Not the rape meme

[lederhosen]

I've seen a few people posting the "don't rape her" meme and I've left it alone because, while I agree with most of the sentiments, there are just a couple of wrong notes. laochbran had a good post about the problems with it, which I won't repeat here. I'm just going to pick on these lines:

don't tell your women friends how to be safe and avoid rape.
don't imply that she could have avoided it if she'd only done/not done x.
don't imply that it's in any way her fault.
don't perpetuate a culture that tells you that you have no control over or responsibility for your actions.

I can understand why these lines appeal. The "she was asking for it" defence is as ancient as it is despicable, and the idea that a rapist's crime is in any way diminished by his victim's having taken risks needs to be stamped on, hard.

But "if you do this, you're less likely to become a victim of crime" is NOT the same statement as "if you don't do this, and you become a victim of crime, it's your fault". I agree that rape-avoidance tactics are not the primary answer to the problem, and should never be allowed to give the impression that women who don't follow them are legitimate targets; I don't agree with the implication that for those reasons, we shouldn't teach them.

Everybody has the right not to be raped, regardless of whether they're sitting in a high-security house with a shotgun under the pillow or blind drunk among strangers at a party. But in our less-than-ideal world, some things are riskier than others, and along with the right not to be raped, women have a right to know and understand the risks, so they can decide for themselves what chances they're willing to take.

Comments

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree.

It would not be helpful to mention, let alone dwell upon, failure to understand or follow risk-avoiding behaviour with a newly-raped person, but I for one don't thing we survivors can feel empowered unless we know there are ways to reduce the chances of a re-occurence.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

It would not be helpful to mention, let alone dwell upon, failure to understand or follow risk-avoiding behaviour with a newly-raped person

Yes. I meant to acknowledge that in the post and it fell out somewhere along the way while I was writing, so thanks for reminding me :-)

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

I can't think you'd actually do that, but yuz welcome :-)

[cornute.livejournal.com]

I think what you're pointing out here is the very difference between "victim" and "survivor" itself.

Rape victims (those in the immediate stages during and after a rape) do not, indeed, need to hear anything that they will internalize as "you deserved what happened" any more than the victim of a bicycle accident needs to be rolled around in the dirt at the crash site while their wounds are still open.

Yet, once things have healed over some, part of taking back the idea of one's self as an independent being can be looking over the events before and during the assault, and identifying the good and bad choices made and decide what to do if it ever happens again.

Not everyone who has ever been raped is still a victim. Some of us have lived beyond it, after all.

Corr

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

I think you may be right.