a precaution that could be taken, is not saying that X should be taken. That's going from facts to values, it's a non-sequitur.

By claiming that women have risks to reduce, you support the natural conclusion that when they are raped and have not complied with your mistaken advice, that they are responsible. That's how you are victim blaming.

If, someone, by sating what they think is true about whether a precaution can be taken (a factual matter) they are accidentally misconstrued into supporting the victim-blaming rape culture and therefore give some from of support to it by accident, they still aren't actually doing any victim blaming at all. And it's their right to talk about facts and not have them completely illogically misconstrued to being a matter of values. Talking about whether or not precautions can be taken is a matter of fact and not values.

If it's true that 'X' precaution can be taken but it somehow (for sake of argument) actually made it worse to acknowledge that fact, would you say that it's victim blaming to acknowledge precaution 'X'? It doesn't matter whether a precaution can be taken or not, that has no relevance to victim blaming unless women are actually being told to take them.

Are you not taking things on faith when you assume your advice reduces risk?

What advice? I've already accepted long ago on this thread that assuming there is no evidence for any precaution then there's no reason to believe in it, indeed. Assuming there is indeed no evidence that clothing makes any difference (that no one's found any) then yes I'm perfectly happy to disbelieve what I may have thought before.

But my point is that it is utterly irrelevant whether there's evidence for that precaution when it comes to victim blaming because that's a factual matter and not a value matter. Blaming, like rewarding, is a matter of values, not facts. Precautions can only turn to 'blame' when people are told they 'should' take them (as if it's their responsibility). If precautions are merely stated as true, whether true or untrue, it's got nothing to do with blaming. Has it?

EvF